In a recent issue of “Personal Fitness Professional,” Kaiser Serajuddin of GoHard Fitness defends planning training sessions as a great way to set yourself apart as a trainer. Having a program designed ahead of time along with in-session note-taking, he adds, may be time-consuming, but will pay off with a little patience. When clients and referrals notice the thought, effort, and extra time you put into devising an exercise plan, they will be more likely to pay a premium price for your services. Having a plan and updating it regularly will help in delivering high quality service and make a good, professional impression.
The ideas of planning a training session ahead of time as opposed to delivering one off the cuff have supporters on each side. When I first started out as a trainer, working for a large commercial club, we had to write summaries of training sessions with clients, but there was no obligation to write down a detailed program for each session. Computer access was limited when there were a dozen trainers sharing access to half as many computers, most of which were often exclusively used by membership sales reps. Planning sessions was often a personal objective completed off the clock.
Filed under: Exercise Tips, For Clients and Devoted Exercisers, Seasonal Exercise
It’s hard to keep your focus on exercise and healthy choices when you’re ready to kick back and enjoy the summer. Luckily enough, working out in the summer doesn’t have to be as burdensome as it was when you made those New Year’s Resolutions. In fact, summer may be the best and most convenient time of year to get some exercise relevant to your active lifestyle.
We work in a field where confidence in what you know is not just highly valued, but absolutely necessary to make a living and be a great trainer. With so many approaches and theories out there on training and exercise techniques, our clients need us to know our stuff and be able to communicate what we know with clarity and conviction. Sometimes this belief in ourselves can border on arrogance, and although there’s nothing wrong with being cocky about what you know and can do to help your clients reach their goals, there is no place for the narrow-mindedness than often accompanies a high and mighty attitude.
Because our industry is constantly evolving, continuously undergoing short-lived fads and more enduring revolutionary techniques, we need to stay open to what our fellow professionals can teach us. Working for a large gym, a “team” approach to training and winning clients over is the common operating attitude for a training department. Learning from other trainers through informal conversations and in-house educational meetings are ways most large fitness corporations encourage professional growth while promoting openness to new techniques
