Filed under: Exercise Programming, For Trainers, Networking, Special Populations
It’s common knowledge among trainers and fitness club owners that most clients join a gym and sign up for training to lose weight. But clients with common goals often have unique medical needs we have to consider when designing an appropriate exercise program. One of these medical needs include a wide range of chronic, debilitating pain conditions like arthritis, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, and persistent back pain/sciatica.
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
