Tips for Trainers?

hey Christian I have been a personal trainer for a year now and i am wanting to take my business to the next level , so my question to you is what are the three biggest mistakes you made early on with clients and the three biggest mistakes you see new trainers makeing

[quote]Holmana wrote:
hey Christian I have been a personal trainer for a year now and i am wanting to take my business to the next level , so my question to you is what are the three biggest mistakes you made early on with clients and the three biggest mistakes you see new trainers makeing[/quote]

What I consider to be my 3 biggest mistakes.

  1. Being too eager to have people lift big weights. I’m a strength guy. To me getting stronger should be the foundation of every program. But in the past I’ve had people go up in weight too fast, using weights that they could get but for which their body was not prepared which often led to bad form and sometimes injuries.

  2. Bypassing my own beliefs and training philosophies to get more clients (giving them what they wanted instead of what they needed or what I believed in). At first I would use a ton of intensity techniques and plenty of isolation work to get people a great pump and be sore just so that they would feel good about the program. Things that I never did in my own training and that I don’t really believe in, I did just to get more clients. Now I force myself to be true to my beliefs and not try to be somebody else. I’m good at what I know and do so that’s what I focus on.

  3. Not making time for my own training. At one point I took on so many clients that I barely had time to train, and when I finally had time I had zero motivation because it was between clients, being rushed and after a long day at the gym. It killed my passion for training and made me a worse coach for it. Passion is what differentiate an average personal training and a great coach. Never lose it. Furthermore, your body is your business card. So if your own training suffer you lose a lot of marketability.

Mistakes I often see:

  1. Writing programs to show how much you know instead of to get the client results. This is by far the most common mistake I see. Trainers will use a myriad of complex training methods in one program just to show that “they are special”. The goal is getting results, not designing something that looks cool. More strength and muscle has been built with the basics done right and planned properly than by “cool methods”. There is a place for advanced methods: when you hit a plateau that requires a specific solution, but a whole program should not be based around them.

  2. Being arrogant and belittling the big guys in the gym. I often see this too, and mostly with people who make mistake no.1 too! I personally have no ego. I don’t care if I learn something from an average Joe who just began training or from the world’s greatest authority: all I care about is learning new stuff about training. One of the things that piss me off is trainers who act like they know more than everybody in the gym. I’ll tell you, these guys are laughed at by the big/strong guys in the gym. And like it or not, deserved or not, the big strong guys in the gym have a lot of credibility among other members. And if they decide to make fun of a trainer, that trainer’s credibility will take a huge blow. Guys don’t get results by accident. If you gained a lot of strength and a lot of size then you are doing something right. You might not know exactly what or why it works but it does. And discrediting those who get results because they don’t know as much about training theory than you do is dumb.

  3. Talking like a science book. There is a time and place for the use of scientific lingo in training. And explaining a concept to a client or potential client is not such a time. I often see this. A trainer is in the gym and someone walks to him and asks him a specific question… the trainer might see this as a way to show off and start off on an explanation that would confuse your average Ph.D. Listen, the last thing someone asking you a simple question wants is to feel dumb. You might think it makes you look smart and that you will amaze him with your knowledge, but you will simply turn him off. Always use the simplest and shortest possible explanation possible. If the person wants to know more he will ask.

Bonus mistake(s):

  1. Killing people in the gym. The goal for a trainer is to get the client results. Getting stronger, more muscular or leaner. It’s not to cripple him, drain him of all his life substance or make him sore for 3 weeks. A lot of coaches know that people instinctively think that the more they suffer, the more they progress. And instead of correcting that misbelief they use it to gain a reputation that will earn them a lot of clients. Everybody can kill someone in the gym, that’s not hard. Getting them results is another story.

  2. Not having a decent physique. Listen, we aren’t all genetically designed to be Mr.Olympia, play in the NFL or bench press 700lbs. And oftentimes coaches become coaches because they developed a passion for training through having to train to be able to compete with people who were more genetically blessed. The best coaches are those who made a lot of progress but who had to struggle every step of the way to get there. So I do not expect a coach to look like a pro bodybuilder or be as strong as a top powerlifter. BUT being out of shape, not standing out somewhat in the gym is just wrong… there is no excuse for that. If you are an EXPERT IN TRAINING… someone who makes a living getting people in shape you should be able to get results with your first client: you.

Sweet responses!

More golden information from CT!

My respect and admiration CT.

Gold. This should be an article.

I am planing to write up something using CT and a 4 other coaches i asked
and that you Christian for your great feed back and honesty , very very helpful