Is your personal trainer a coach or an enforcer?
There are many personal trainers out there that are great at what they do but are they coaching you or just making sure exercise is enforced. You want to find someone that can do both in the best way for you. Therefore, your coach has to be able to read you and be able to think on his/her feet at any given time when change occurs during the session.
What is a coach?
A coach is someone who listens first, thinks about you and the situation you have descried to him/her and then delivers a coaching session in which you are going to achieve your goals. This will give you the edge over anything you do whist exercising or training for an event. This sort of structure will make sure you are free from injury, achieving your goals in a safe and stable environment and most of all learning as an individual. If your personal trainer isn’t teaching you then you won’t understand why you are achieving your goals.
What is an enforcer?
Well when you’re going through training to become a personal trainer they don’t teach you how to coach or how to develop someone. The tools they give you are the structure behind the session and how to enforce that during a session. This can be taught to anyone who wants to be a personal trainer. However, what sets you apart is your ability to coach almost anyone. Coaching is something they don’t teach you at school. It is developed through life skills and situations that you find yourself in. You’re looking for a coach not an enforcer.
How to be a coach?
-listen
Your personal trainer has to be a good listener to be able to be a great coach. Without the ability to listen to your client you will lack the ability to truly understand them. Once you understand what they are looking for you can put a plan of action together. This will make sure they are on track and you can talk them through any hard parts about training.
-read the room and your client
Your personal trainer will get a good sense of who you are by what you are doing with your body language and facial expressions. This is something that we all learn as humans. However, as a coach or personal trainer it is a great tool to master to help you see what your client is trying to say before saying it with words.
-develop the ability of understanding to see what your client is going through
Once rapport has been established between you and your coach. You will be able to tell them a lot of personal things that are going on in your own life. Life in general can have a big impact on training and what you do in a session. The better your coach understands you the better they can develop your training routine.
-empathy and connection
As a trainer or coach you might find yourself in front of a new client that will be going through something that you personally haven’t gone through yourself. For you to connect on a level where your client feels safe and heard to share what they want to achieve. You have to show empathy and understanding. This way you will get to the root cause and what they are trying to tell you. Some instances are easy and some are very hard to share. Hold space for them to talk and you will see them flourish with there goals.
-be a human
We are all human and we go through all sorts every day. We don’t all get the same education or understand how our body work. You can’t just assume everyone knows everything you do as a coach. So teach them the ways that you know in a great way so they can take that knowledge and apply it. If something doesn’t work straight away when coaching find a way that it can be improved upon in a different way.
Last words:
Use the information above to find yourself a coach that cares about the goals you achieve. There are many people that will take your money in the personal training industry. You want to find someone that will listen to you but also tell you the hard truths. Take on a personal trainer who will coach you through the tough decisions about health and wellbeing. Therefore, it is important to make sure they are the one that you can work well with.