How to Correct a Client’s Poor Exercise Form
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By Sal | December 19, 2008
During personal training sessions, you will spend more time talking to your clients about their exercise form than about any other subject. You should emphasize the positive aspects of performance in your comments and corrections when teaching new movements and in your general corrections or run the risk of discouraging and frustrating your clients. The more complex the movement the more you need to fight the urge to harp on the negative.
Problem: When performing a squat, beginners have a difficult time maintaining proper posture and getting to the proper depth at the bottom of the range of motion.
Solution: Help clients understand the easier elements of the exercise, before emphasizing the elements that they are likely to struggle with.
For instance, make sure clients are comfortable in the starting position - proper stance and posture - and have them get to a comfortable depth while keeping proper posture. This way you are building on the easier elements of the move as they work towards getting to the more difficult, which for the squat is getting to the proper bottom position while maintaining posture.
Problem: For almost any client performing an explosive movement like the snatch, you can find something “wrong” with their form. Problems with exercise form need to be resolved, especially if they may be injurious.
Solution: Focus on the proper triple extension at the ankle, hip and knee joints; praise clients when they get this part right. Mention slight breaks in form in between sets and exercises.
During difficult exercises, the dynamic flexibility moves from my program for instance, provide coaching points that stress the goals for performing these moves properly. You need to reinforce the need for clients to work to maintain posture and balance by giving them verbal cues to this end rather than point out every time they lose their balance and have to restart the move, or by saying something like, “That’s wrong.” By demonstrating the exercise - remember the commandment from my book that you have to incorporate these moves into your routine - and maintaining the positive tone of your corrections, you will do more to help your client improve.
This is not to say that there aren’t times when you can really come down on a client. Certainly, with an advanced client, or client who has shown the ability to perform certain moves with proper form, you can be tough. You know your clients best, and can make the determination when not to “spare the rod,” so to speak. There are days when a client will be off for whatever reason - mental, physical or both - and sometimes you can snap them out of their funk with a no-nonsense assessment of their performance, but these instances are surely the exception to the rule, especially when dealing with newer clients or clients with a low ability level.
You can catch more flies with positive reinforcement, or something like that.
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