Workout With Your Clients
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By Sal | January 7, 2009
Working out with clients can be a rewarding and special learning experience for both clients and personal trainers/strength coaches, and serves as a great change of pace to the usual routine. I've been doing it for 20 years and I highly recommend working out with clients on a regular basis.
Working out with clients breaks down the traditional personal trainer/client barrier and can be a great way to set up and solidify this relationship for the long term, for both parties. In my experience, clients are extremely grateful for this more personal, personal training experience and will work harder than usual in this setting. When clients see you, their trainer, perform exercises in a real workout - especially complex moves - they'll know you practice what you preach, and this does a great deal to establish your credibility.
This is also the case when training kids. There is no doubt that my effectiveness as a strength coach at the youth sports and high school levels is in large part due to the fact that I get into the high school weight rooms and, not only show the kids what to do, but workout with them. And when football season comes around, I am able to run the drills and sprints along with the kids that I coach, which serves to instruct, set an example and motivate the kids to work as hard as the 46-year old guy does.
Over the past 20 years I've learned quite a lot from, and about, my clients by working out with them. I've gained appreciation for, and personal insight into, individuals, while learning lessons that have helped me as a strength coach and personal trainer. You learn something new every day when you are a personal trainer and strength coach, and I always learn something new when I workout with a client.
Now of course you have to pace yourself and shouldn't train with all of your clients in a single day; your performance working out and as a trainer would suffer. And never work out with a client because you need to get a workout in. When you workout with a client you must make sure you keep the proper focus, they are still paying for the session and you're responsible for conducting the session in a professional manner.
Depending on your niche, you may be able to charge a higher fee for offering a value-added service by training with a client. For instance, my fee for speed and agility training sessions for adults is higher because I workout with the client for the hour. Conducting speed and agility sessions - especially with adults - in either a clinic or one-on-one setting requires more demonstrating than traditional personal training/strength training sessions, and this increased trainer workload can be reflected in your fee. By working out with your client in this setting, you are working harder and providing them with the highest level of your service.
Working out with your clients serves as a great change of pace to the usual routine for both trainers and clients, and is great for business as well.
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Topics: Personal Trainer Coaching, Training Philosophy, Training Style, Workouts | 2 Comments »
2 Responses to “Workout With Your Clients”
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10:22 pm on July 2nd, 2009
I use these ‘take turn’ shuttle runs in my bootcamps almost every session. I pair up the clients and have the resting client do a plank, or squats or ohead press etc while their partner does the run. Really raises the intensity. A few shuttles later, we take a quick rest, pair up with a different partner and repeat.
All my ‘I don’t do running’ ladies and men now ‘do running’ and do it well.
Jo
7:11 am on July 3rd, 2009
Jo
Great stuff…I also like to spread out these shuttle through the session, in 3 or 4 groups of 4, so by the end of the workout the client has done 12-16, 60-yard shuttles.