Introduction
The role of a personal trainer is often misunderstood as someone who is hired to manage gym programmes and counting reps. As a personal trainer, you are a mentor, a motivator and a guide to your clients’ fitness journey and path to becoming a better, fitter and healthier version of themselves.
In order to be successful as a personal trainer, you must build your coaching philosophy on a set of principles to ensure both short term and long term progress. This article will explore the key coaching principles that we at the PFCA promote as the foundations of effective personal training; namely, Movement Quality, Challenge and Functionality.
Movement Quality
Movement quality is the foundation of effective training for anyone, from someone just looking to get fitter, to elite athletes. We must look past the metrics of load moved and number of reps and focus on how clients perform each movement. By prioritising quality, we can ensure sustainable progress over the long term, reducing the risk of injury and promoting functional ability.
Why Does Movement Quality Matter?
As we age, our ability to get stronger greatly diminishes, making movement quality the foundation for supporting all other physical goals. For our clients, movement can be a form of expression. We want the experience of fitness to be something transformative, rather than transactional, and focusing on the constant progression of movement quality is what afford this experience.
Furthermore, quality movement reflects the values and expertise of the coach. By promoting excellence in moment quality, we can show attention to detail, an understanding and expertise in biomechanics, and a commitment to our clients’ overall wellbeing. We like to promote this idea of ‘How you do one thing is how you do everything’. And by maintaining high standards for movement, we can set the tone for every part of our coaching practice.
We must look past personal training excellent through movement quality as just correcting form. As coaches, we must recognise our clients’ specific needs and apply the key principles of stability, mobility and control in movement to these needs. This is what will ultimately yield the desired results for our clients.
Optimal Challenge
In order to drive progress that is meaningful for our clients, personal trainers must create challenges that are neither too easy or too overwhelming. We like to call this concept the Zone of Proximal Development (ZoPD). It is a theory which emphasises growth and learning for our clients which looks forward past our clients’ current abilities.
How do Design the Right Level of Challenge
The key to optimising challenges for our personal training clients lies in identifying the exercises and routines which will push them slightly past their comfort zones whilst ensuring that they can still execute movement safely and effectively.
For example, a novice client learning how to squat might start with bodyweight movements before progressing onto weight loaded movements.
Whereas an advanced client might benefit from variations like tempo squats or paused squats in order to improve their control (quality of movement) and strength.
Developing the principle of optimal challenge ensures that our personal training sessions are tailored to each client, making each session both productive and engaging. We want to avoid extremes, as too little challenge can lead to stagnation, whilst too much can overwhelm and discourage clients.
Your aim should ultimately be to guide clients towards progress; whether that is session by session, week by week or month by month. Always prioritise movement quality as the success metric. By balancing this idea of effort and adaption, you will create an environment for your clients where they understand the process, and stay motivated and committed over a long term period.
Functionality
Functional fitness has really become a buzzword recently, but most people understand it as a set of specific movements rather than a concept. At the core of it, functional fitness refers to aligning training with the specific needs and goals of an individual person/client. We don’t want to enforce a set of rigid methodologies on our clients, but instead deliver a personalised experience to improve our clients’ lives both inside and outside of the gym.
So What Does Functional Fitness Mean?
We like to promote the idea that ‘function’ in functional fitness belongs to the client. It does not belong to the personal trainer or a predefined programme. Each client will have unique demands based on their capabilities, time, daily routines and goals. Some people might just be looking to relieve stress, others might want to build explosive power, and some might just want to improve their mobility as they age.
A client centric approach requires personal trainer to have a holistic perspective, designing programmes which address these three thing:
Physical Demands: Things like strength, endurance, flexibility and mobility.
Lifestyle Factors: Things like work schedules, energy on the day and capacity to recover.
Personal Goals: These could be as simple as feeling better, all the way to completing a marathon or Iron Man.
When (functional) fitness aligns to our clients’ broader life goals, it becomes far more meaningful to them and less of a chore. This level of alignment can ensure that clients stay motivated and engaged. It also allows you to design programmes which will actually deliver tangible, effective and meaningful results for them.
Developing Better Personal Training Standards
The principles we’ve discussed in this article really are the foundations of personal training and coaching excellence. They are all things that we teach in our level 3 personal trainer course (CPT), and for that matter, all of our personal training courses.
Here are some more tips for you to take away from this.
Observe and Assess your Clients: Start every client programme with a movement assessment. This’ll allow you to identify strengths and weaknesses for you to develop their movement quality and understand where you need to progress.
Focus on Fundamental Movements: Look to develop mastery in the foundational movements. Things like basic push, pull and hip hinge movements, which your clients should learn to execute with precision before moving on to more advanced techniques and exercises.
Build Trust & Relationship: The most effective coaching comes from an excellent relationship between personal trainer and client. Listen and communicate properly to ensure progress and transparency for the client.
Continue your Learning: Always stay up to date with the latest industry methodologies. Continued personal training education is incredibly important in an industry as fast moving as this.
Conclusion
As personal trainers, we must look past physical transformation as the metric of success. Instead, we must strive to create a lasting impact on our clients’ lives. The key principles we’ve explained in this article are key for elevating your personal training practice, to create a meaningful and genuinely useful experience for your clients.