Pre-Contemplation

The first stage your client begin in is the pre-contemplation stage. Clients at this stage don’t really have plans to make changes or start exercising. They will often have been pressured by loved ones to make changes they are not ready for. They often don’t believe they have the ability to change and may be defensive to any perceived pressure to make change. They are often uninformed about the long-term consequences of their behaviour. People in this stage often choose not to know or deliberately ignore health messages, campaigns and information. Interventions could include giving the client information to take away with them or encouraging self-evaluation, not action.

Contemplation

You’re now at stage 2, the contemplation stage. Your Clients are beginning to think about making some positive changes, however you can remain within the contemplation stage for two years despite your clients good intentions. Interventions could include helping the client weigh up the pros and cons to change, helping to balance the scales in favour of the pros or encouraging self-motivational thoughts.

Preparation

Stage three is the preparation stage. In this stage clients may have started to exercise but not regularly. They will be starting to gather information, have looked into or even got a gym membership, which they may not even use. Clients start to plan action and fully intend to take action. This stage is particularly important, if clients fail to plan properly but move forward into the action stage too soon, they are very likely to drop back to previous stages. This is particularly relevant if clients have tried and failed to maintain changes in the past. Interventions could include making plans and strategies for potential obstacles, developing goals and looking into potential sources of support.

Action

Stage four is action time. At this point your clients become confident in their abilities and may well be exercising regularly, two or three times a week but will have been doing so for less than six months. As hurdles in your life appear and progress is not as fast as they had hoped, client’s self-efficacy and motivation can drop. This stage maybe short lived and clients can often become disheartened and relapse to previous stages, especially if not enough care was taken in the preparation stage. Interventions could include tightening up goals to include outcome and process goals, reinforcing the pros to change, affirming strengths and giving encouragement.

Maintain

Stage five time to maintain! In this stage, the client has been exercising regularly for over six months. Boredom or lack of focus can become a problem, the determination to establish new habits can start to fade. Reinforcing self-efficacy and motivation is important in this stage. Re-visiting and re-evaluating goals and achievements can help the client to regain motivation. Once the client has remained in this stage for five years, they are considered to be a lifetime exerciser and are no longer in the stages of change. Interventions could include identifying relapse risks and finding strategies to avoid these, setting new long term and process goals or if relapse does occur helping to identify the cause and find solutions, help the client regain self-efficacy and motivation by learning from mistakes and hopefully re-entering the cycle of change better prepared.

Understanding where a client is upon the model is vital to ensure you cater your services to each individual need. Some might require more positive feedback for example.  Allowing you to understand when not to push your client towards a different stage as this could have a negative effect.

If you are looking to train as a personal trainer, why not visit: https://www.bodyaidsolutions.co.uk/courses/gym-instructor/level-2-gym/ or drop them a line and see if they can make your fitness dream a reality.

Those who blitz through high intensity courses to give their clients the results they want in the short-term.

And those who fine-tune every microscopic detail of a client’s exercise regime, in order to deliver effective, long-lasting fitness.

If I was looking for a personal trainer, I’d know which one I’d want.

The question is, how do you become a real personal trainer who carries out the job to the letter and always goes the extra mile for your client?

Never take shortcuts

All personal trainers know that clients want to see results – but a good trainer will never take shortcuts to achieve them.

High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) helps people burn fat and tone up quickly, but if your client stops exercising or starts eating badly, all the progress made is undone.

That’s why so many get-fit-quick ‘trainers’ are getting it wrong.

Think back to when you were first studying the job – the key to achieving a good level of long-lasting fitness is strength.

Muscle tissue burns up to 15 times more calories per day than fat tissue, even when it’s at rest. So, if you dedicate enough time to lifting weights with your clients, they’ll start seeing lasting results.

And if you can help clients succeed in the long-term, your reputation starts to gather momentum.

You won’t be known for getting quick results – you will be known for treating your clients’ health and fitness with respect…and then you’ll be delivering results on top of that professional trust.

Word of your success will get round. People at the gym love to talk.

Go back to basics

Take weight-lifting.

Whatever your client’s fitness goal, lifting weights is vital for developing strength. But if you don’t teach your clients the core lifts, or how to execute them properly, their success is likely to be stilted… and their physical health could be at risk.

You don’t want to be the trainer who put George the homeowner back into physiotherapy by forcing him through a ‘boot camp’ style fitness programme when he clearly wasn’t ready for it.

Let’s get back to the three core lifts – the squat, the bench press and the deadlift – and let’s zoom in on the squat here:

You already know that the majority of clients LOVE results. But what many of them don’t like is the grind and sweat it takes to achieve them.

So, the squat is often neglected, even though it is a full body exercise that uses over 200 different muscles and has a significant impact on your client’s overall strength and performance.

Again, health and safety first here – never let your client take on too much, too soon.

Once your client improves their squat, they’ll start to see other exercises like their bench press dramatically improve too… not to mention regular daily activities like getting out the car.

And when they start seeing improvements in all aspects of their performance, they’ll be spurred on to continue even further.

They’ll be motivated by results – real results they can see and feel over time (beats a quick-fix HIIT course in my opinion).

Most importantly, they’ll rate you as a top trainer. And the higher you’re rated, the more you can charge (that’s the goal).

Start being the best personal trainer you can be

There’s no overnight solution for becoming a successful personal trainer or helping your clients achieve their fitness goals.

The best way is to get those fundamentals locked down. Become a master in the core lifts and build your training empire up from there – educating your clients along the way.

HFE’s Level 3 Personal Trainer Course is a strong resource for taking you back to basics – teaching you how to create safe and effective workout regimes for your clients.

You’ll also be taught how to integrate nutritional wellbeing into your sessions and the foundations of anatomy and physiology for personal training. It’s the full package.

What do you think? What are the best ways to prove your worth as a personal trainer? Let us know in the comments.