Tag: Personal Trainer
Your Guide to Become A Successful Personal Trainer
To become a successful bodybuilding personal trainer, sometimes you need to do more than the average bodybuilder. Most importantly, you must be a gym guru with every aspect of training in your fingertips. You also need to maintain a healthy diet to help get that body you want your trainee to have. However, passion for the sport is the most important thing one must have. As you will realize, it could prove hard to throw your entire life behind something you don’t like and become successful in it. At the same times, some people have great passion to be personal trainers but they don’t know what it takes to become one. Luckily for you, this article is meant to teach you a few things about being a personal trainer you need to know.
Start by Working on Your Personality
A person’s personality has a great impact on their training style. We can’t say a certain personality is not good for coaching but how you shape it determines your success as a coach. If you haven’t noticed, some personal trainers turn out to be fiery and aggressive while others are calm and shows care. Don’t be lied to that the latter are the ones who produce better results; the truth is that a fiery coach can produce better performance than a calmer one. It all depends on how one relates with the people or person they’re training in terms of communication, listening, and problem-solving skills.
Trainees as well come with unique personalities that need to be handled differently. But your approach as a coach determines a lot whether there’s going to be a personality clash or a healthy working relationship. Learning more about sports psychology is your best chance of polishing your personality in preparation for the role of a personal trainer.
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Study Your Niche and Stay Up to Date
You must know what is happening in your niche at all times if you want to become a great coach. That way, you will be able to make appropriate adjustments to your training programs and style. Know everything that happens in the gym and the right way to do it. Make sure you’re familiar with all training exercises and the milestones that need to be reached after a certain period. Most importantly, be flexible and change with trends to avoid being left behind. It also means being ready and willing to accept and try new things. Start by researching your niche online and reading publications to familiarize yourself with every aspect of bodybuilding and training. Do this and before long you will be better informed about training to lead your trainee in the right direction.
Lead and Teach
To be a successful personal trainer, you need to be ready to lead from the front. Show your clients what needs to be done by demonstrating as accurately as you can. Most importantly, give honest feedback after every day of training. Critique as much as you praise them and let them know what needs to be done to improve their current form. Seeing their trainer do what they need to do is enough motivation for clients do even better.
Planning is Paramount
A coach without a solid plan will fail alongside those who have put all their trust in them. Planning involves setting goals and preparing a strategy to help reach them. However, there must be some flexibility in planning to cater for unforeseen circumstances. But don’t make a habit of improvising lest you lose complete sight of the goal ahead. You should also come up with a venue and training program that does not strain clients or available resources. If you’re not in a position to set up your own gym, you can work with an established fitness center that has everything you need to get it rolling.
Don’t Overuse Intensity
You need to draw the line between working hard and hurting your clients. Soreness and injury resulting from intense straining can have a negative impact on the trainee’s overall performance. Know when to stop training to avoid putting too much strain on clients. Most importantly, keep in mind that excessive fatigue does not always equate to successful training. It could even prove to be counterproductive as it prolongs recovery time, thus making training fall short of its intended purpose.
Take Appropriate Coaching Courses
You will not know everything about bodybuilding and accompanying training by spending all your time in the gym. Make it professional by enrolling for a short course on the same. You can also do several courses as each comes with something new that will prove to helpful in the long run. Most importantly, ensure the course you take is relevant because it is only then you’re going to be a certified trainer. Trainers also advise to take safety courses in addition to regular bodybuilding ones to fully prepare for any eventuality.
Sharpen Your Skills
Continue developing your skills by training at your free time. You can also make a schedule that does not collide with your clients’ and use it to sharpen your kills. Appearing fit with a well-chiseled body is the best way to motivate your students. Try not to look like some trainers who are a complete opposite of what they want their trainees to look like.
Flexibility is Key
Personal trainers work extra hard to make things happen for their clients and that means a lot of sacrifice. It is even harder if they have many private clients, some of whom don’t want to train in a group. The coach lefts to balance between satisfying everyone and achieving set goals. That calls for a lot of flexibility because you might face with a lot of cancellations and rescheduling. Most importantly make sure to come up with a timeframe for rescheduling after cancellation and also be flexible enough if that doesn’t work out. The same applies to cancellation and rescheduling of competitions you’ve been preparing for. In fact, some competitions could be pushed back and that means working twice as hard to prepare adequately. Flexibility is needed for different things and circumstances and the coach must prepare to avoid throwing into chaos.
Developing Unique Programs for Clients
You need to treat every client uniquely if you want to become a successful coach. That is because each one of them has a different personality and abilities and a general approach might not favor them. Start by understanding each of them and preparing a training program that suits them best. Most importantly, avoid giving them a program that worked for you because it might not work for them. However, preparing separate programs for several clients might prove to be a challenge because it does not only strain you but it also means progress is slow. Try grouping them according to similar or close personalities and abilities to accommodate all of them. While at it, try not to appear to discriminate against some of them because it would paint a bad picture.
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Gain Lots of Experience
One needs plenty of experience, even after acquiring accreditation as a coach because most things are learned through experience. There is only one place you can gain as much experience as you can-the gym. Spend most of your time at the gym trying anything and everything before asking your clients to do it. It is also important to familiarize yourself with different equipment and exercises. it gives you the confidence to teach and demonstrate to your clients. Working with a more experienced trainer is another great way of gaining experience. Listen, watch, and learn from them as if you were a client, only then will you learn how it feels to be one.
Have an Insurance
One may be tempted to overlook this but it is a very important tip for everyone who is aspiring to be a coach. It is important to insure your fitness business apart from getting a personal accident or illness insurance. However, you need to do your research well to get yourself a good company with great insurance policies. Don’t look at the amount of monthly premium but the overall benefits of being insured.
A Personal Trainer Give Lots of Homework
Homework is a good tool to measure progress because it’s usually done in your absence. Once regular training is over, issue your clients with a homework they need to complete before the next session. That is the only sure way to know whether earlier sessions were successful. Most importantly, give honest feedback about their performance so they know why they need to repeat some exercises.
Conclusion
Finally, it is important to pursue personal training as a business for obvious reasons. It not only expands your training mentality due to handling different people but will also earn you a good reputation. Most importantly, try to develop soft skills that enable you relate well with clients. Try to understand their unique habits and behaviors as well as listening to their concerns. It is the first step in building a strong personal relationship that goes beyond bodybuilding training. Don’t forget to go through our blog for more inspirational and informative articles.
Bulking Up? Why you Need a Trainer at the Beginning?
Bulking Up: Bulking up; into the simplest terms means to eat more than you already do and exercise harder than usual that you do for making more muscle. But for bulking up successfully you need to carry out this task in a correct way, or you will start gaining up […]
The post Bulking Up? Why you Need a Trainer at the Beginning? appeared first on What Steroids.
Why an Experienced Lifter Must Use A Coach?
There are many reasons an experienced lifter may need a trainer to ensure they’re always in shape. You may be overconfident because of the many years of training, but trust me, there is always someone who sees things you can’t see. For instance, you may not notice when you stop making gains in your training. Even the smallest losses in bodybuilding matter because it must have taken you weeks or months to gain them. A personal trainer or coach does more than just guide your training, they also boost your confidence and give new challenges that will help you grow. Unfortunately, many experienced lifters tend to underrate the importance of a coach and choose to do things their way only: big mistake!
Injuries are Almost Inevitable
You cannot rule out the possibility of getting injured while you train for several hours every day. It would be very naïve to think that all will always go well in a sport like bodybuilding. And when you get injured, you will have some special needs you won’t be able to take care of on your own. There are two people you will need when that unfortunate event happens: your trainer and your doctor. These two people will work hand-in-hand to ensure you get back to form quickly. That includes changing your training routine as well as the diet. The kind of training you do will be low-impact, safe, but effective.
Similarly, if you develop a certain illness, you will need your coach and doctor to work together to make proper adjustments for your training. Furthermore, your health must always come first and any type of training you do should give you better health and not impair you further. So, if you think you don’t need a coach, think again.
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You May Lose Focus
Bodybuilding is highly demanding and the pressure can disorient you at some point. Think about the dietary requirements, training routines, and other fitness necessities. If you’re not careful, these things can overwhelm your sensory receptors and make you lose focus, literally. Without a coach, you may never come back on track again and your bodybuilding career will inevitably head south. An experienced coach will know when you’re about to lose focus and will cushion you against any danger ahead. Most importantly, they will help you narrow down to your training routine and stick to it.
It is highly recommended that you consult your trainer whenever you’re having a hard time figuring out how to go about your training program. But there has to be mutual trust between you and your trainer for this to work out very well. That is because holding back your insecurities and concerns mean you have little or no trust in your trainer. Similarly, if they don’t put you back on the path of success when you slip, then they are not good for you. It is perhaps the reason bodybuilders shy away from getting a trainer but trust me, it’ll be worth it if you find a good one.
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Pros Too Have Personal Battles
Whether you’re a bodybuilder, doctor, office worker, or farmer, we’re all human beings and need to be taken care of. Bodybuilders, especially, experience intense moments of depression due to things happening in their lives coupled with intense training routines. Such kinds of bodybuilders, pro or not, require special attention to keep them on track. There is no better person to help them overcome their struggles than a good coach.
One thing about depression is that it affects people differently. Also, people have different ways of dealing with the condition; some will talk their hearts out but many will choose to keep quiet about it. The latter are in greater danger because failure to communicate means they make decisions on their own, which might be catastrophic. In the case of bodybuilders, decreased communication will likely reduce their output in training. That means they are strength will be affected in the long term and eventually, their career might crumble. A trainer will easily notice when the lifter’s mood changes and will know how to get them back on track. Essentially, the relationship between a lifter and their coach has a big impact on their career. That is because a good relationship leads to better communication even when the lifter is undergoing periods of emotional turmoil.
A Coach Notices Changes in Weight Lifting Trends
Becoming the lifter’s third eye is the whole essence of being a coach. If you haven’t noticed, weightlifting trends are different from those of the 90s. You may not know how important adapting to new trends is until you take part in a major weightlifting competition. Coaches have a way of finding out very minute changes in the bodybuilding industry. As a result, they come in handy if you want to keep up with the current pace. Otherwise, you may spend your whole time at the gym only to find out you’re behind the time when go participate in a contest.
You should know by now that there is no place for errors when it comes to major bodybuilding contests. Every move and minor detail accounts; is what separates winners from losers. A coach will keep you updated about every single change, trend, and rule concerning professional bodybuilding. Bodybuilders of the 90s were average and less committed compared to the current generation. Therefore, some rules that were used then are no longer applicable, and trust me a good coach knows every detail. Are you still convinced that you don’t need a coach?
Reading the Opponent Is the Coach’s Role
As mentioned, your eyes as a professional lifter cannot be everywhere. Rather than trying to monitor what your competitors are doing, how about you concentrate on your training and let someone else do that? A coach’s role is to read the opponent and master their every move. They will then know what tricks the opponent uses and advise you accordingly.
Most importantly, the coach should be able to determine the opponent’s potential and figure out what needs to be done to defeat them. That evaluation is very important if you’re going to share the stage with that person in a major competition. You will remain in the dark until the day of the competition if you don’t someone doing the spying for you. The other alternative would be to do the monitoring yourself. But what would happen to your training? It is a bad idea. So, find yourself a good coach and you won’t have to worry about anything, just your training.
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And now we come to the question of how to get a good coach. Be reminded that it is not everyone that comes to your mind can be a potential coach. Coaches are professionals with several years of experience under their belt. Although it might be hard to find one, the search is worth it. Apart from experience and stuff, there are more important factors to consider when finding a coach.
Who is a Good Coach?
A good coach is someone you can have a healthy personal relationship with, in and outside the gym.
You must be able to communicate with your coach about virtually everything. They are your confidant and the last person to pour your heart into regarding your bodybuilding career.
A good coach is not your average hommie who would go easy on you. The coach must stand their ground when it comes to training programs and routines. They should also push you to your limits even when you don’t feel like going on.
A good coach is someone who knows your strengths and weaknesses and knows how to handle them.
The perfect coach for you has a good record with previous clients. Do a little background check about their previous engagements and see if they will help achieve your dreams. Most importantly, check out the certification, including the institutions/organizations they got it from. It has to be a reputable organization because it is your life and career we’re talking about.
Your ideal coach has a training philosophy that works for you. Don’t pick someone who will complicate things for you. You can always go for someone else if their training might not get you in shape.
Finally, make sure to discuss payment in detail to avoid any future confrontations. Most importantly, agree on the payment methods and how they’ll be made, i.e. whether it is a monthly, weekly, or per-session thing. You should also talk about discounts if any.
Overall
Now that we have highlighted some of the benefits of having a trainer, how about you start searching for one? There are organizations and individuals whose sole responsibility is to find qualified lifters like you. Having a coach is still a win if you’re an experienced lifter. Sharing ideas with someone you share bodybuilding experiences with will turn you into a real beast. Learn about more ways to be a better bodybuilder from our blog, and trust me, you will come back to say thank you after bagging your dream title.