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Posted on February 28, 2022April 12, 2022 by W.I.T.S. Content — Leave a comment

How Fitness Trainers Are Helping People Relieve Arthritis

Weak joints and bones are common symptoms of arthritis. As a result, a lot of people suffering from arthritis complain about pain in the joints and limited movements. While the condition generally affects the older population, these days, many young adults suffer from arthritis due to poor health and hereditary issues as well.

This can affect their day-to-day lives and cause them immense pain, which makes them unable to perform basic tasks. The best way for young adults to manage their arthritis is by being physically active. Regular activity, stretching, and moving their joints relieve the pain and improve their joint mobility.

These days a lot of fitness trainers are entering the medical fitness industry by taking courses such as the one offered by W.I.T.S Education to help people with chronic health issues. These fitness trainers can help people with arthritis manage their symptoms better through exercise. Here’s how they do it. Medical Fitness.

What Is Arthritis?

In simple terms, arthritis is the inflammation caused to the lining of a joint that causes the joints to swell. This lining protects the joint from impact and keeps them healthy and safe. Once the lining swells, it can also affect the ligaments and the tendons. This can cause serious damage to the joint and the bones in the long term.

This is why a lot of elderly people with arthritis have difficulty in moving, and some even become wheelchair-bound. In young adults, this issue isn’t as common, but there are still a lot of young adults who suffer from arthritis or its easy signs.

Some Common Myths About Arthritis

Arthritis often goes undiagnosed because people think their joint pains are due to stress and exhaustion. That’s why they don’t follow up with a doctor or get the relevant test done to figure out the cause. Arthritis also has a lot of myths associated with it making it harder for people to seek proper care and medication. Take a look at some of them.

Arthritis Only Affect The Elderly

This is by far the most common myth. People tend to think that arthritis is something that only affects the elderly due to aging, and young people can’t have it.

Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis and is generally found in the elderly. Rheumatoid arthritis is mostly found in young adults, and women tend to be more prone to developing it. Juvenile arthritis is the term used when the patient is under the age of 16. So It’s safe to say that arthritis can affect people of all ages.

It Doesn’t Have A Cure

While it’s true that arthritis is difficult to cure and requires life-long care to prevent it from getting out of hand, it’s not cure-less. The best form of cure is surgery performed to repair the lining of the joints or surgery to repair or replace the bones themselves. However, this isn’t the only cure; if people don’t want to take the route of surgery, they can still maintain their health in various ways.

The number one cure after surgery is through proper exercise and stretching. While it may seem that exercise would put more pressure on the joints and make the situation worse, this isn’t true; exercise especially stretching, helps relax muscles.

People Need To Rest And Not Move

Another common misconception about arthritis is that people should rest all the time and not move unless necessary. There are two issues with this; number one, if people don’t use their joints, their muscles will become stiff and moving them cause more pain and irritation. In the end, the condition will worsen. Number two, moving and keeping your joints in motion is medically proven to relieve arthritis and help people keep it under control.

Ways Fitness Trainers Can Help

As mentioned earlier, working out and stretching helps people with arthritis manage their condition better. However, finding a knowledgeable trainer who can work with people suffering from arthritis can be difficult. But some trainers come from medical backgrounds and can combine their medical skills with fitness ones to develop workout plans for people with arthritis.

Special Exercise Plans

Medical fitness trainers have expertise in developing special exercise plans that cater to the needs of people suffering from arthritis. These exercise programs include special stretching exercises, joint movements, and other forms of exercises that help people relieve pain and reduce the swelling of the joints.

Not just that, but these exercises strengthen their joints and make their arthritis much more bearable. Fitness trainers can develop exercise plans keeping in mind the fitness goals of their clients, their health issues, and by combining different forms of exercises such as yoga and aerobics, so the clients get the best results.

Special Diet Plans

In conjunction with the detailed exercise plans, medical fitness trainers can also work with doctors and nutritionists to help their clients develop diet plans. These diet plans include foods that are high in calcium and vitamins to help strengthen the bones and prevent muscle damage during workouts.

Sometimes, after the recommendation from the doctor, trainers can even introduce supplements in the diet plan to boost their client’s health and help them reach their fitness goals faster without exhausting their body too much. The exercises combined with the diet can help clients keep their arthritis under control and lead healthier lives.

Through Medical Fitness

Medical fitness trainers are trained to keep in mind the medical needs of their clients, but they aren’t doctors and can’t prescribe any medication or cures. But they can work with the client’s doctors to ensure that their chosen exercise program and diet plan doesn’t affect the patients negatively. These trainers can consult the doctors and make changes in their fitness plans on an ongoing basis so the clients can reach their health and fitness goals quickly.

If you are a medical professional who wants to enter the fitness industry, visit W.I.T.S Education’s website today. We are a training institute that offers several courses related to different fields in the fitness industry. Some of these certifications include a personal trainer course, senior fitness course, group exercise instructor course, and medical fitness course. The institute also offers courses related to fitness management for people looking to start their own business.

The great thing about W.I.T.S Education is that we are accredited by the NCCA, and students can earn college credits for their courses. Our courses are divided into online classes along with hands-on in-person practical labs to prepare students for real-world challenges. Check out our course catalog and get in touch with us today to learn more.

Posted on February 10, 2022October 29, 2022 by W.I.T.S. Content — 1 Comment

The Differences Between Group and Personal Training Education

Group fitness and personal training are two of the most in-demand professions in the fitness world. Not just that, but these professions are one of the highest-paid as well. Both of the fields require extensive fitness training to acquire certifications. Even after that, you might need additional certifications to expand your services and build a client list.

Group fitness instructors work with a number of people with similar goals, while personal trainers work with people on the individual level. People can join group classes for weight loss, wellness, yoga, and even muscle building. On the other hand, personal trainers offer services based on the needs of their clients. Here’s a more in-depth analysis of the two professions and how you can choose which one to pick.

What Do Personal Trainers Do?

Here’s a general breakdown of the services offered by personal trainers.

Individual Training

The main reason people seek personal trainers is that they can work with their client’s schedules and offer personalized training that targets their individual needs. Personal trainers usually take into account their client’s mental and physical needs. For example, any underlying health issues, fat count, and even any allergies or physical injuries that could prevent them from working out in groups. A personal trainer can also help clients reach specific goals like building muscles or losing weight in a dedicated time without causing harm to their bodies.

Training Based On The Client’s Interest

Personal trainers can offer general fitness training, or people can hire trainers who have any specific requirements. People can get a personal wellness coach or a weight-loss instructor depending on what they’re looking for. This is the reason why the field of personal training is quite versatile, and trainers from every industry can become personal trainers after finishing a few certifications. Many athletes have personal trainers who can train them to be the in the sports that they play. For example, footballers would require different fitness routines as compared to tennis players.

Can Work In Gyms And Homes

Another great career option for personal trainers is that they can work with clients one-on-one in their homes or offer training at the gym. Many gyms hire personal trainers keeping in mind their client’s needs. They can offer bodybuilding training or weight loss training. Clients going to the gym need to adhere to the gym’s guidelines, and the level of training they receive is based on their membership. On the other hand, at-home trainers are hired based on the requirement of the client, and they charge a fee accordingly. They’re also required to work with the client’s schedule, not the other way around.

What Do Group Instructors Do?

Just like personal trainers, group instructors can offer several services, but instead of an individual approach, these instructors work with groups. Here are some of the descriptions of their jobs.

Generalized Workouts For Groups

As the name suggests, group instructors work with people with similar fitness goals. For example, people can do yoga with a group instructor, join a running group, or take gym classes with a group instructor. The bottom line is that these instructors train many people in the same time frame. This obviously means that people don’t get a lot of individual attention, but that doesn’t mean the trainer doesn’t consider that at all. The trainer monitors individual progress and helps people who need individualized training, but it’s not on the same level as a personal trainer.

Work With Similarly Aged People

The main reason why people opt for group fitness training is to work with people with similar fitness goals. That’s why most of these groups have people from the same age group or demographic. For example, a group may consist of women who want to do yoga or a group of senior citizens who want to achieve better health. To offer this training, the trainers need to develop sessions that target the needs of these groups. The instructor may change the long-term goals of the group depending on the progress of each member.

Specialized Exercises

Say a group of people want to build abs in the next three months, a group fitness instructor can develop workout routines that can help them achieve these goals. The same goes for any other type of goals the clients might have. Some instructors offer their sessions involving yoga, weight loss, or bodybuilding.

Which One Should You Pick?

If you’re interested in pursuing a career in the fitness world but can’t decide which one of the two you should pick, try looking at the following aspects to come to a conclusion.

Where Do You Like Working?

This plays a huge role in picking your career. Would you prefer working in a gym and fitness center, or would you prefer the client’s home or your own studio? If you like working with a lot of people and you think you can pay attention to their individual goals, you should think about pursuing group instructor certifications. On the other hand, if you like to work with clients one-on-one, you should try for personal training certifications.

What Type Of Workouts Do You Like?

This can also influence your decisions. If you like intense one-on-one training, then you should go for personal training. If you’re interested in leading a group workout, then a group exercise instructor is for you. Your preference can also depend on the type of workouts you offer—for example, senior fitness group, youth fitness group, or weight loss group.

Are You Targeting A Specific Demographic?

It’s easier to deal with a specific demographic if they’re in a group. Personal trainers target a wide audience, while group fitness instructors can pick an age group and develop different workouts for them based on their requirements.

If you’re looking to become a certified personal trainer or a group fitness instructor, you can check the courses offered by W.I.T.S. Education. W.I.T.S. is a fitness training institute that offers several courses. Some other courses offered include youth fitness instructor, medical fitness instructor, and senior fitness instructor. W.I.T.S is also the only institute that is accredited by the NCAA and offers college credits to its students.

They also offer in-person and online hybrid courses that ensure that their students have the relevant practical skills. Their training centers are located all over North America and W.I.T.S. is the only institute that offers hands-on in-person practical labs. Take a look at their courses or get in touch with them today.

Posted on February 6, 2022December 1, 2022 by W.I.T.S. Content — Leave a comment

How a Specialization in Nutrition Education Will Benefit You as a Certified Personal Trainer

Personal trainers offer a lot more than just workout training. They are responsible for balancing a physical workout and a healthy diet. A personal trainer needs proper training before they start working.

Unlike other fitness certifications that focus on one aspect of fitness, a personal training certification covers all areas related to fitness. These include exercise, catering to people of different age groups, and dealing with clients with different health concerns. That’s why when developing exercise programs and diet plans, personal trainers need to look at multiple aspects of their client’s lifestyle.

Now, as the fitness industry is merging with the wellness industry, these personal trainers are required to pay attention to nutrition as well. To help expand their expertise, certified personal trainers are getting specializations in nutritional or wellness—these specializations, such as the one we offer at W.I.T.S. Education will enable them to broaden their horizons and take on more challenging clients.

Who Is A Nutrition Specialist?

In simple terms, a nutritional specialist is a professional who is responsible for helping their clients maintain healthy lifestyles through smart dietary choices. Nutritionists are normally certified by a board or a governing body before being allowed to practice their skills. In training itself, these nutritionists go through several courses ranging from fitness to medical nutrition so they can cater to the needs of each of their clients.

Once certified, these people can work with people suffering from obesity, high blood pressure, heart issues, cholesterol, and even diabetes. Some nutritionists can go beyond this and can even develop diet plans for people with chronic illness and allergies.

How Can Nutrition Specialization Help You As A Personal Trainer?

As a personal trainer, you can prescribe special exercises to people depending on their physical needs. With the addition of nutritional education, you’ll be able to go a step further and help people maintain good physical health as well as a good diet. Here are some areas you can work with after getting a nutritional certification.

Create Better Diet Plans

Normally personal trainers are responsible for assessing the physical health of their clients and then developing a general diet plan for them. For clients with dietary restrictions or non-lethal allergies, trainers can also make special diet plans. But they can’t offer help beyond that as they aren’t trained to deal with specific medical conditions. With a nutrition certification, they’ll be able to get an in-depth understanding of their client’s health condition.

This will allow the trainer to create diet plans that are unique to each client’s health needs. Not just that, but for clients with chronic diseases, the trainers can work with their doctors to come up with diet programs that won’t harm their health and allow them to reach their fitness goals faster.

Give Nutritional Advice And Guidance

Besides developing diet plans, a personal trainer can also guide clients. For example, if the trainer is working for a fitness center and training a few different clients, it is possible that they don’t pay for the full service. It could also be that their gym membership doesn’t cover diet plans. In this scenario, a trainer with nutritional education can give advice on specific diets. They’ll be able to help people who have specific medical conditions and allow them to reach their fitness milestones faster.

Can Help People Of Different Age Groups

The biggest benefit of a nutritional certification is that a personal trainer can cater to a wider range of clients. Instead of training young adults, trainers can help kids as well as senior citizens in staying on top of their health. But both of these demographics require strict adherence to a diet that may be out of the expertise of a regular personal trainer. A certified nutritionist, however, can handle such requirements.

In the case of senior citizens, their diet is more of a lifestyle if they suffer from any health issues. On top of that, their old age puts a lot of restrictions on their body in processing certain foods. So, they need a diet plan that works with their age any medication they need to take while helping them get fit.

What Type Of Nutritional Specializations Can You Take?

A full-fledge nutritional specification may not be possible with just a certification unless you have prior education in it. However, you can opt for certification that covers the basic requirements of becoming a nutritionist through the specializations mentioned below.

Medical Fitness Specialization

Medical fitness certification allows trainers to take on more challenging clients. These clients have a history of chronic health issues that need serious attention. That’s why they can’t work with regular trainers. A medical fitness specialization will allow you to devise diet plans, workout routines, and identify problem areas to help clients reach their fitness goals. You can even identify medications that’ll help them manage their illness better and work with their physician to evaluate their health status and the extent of their illness.

Lifestyle Wellness Coaching

A wellness coaching certification covers broader areas related to health and fitness. You can work with your clients on improving their general lifestyle to include healthy habits that’ll improve their health. You can easily create exercise programs, diet plans, lifestyle guides to ensure your clients live a more fulfilling life.

Lifestyle coaching focuses on mental as well as physical health, and you’ll be required to help clients reach a peaceful state of mind through exercise and diet. With this certification, you’ll be able to review in-depth each client’s lifestyle and determine areas that need improvement.

If you want to check out some more courses from W.I.T.S. Education like group exercise instructor, senior fitness instructor, and youth fitness instructor; check out our catalog of certifications. W.I.T.S. is a fitness training institute that has state-of-the-art training centers all over North America. Our institute is the only one that offers NCCA accreditation and hands-on in-person training labs.

The institute focuses on giving its students practical skills and not making them book smart. Our unique learning method involves online as well as physical lessons. If you have any queries, feel free to reach out to us.

Posted on December 25, 2021October 29, 2022 by W.I.T.S. Content — Leave a comment

Common Marketing Mistakes Personal Trainers Tend to Make

In the age of social media, digital marketing, and a booming fitness and health industry, certified personal trainers (CPTs) need to stay up to date on their marketing strategies. Not doing so will not only cost you business but will affect your public persona and perception as well.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that your marketing strategy is fine as it is, and your work will speak for itself. While it’s true that the quality of your services is what matters the most, it’s also important to remember that you still need to put in the effort.

Here are some common mistakes that personal trainers make when it comes to their marketing content and strategy, and you should be careful to avoid them:

Setting the bar too high and becoming unrelatable

While you might think it’s inspirational to post workout videos, ‘clean’ meals and expensive, extensive grocery lists, waking up at 5 am to go run or workout, other people may not agree. It’s one thing to look toward your favorite trainer for motivation, but if you’re only projecting an image of perfection, it might be highly unrelatable by being unattainable to the ordinary person.

After all, you do this for a living, and it’s your job to stay fit, healthy, and practice what you preach, but for other people, be it, stay-at-home moms or college students, their routines may not be adaptable for that lifestyle.

In short, the best thing you can do is stay relatable.

Not having a regular posting schedule for content

You’re damaging your online presence by not planning and having a posting schedule. You need to plan your social media and general marketing content ahead of time, building a cohesive sequence of what goes on, when, and how.

Space out and diversify the kind of content you share, including whatever your personal preferences are, from motivational quotes to workout tips and advice to promotional content. Everything must be well-thought-out and balanced because you’ll have a poorly organized feed with random, repetitive content without that.

Additionally, be sure to post consistently and follow a regular schedule. This is necessary for engagement, showing you’re active and indicating that your business profile can be used to reach out to you.

Don’t go weeks or months without posting and expect engagement and responses. This applies to all marketing content, including emails, web content, promotional messages, etc. Consistency is key, and a CPT should know that!

Mundane, repetitive content that doesn’t do much

Beyond just posting consistently and following a schedule, however, you should also work on mixing up the type of content you share. The same motivational videos and quotes can only get you so far.

It’s definitely challenging and an added layer of work to manage, but as a CPT, you need to provide value to your clients through your marketing strategy. Make a combination of text, images, video, and audio content, and continue to diversify your web presence.

You can do this through the aforementioned point regarding planning content, which allows you to curate and create meaningful material rather than just self-promotion and images and videos of yourself.

It’s true that while you are the main service provider, there’s got to be more to your profile than gym selfies and videos. It should be engaging, interactive, and inviting.

Ask questions, get to know your audience, understand what your potential clients are looking for, and think of how you can make your feed more organic. Testimonials, snippets of training sessions, educational information are all excellent options.

Excessively posting sponsored content and material

Another mistake that a lot of fitness experts are often guilty of making is posting excessive sponsored content. Yes, it’s great for your credibility and income to have sponsorships and paid content, but posting too much of that can be off-putting to audiences.

It can make it harder to trust in your abilities and your expertise if you’re continually promoting products, whether they’re skinny teas or supplements or even gym wear. However, as long as it’s spaced out and cushioned by more organic material or other forms of content, you should be good to go.

In addition to that, focus on building your SEO presence and optimizing your existing content for more relevance. Build a website, develop content for that, make your work more accessible and watch that work wonders over typical PPC advertising.

Pricing yourself far below market rates (it’s not a good thing)

You might think that selling your services lower than the average market rate will help you attract more clients, but that works against you. The more you devalue your work, the more people are skeptical.

After all, why would a skilled, qualified CPT charge significantly lower rates than their competitors unless something was wrong? You can, however, use promotional offers and seasonal discounts to build a sense of urgency, but never sell yourself or your services short.

Not targeting the right audience or focusing only on new clients

Don’t be that trainer who’s so focused on attracting new clients that they forget to value their current ones. It’s cheaper and more profitable to retain old clients than constantly bring in new ones, and as a CPT, you should know who to target and how. Find your niche, address that, and attract faces while also highlighting your current clients’ progress and achievements. Their stories, testimonials, reviews, and recommendations are what can make or break your practice

As a personal trainer, you are running a business at the end of the day. Whether you’re selling services independently, as part of a gym or facility, or in affiliation with other programs, you need to have a solid marketing strategy that drives results.

You can also upgrade your marketing strategy with the help of our fitness trainer programs, including marketing and business content. Get in touch with us to register to become a certified personal trainer or upgrade your current education and training!

Posted on December 18, 2021October 29, 2022 by W.I.T.S. Content — Leave a comment

Social Media Trends for Personal Trainers to Try in 2022

Fitness trainers are professionals who need to keep up with their social media presence and content to be more accessible, relatable, and of course, generate traction for their business and services. That means you will need to continue innovating and staying on top of trends that dominate the market.

The following are some of the most anticipated and highly-engaging social media trends predicted for 2022, which means you should add them to your strategy:

1. Diversify your content for different platforms

You need to diversify your content for different platforms. This doesn’t just mean optimizing it for different devices (with mobile phones taking the lead), but rather tailoring content for the social media app or site you use. Instagram has certain types of content that succeed on it, while TikTok uses another strategy.

Facebook allows you more back and hyperlinking opportunities and long-form videos, while emails allow you to share more insider information. It’s definitely a lot to keep up with, but different techniques allow you to create multifaceted and multi-purpose content without being overbearing. Using the same format for every platform will hurt your views and engagement, so finding your niche and focusing on that is easier.

2. Paid advertising is getting even bigger in 2022

Unfortunately for many small businesses and independent professionals, things are getting tougher due to social media algorithms. Now it’s harder to break through the system and organically reach clients and audience members on the quality of content, strategic hashtags, and timeliness alone. To get that engagement in the first place, you’ll need to resort to paid advertising, something that’s expected to get even bigger in 2022. Again, depending on the social media platform you focus on, you’ll have to try different forms of paid marketing and advertising, but generally, ads, reels, and video content will continue to take the lead.

Rather than spending money on PRs and collaborations or resorting to other monetary tactics, your best bet is to use in-built paid advertising mediums and run quality content there.

3. Develop live-streaming material and content

Speaking of developing content, live-streaming has gotten bigger and bigger over the years and will continue to grow even more in 2022. You can live-stream workouts, promotional content, come on for Q&As, host live podcasts, offer live tours, and share a lot of valuable information this way, allowing audiences to interact with you directly. This is one of the best-performing social media marketing methods and one that will definitely elevate your overall content and strategy by a lot, so work on developing content that enables you to do that.

4. Set up chatbots for faster replies and responses

Your social media page is a platform you use for business, and it’s one where you’re probably interacting with clients, sponsors, collaborators, colleagues, and addressing general queries. Managing it on your own can be quite overwhelming and is nothing short of a full-time job, and so using one of the many chatbot options out there is a great idea.

They can handle a lot of the automated responses, sharing information about your training services, rates, location, timings, etc., with prospective clients while you address more personalized queries and conversations. It takes a lot of the load off you and speeds up the process, making it more efficient.

5. At-home and online workouts through social media

The pandemic really changed the face of many industries and businesses, with fitness and health possibly taking the lead on that. As people adapt to social distancing and the flexibility of life at home, online workouts have grown in immense popularity. The attitude of the majority of Americans also suggests the same, with many preferring online workouts to gyms and in-person training.

Leverage that trend through social media by offering short and long-form workouts, either live-streamed or shared on your platform and more private groups. It’s a great way to engage with people and give your audiences what they want while building your reputation and presence online.

6. More user-generated and crowdsourced content

Speaking of giving audiences what they want, another great tip is to share more user-generated and crowdsourced content. From clients posting their workout videos to testimonials and reviews, you can do so much more to diversify your online presence this way.

This can also include more lifestyle-centered content, from fashion to food, which shows audiences who you are as a person. It’s a simple yet highly effective technique to draw more attention to your work. The goal of focusing on user-generated content is to let users’ interests determine what you post and share.

For many trainers, a great way to be more in line with user-generated content strategies is to engage in fun trends, fitness challenges, talk about trending topics and share more content that performs well and drives engagement.

Social media is one of the most valuable tools in your artillery, and your best bet is to use it effectively. The more focused you are in your approach, the better it will be for your overall strategy, engagement, and of course, stats. Plus, it’s a great way to make yourself more interesting and appealing to potential clients as well. It is a marketing tool, after all.

Sign up for our fitness trainer programs, where you can learn all the best insights and strategies for online social media marketing and more. Reach out to us to if you’re interested in becoming a certified personal trainer or if you’re looking for more intensive training and education to add to your current qualifications.

Posted on December 15, 2021January 14, 2022 by W.I.T.S. Content — Leave a comment

Key Recommendations to Improve Your Relationships with Your Clients

A trainer-client relationship is one of the most important professional relationships you’ll ever develop in your career as a fitness professional. It’s one built on a foundation of trust, mutual respect, and support and needs to be treated as such. As a trainer, you must ensure that your clients trust you and believe in you to help them achieve their health and wellness goals, rather than fearing you.

They should be able to express their concerns and vulnerabilities, knowing that you will be able to help them, and that’s only achievable if you actively work on being approachable and trustworthy.

Here are some great tips on how to improve your relationship with your fitness clients:

Maintain a professional attitude and demeanor

To make a good impression on your clients, you don’t need to have the latest trainers or fancy clothes. There are a few basic tenets of professionalism that can start you off on the right foot; being punctual, honoring commitments, staying pleasant, and being honest are often more than enough. It’s important for trainers to maintain a professional attitude when dealing with clients because it helps them see you as their coach and as someone who is trained in their field and equipped to help them.

Communicate clearly, communicate often

Communicating with your clients is very important. Not just sharing basic need-to-know details like timings and schedules but communicating words of encouragement, approval, recommendations, and even off-day workouts. It helps to show your clients that you’re involved, following up with their progress, and offering them support, advice and feedback even beyond the gym floor.

This also applies to regularly communicating their progress and walking them through their performance, improvements in their form, stats, or general indicators. It’s a great way to build rapport for healthy communication.

Empathize and put yourself in their position

Often trainers forget the importance of empathy. Yes, you’re there to push your clients to do better, work harder, and perform more steadily, testing their limits along the way, but you shouldn’t overlook their struggles either. Put yourself in their shoes for a moment and envision how they feel being yelled at by a trainer on the gym floor–name-calling, body-shaming, mocking, terrorizing are some of the worst practices any trainer can adopt, and you should work to steer clear of them.

Maybe you were genetically blessed and came out of the womb with a six-pack, but maybe you were also heavily bullied for your appearance once upon a time. No matter what the case may be, you should always remember that your client is a person with feelings and emotions before anything else.

Be specific to their needs but remain flexible

Learn to adapt your training style and schedule to your clients’ needs, goals, and requirements. Rather than taking a cookie-cutter generic approach to training, see how you can help your clients achieve their specific fitness, health, and wellness goals through your services, providing them with the tools, knowledge, and expertise that they need.

You might have a trajectory in mind for them, but injuries, accidents, fatigue, physical and mental limitations can all get in the way and how you respond to them as a trainer is what sets you apart. The more adaptive you are while still doing your job, the more your clients respect you.

Set goals for the long run to show commitment

Goal-setting should be a two-way street as you and your client mutually set goals for your training sessions. Where do they see themselves in 3, 6, or 12 months? How do you plan to help them achieve those goals? It’s important to set aside your assumptions and let them take the lead on these goals, sometimes. As a trainer, you might feel like you can tell exactly what your client needs, and while you might be right, you should also work on negotiating with them and meeting them halfway. Remember that not everyone will have the same fitness and exercise goals, and that’s okay, but as long as you’re thinking of both long and short-term goals that are achievable, you’re showing them that you’re with them for the long haul.

Get to know your client on a slightly deeper level

Lastly, you should learn to be your client’s friend. This doesn’t mean you cross professional boundaries and become besties with them, but rather, you hear them out, let them open up to you, and be honest about their fears, challenges, and insecurities, supporting them in more ways than one. A trainer is so much more than just your gym instructor, it’s someone who sees you at your worst, and you’d want that person to treat you as an equal. It also allows you to be vulnerable and open about your own struggles, helping them feel less alone.

As a fitness trainer, your role goes beyond the gym or classes; what you say and do can often impact your clients directly and affect their mental, physical and emotional health in the process. It’s a lot of responsibility to take on. You should never shy away from working on your communication skills and abilities, developing more empathy, and improving your relationship with your clients.

Learn more about improving your services and working as a personal trainer and a certified group exercise instructor through our courses and training modules. We have some of the most highly-rated fitness trainer programs that include both online and in-person components and will equip you with not just the necessary knowledge and skill to train and coach but also provide you with interpersonal skills and insights. View our range of certifications here, or register for one of our other training and specialties today!

Posted on November 8, 2021November 8, 2021 by W.I.T.S. Content — Leave a comment

4 Tips for Building a Clientele for Your Personal Training Services

For many personal trainers, building a clientele is tough work. Unless you’re working in a gym or organization that assigns specific clients to you, it’s hard to stand out as an individual trainer.

It’s not just about your skills and what you bring to the table—there are plenty of experienced, talented, certified fitness trainers, after all. So how do you build a clientele and a reputation? Try some of the following tips:

1. Give your all to loyal clients

Loyal clients are the backbone of any business, and it’s important to build a rapport with them. The more your clients are satisfied with your services, the more willing they’d be to recommend and refer you to other friends and family members, share testimonials and reviews online, and of course, work with you long-term. Don’t underestimate the importance of your loyal clients in trying to grow your overall clientele.

2. Offer expert insights and knowledge

It also helps to establish yourself as a knowledgeable expert and offer that expertise to others. Write for magazines, blogs, websites, make television appearances, and put yourself out there while sharing expert insights and knowledge. The more you’re willing to give, the likelier people trust your opinions and give you business.

3. Build a social media presence

What are you even doing if you’re not on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, among other social media platforms? Any fitness trainer should have a social media presence because that’s where you get to show your skillset, share your expertise and knowledge, and of course, engage with old, potential, and new clients. It’s nothing less than a place of business, and you should treat it as such. You can share nutrition tips and advice, tips on form, recovery, and other types of content that will help people.

4. Provide unique services and offers

Another bonus tip is to offer something others aren’t. Whether that’s a free trial, a discount offer, an added nutrition guide, or a niche service or focus, having totally unique something will definitely make you stand out in the industry. It helps to expand your skillset and develop these interesting specializations, so you’re able to accomplish this!

Whether you’re interested In becoming a certified group fitness trainer or offering one-on-one training, you can sign up for our extensive fitness trainer programs. We have a variety of certifications and renewal courses that you can sign up for to refresh your skills. You can find a location near you and register for one of our training programs, or even sign up online if you’d like to learn remotely.

The Practical Skills Certifications!