Personal Training on the Net Blog

Social Media Tips For Fitness Professionals: February 2012

Welcome to this month’s edition of “Social Media for Fitness Professionals”! Each month, I bring you three of the latest developments in the world of online social media, explain what each new development means for you as a fitness professional, and tell you how to take advantage of these trends to grow your business and communicate more effectively with your clients.

Here are 3 top social media tips for February 2012:

#1: Rafflecopter For Prize Giveaways

I recently ran a prize giveaway on my website in which I asked people to share my blog post on Twitter and Facebook in exchange for a chance to win a free shipment of organic food to their home. This way, every time someone entered to win the prize package, all their friends found out about my website!

For this promotion, I used Rafflecopter , a free online giveaway service that let me set up entry requirements, get the code to embed on my website, quickly moderate the submissions, and then randomly choose winners.

Whenever you want to run a contest from your website or blog, Rafflecopter is a good way to spread the word via social media.

#2: Posterous + DietSNAPS for Nutrition Logging

I keep an online password-protected diet log that all my personal training clients can access at any time to see what I’m eating or get meal ideas. I occasionally upload new workout ideas as well.

Here’s how I use social media services to share my diet:

On my smartphone, I have the app DietSNAPS , which allows me to photograph my food and upload meal descriptions. I also have a free blog at Posterous , which allows me to auto-post to my blog by simply sending an e-mail to my special Posterous email address. At the end of each day, I simply open DietSnaps on my phone, push a button to send that day’s log to Posterous, and… voilà…my clients can now log in to see my daily diet, complete with pictures.

Sharing my diet log is a free service that I can easily give to my clients and customers, who appreciate being able to see what I eat and “steal” my meal plans and eating patterns.

#3: Posterous + Google Calendar + Facebook

I simply can’t mention Posterous without also showing you a cool trick that allows you to post all your gym, studio or business calendar events automatically to Facebook.

Normally, Google Calendar will not allow you to automatically post events to a Facebook page. Google and Facebook just don’t play nice together.

But here’s how you can work around the problem in just four easy steps:

Set up a free account at Posterous , which will give you a special e-mail address that allows you to auto-post events by simply sending an e-mail.
Set up a free Google Calendar and put all your scheduled workouts, classes, events, etc. on the Google Calendar page.
Take the e-mail address that Posterous gave you and set that up in Google Calendar as the e-mail address to which event reminders are sent.
Go to your Posterous account and change your settings to automatically post every e-mail you send to your Facebook page.

There you have it! Now all your events, workouts, classes, etc. will be broadcast to your Facebook fans. Pretty cool, eh?

Do you have questions or feedback? Leave them below!

Ben Greenfield is a fitness business coach and the author of “Personal Trainers’ Guide to Earning Top Dollar.” Visit Ben's blog at http://www.trainfortopdollar.com .

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HELP! My Client is Losing Motivation!

Recently I was asked to give some advice on how to train clients who can’t seem to stay self-motivated. This always becomes a problem this time of year as people start to detour from their new year’s resolutions. After all, anyone can do something for a few weeks when external motivation is high. However, if they have not made a stronger emotional connection to the goal, their motivation will quickly fade.

To get started, I decided to go look up the definition of “motivation.” After sifting through a lot of mumbo jumbo, I came across this simple, yet effective, definition…

“The reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way.”

Very interesting. My advice from this point forward was very simple – these clients are “motivated” – they are acting or behaving in a particular way for a reason. It may not be the way we want them to, or even the way that best fits their desired outcomes, but they are, in fact, motivated. When we as personal trainers label them as “unable to stay motivated,” we rob them of their true motivation, tattooing them with a false identity and avoiding taking at least some of the responsibility ourselves.

Perhaps we should stop trying to motivate these clients on our terms, and begin to look at their motivation through a different lens. This is where we may need to make a huge U-turn in our own thought processes. It may be that the client appears to lack motivation because we lack the empathy to see it.

If you are like me and need a definition of empathy, here you go…

“The ability to understand and share the feelings of another.”

We as fitness professionals cannot understand or share our clients’ feelings until we know what A.L.E.s them. To achieve this, we must:

Ask
Listen
Execute

Ask

We have to ask the right questions in the right order to encourage each client’s trust and honesty. Do you have a systematic process to consistently achieve this every time? You should!

Listen

When we talk, we can't listen. Challenge yourself with the W.A.I.T. – Why Am I Talking? –principle when you speak with clients. Listen for key words – buzzwords – that give you insight into their desires, fears and passions.

For example: “I like play with my kids.” “I don’t really enjoying working out.”

A few statements like this can provide huge insight into clients’ beliefs about exercise and how they want to engage in it. They may enjoy playing, but not working. If their exercise program looks and feels like work – low interaction and minimal fun during the exercises – they will be much more likely to “lose motivation.” Not because they are not motivated, but because they were not put into an environment that fed their motivation.

How often do we create fitness programs with at least some exercises that clients do not like? Why? Out of the infinite exercises that exist, can’t we find ones that our clients like?

“I would like to see results.” “I need you show me how.”

Statements like these may tell you when clients are more visual in nature. They need to “see” things for it to make sense to them. If we try to “tell” (auditory) or have them initially “do” (kinesthetic), they make get confused or intimidated and subconsciously shut down. Again, they may appear to be losing motivation when, in fact, we pushed them away from their motivation,

Listen for words like:

feel, touch, grasp (kinesthetic)
see, show, view (visual)
hear, sound (auditory)

Execute

Once we have asked, listened and gathered insight into our clients, we must execute exercise plans that integrate this information.

The client experience needs to look, sound and feel like what they just told you. If not, they will lose interest. It is that loss of interest that we often confuse for lack of motivation. In contrast, when we keep the focus on their desires and interests, we fuel their motivation.

Self-Challenge

If you have a "playful" client that you always give a plank and they always complain, try this...

Activity: Blow up a balloon, get down on the ground with them and play a game of prone balloon taps.

Questions to ask yourself: Did their attitude suddenly change for the better? Did they appear to be more “motivated” then before? Or is it possible that they have simply been losing interest in the routines you've been giving them?

Rodney Corn is a former collegiate athlete, bodybuilder, international presenter, published author and contributor to numerous fitness industry publications. Rodney is a Co-Founder of PTA Global, where he currently serves as Vice President of Academic Operations.

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Exploring Fitness Minimalism: Removing the Nonessential from Exercise & Nutrition

If you lived through the 90s, you probably enjoyed a sarcastic chuckle from that 7-minute abs skit in the movie There’s Something About Mary:

Jokes are one thing. It gets a lot more serious when you, as a fitness professional, see books and DVDs promising fast results in only 7 minutes a day. In fact, you probably get pretty mad when you see this stuff.

After all, that’s not how you built your body. And that’s not how it should work. Getting in shape takes sacrifice, discipline, nutritional fortitude, and hours of gym time, right? Seven minutes a day? A few days a week? One small nutrition habit to practice? That’s nonsense. It’s pandering to the weak and lazy. No way does anyone get in awesome shape doing that stuff.

At least, that’s how I used to think. (Maybe you did too?)

But, recently, I’ve been exploring an entirely new line of thought. I’ve been wondering if it would be possible to get in awesome shape with a minimalistic program, with a very small amount of exercise per week, and with as few nutritional changes as possible. What would a program like that look like? And how well could it work?

Enter Marsha, one of my clients.

Marsha’s works two jobs, runs a Girl Guides group (Girl Scouts for you non-Canadians), plays co-ed volleyball a few nights a week, and is planning a wedding. So she’s not lazy or unmotivated. She’s a hard-working, busy, social, fun woman. She just doesn’t have a lot of free time for exercise. The other priorities in her life are more important to her than hours of gym time.

Of course, despite her competing time demands, Marsha still wanted to lose some weight. That’s why we decided to make her program an experiment in fitness minimalism. I wondered if she could get in awesome shape with just a few minutes of exercise per week and only a few nutritional changes. So here’s what we came up with.

On the exercise side of things, this is what she did:

Monday – 6 minutes of sprint intervals on the treadmill
Tuesday – 10 minutes of bodyweight circuit training
Thursday – 6 minutes of sprint intervals on the treadmill
Friday – 10 minutes of bodyweight circuit training

[That’s right, only 32 minutes of exercise per week.]

Her dietary strategies were equally simple:

Weeks 1 and 2 – eat normally, however eat each meal slowly and eat about 4 total meals each day
Weeks 3 and 4 – with each meal, eat protein, legumes, and veggies (while avoiding white carbs)
Weeks 5 and 6 – one day per week, eat whatever you want
Weeks 7 and 8 – if still included, skip fruit and calorie-containing drinks

[No, I didn’t give her a diet to follow. I simply gave her a new habit to practice every two weeks, as outlined above.]

So, how did this minimalist strategy work? Fantastically.

In 16 weeks Marsha lost a whopping 20 pounds of body fat, dropping from 150 pounds to 130 pounds. All from just a few nutrition changes. And a mere 8½ hours of exercise over the course of 4 months.

Of course, I’ve used similar strategies with hundreds of others. And, if the training and nutrition is appropriately progressed, they get similar results. Sure, some need a little more exercise. Others do just fine with a little less. However, let’s not obsess over the details.

The real take-home message here is that maybe the fitness industry has been overwhelming clients with excessive exercise prescriptions and nutrition plans for years. Perhaps we’d all benefit from spending more time exploring what exactly is essential (and what’s not). And then focusing on stripping away the non-essential.

Sure, some clients may still love doing more exercise than is completely necessary for their goals. And that’s okay. However, for those who prefer to do less, why not give them the help and support they need? Why not do your own experiments in fitness minimalism?

Dr. John Berardi has been recognized as one of the top exercise nutrition experts in the world and has worked with over 60,000 clients in more than 100 countries. Find out more at Dr. Berardi's Precision Nutrition website.

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Becoming Agents of Change for Our Clients

Ask any fitness professional and they will tell you that nutrition is an important component of a complete fitness program. Nutrition is also the one aspect of their program that our clients have to face without us, and is a service that we have to refer out unless we are licensed nutritionists.

As Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs points out, nutrition is a fundamental human need. We eat to survive. For some however, food becomes more than a need when it is associated with emotions like happiness, belonging, acceptance, fear, anger, hurt, love, etc. These emotions can spring from our environment, our interactions with other people, our circumstances, or our physiological or mental state.

When food satisfies our need for survival, we are content. But when eating is accompanied by feelings like social acceptance or guilt, people begin to develop behaviors associated with eating that ultimately lead them to a place of unhappiness. It is this unhappiness that can prompt them to change their behaviors. Unfortunately, the unhappiness they are experiencing often doesn’t come until after quite a bit of weight gain.

That is where the fitness professional steps back into the picture. Our clients’ overeating doesn’t occur simply because they put more calories in their mouth than they burn. The behavior they are trying to change is connected to something emotionally rooted within them, and driven by their need to survive.

The reality here is that only they know exactly what that emotional tie is. All we can do is ask the questions to spur insight into their behavioral triggers. We become a facilitator in their quest to find answers for that change. They are the experts in their own lives, not us. Only they know what it will take to change, only they know what they are feeling when they eat. It is up to us to ask the questions that guide them there.

In this respect, we become agents of change. And asking the right questions is just the start of our responsibility in this role.

Agents take an active role in a client-centered relationship. The most successful client-centered relationships are enveloped with empathy. Empathy – driven by effective listening – leads to a reflective solution. Mirroring clients’ emotions and truly putting yourself in their shoes allows us to experience what led them to their behaviors. In the book Engaging and Retaining Clients in Healthy Behavior Change, Roy Sugarman says that empathy “…is about what is vitally important to them at this time in their life. It’s also about getting them and yourselves better and better at doing what is important, and having a higher purpose in doing so.” When empathy is client-focused, we become better simply because they do. When they attain their goal, so do we.

A true agent of change accepts all emotions of a client, experiences those emotions alongside the client, and offers support in the client’s quest to make peace with them. Our ability as agents to guide clients to their own answers for nutritional behavior change will give them ownership of their success and leave them feeling empowered to continue on their own.

When it comes to getting clients to their goals, making an emotional connection accounts for 85% of our success, but failing to do so is 100% of why we fall short.

What I hope that my bold statement blatantly points out is this: We need to become less of a professional and more of a person in our relationships with our clients if we want to truly impact their lives.

Move More!

Hayley Hollander is a personal trainer, educator, and co-founder of Advanced Training Performance in Las Vegas, NV. She specializes in functional movement enhancement for all levels, sports conditioning, pre/post natal, weight loss, and endurance training.

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What it Takes to Become a Collegiate Strength & Conditioning Coach

Starting out in fitness, my original intent was to work as a personal trainer. However, early on I became aware of the emerging profession of strength and conditioning coaching. Since I had played college football and had always been interested in sports, it seemed like the perfect job for me. That was 26 years ago. I am now completing my 21st year as a college-level strength and conditioning coach, and I still wake up excited about work every day. I love the competition, and I love enhancing athletic performance and reducing the chance for injury in my athletes.

So, what challenges will you face as you try to land your first position as a strength and conditioning coach at a college or university?

Fierce Competition

It can be extremely competitive to secure a coaching position. In the US, there are 120 Division I athletic programs and 281 Division II athletic programs, and not all Division II schools have full-time strength and conditioning coaches. Though some of the larger DI schools have a staff of 8-10 assistant strength and conditioning coaches, most schools have a much smaller staff. At the DII level, most strength and conditioning programs include one full-time coach and occasionally one assistant. According to Curtis Lords, membership director at the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA), out of the association’s 32,000 members, fewer than 2,600 of them work as a collegiate strength and conditioning coach. Looking at that relatively small number of coaches from a national perspective, you can see how challenging it can be to get a foothold in the industry.

Tough Hiring Requirements

Education. Typical job listings for a college-level strength and conditioning coach require a B.A. degree in a related field such as exercise science or human performance, but a master's degree is always preferred. Having a master’s degree will often give you a significant advantage over those who do not have a post-graduate degree.

Experience. To separate yourself from the pack, having practical experience – preferably in a collegiate strength and conditioning program – is a big plus. You can get this experience working as a graduate assistant, a student assistant, or volunteering in a collegiate strength and conditioning program. While volunteering your time can be financially difficult, the experience can open doors for you that otherwise would not be open.

Aside from giving you the experience you need, working as an assistant or volunteer in a strength and conditioning program can position you as a great candidate if a paid, entry-level position opens up within the program. Further, while a position may not open in the facility where you are working, it is common practice for strength coaches to call each other when they have staff openings to see if they know of someone who might be qualified to fill the position. Representing yourself well and knowing the right people can be your ticket into that elusive first position.

Certifications. Having relevant professional certifications is the final critical requirement. While I’ve been asked many times what the “right” certifications are, the best way to determine this is to look at the qualifications most often required by those advertising an open position. By far and away the most common certification required is the Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) through the NSCA.

Additional Skills Required

Communication Skills. Coaching is teaching. You have to be able to teach skills to your athletes, and that requires communication.

Ability to Train Large Groups. Oftentimes at a university, you will be working with an entire team at the same time, rather than working one-on-one or with a small group. This can make it challenging to coach everyone effectively while still bringing out the best in each athlete.

Ability to Motivate. Participating in a strength and conditioning program requires hours and hours of hard work. Few people are self-motivated enough to be able to do that on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis without someone motivating them to push themselves at the intensity level necessary to be successful. It’s your job as a strength coach to provide that motivation.

Competitiveness. As a collegiate strength and conditioning coach, you work with a group of coaches and athletes toward a common goal – to win games, races, conferences, championships. Individually, you are competing against the other school’s strength coach to see who can better prepare athletes for competition. I don’t know any good strength coaches that like to lose.

Ability to Collaborate and Compromise. In a university setting, you are, in effect, an assistant coach for each of the teams that you work with. That means that the head sports coach of each team you work with has the final word on all aspects on what goes on with his or her team, including all physical training activities. While most coaches take a hands-off approach and allow you to do your job, some coaches want to take a more active role in this area. This means that you have to explain your approach and educate the coach as to why you have the training program designed the way that you have. At that point, it is up to the coach if he or she wants to make any changes.

Ability to Deliver Results. A poor performance by the team can mean your job is in jeopardy. At times, the sports coach may be looking for someone to place blame on for a poor season and that blame may be placed on the strength and conditioning coach.

Do You Have What It Takes?

Becoming (and staying) a collegiate strength and conditioning coach is no easy task. However, working with the athletes and coaches toward a common goal is very rewarding, and I can say with complete sincerity that there is no other job I would prefer to be doing.

If this is the professional path you want to take as a fitness professional, get to work developing the education, experience, interpersonal skills, and connections you need to get your foot in the door. It takes patience and persistence, but will be well worth the effort.

Allen Hedrick is the head strength and conditioning coach at Colorado State University–Pueblo. He has been published numerous times on a variety of topics related to strength and conditioning, and has spoken at both national and international conferences and clinics.

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Social Media Tips For Fitness Professionals: January 2012

Here are the top 3 social media announcements for January 2012:

#1: Gamification Catching On

Check out this interesting graphic about the emerging importance of “gamification.” By using technology to provides your customers or clients with badges, rewards, prizes and points, you can vastly improve their interaction with your service or product.

I recently interviewed Benjamin Young, whose Nexercise app rewards fitness activities. And at Endurance Planet, users can log in, share their race story, and receive special points, awards and votes from sharing.

How can you gamify your business? Think about it.

#2: Facebook announces Sponsored Stories to show in News Feeds

Let’s say somebody likes your business Facebook page or interacts with a comment on your Facebook page

Did you know that you can start an ad in Facebook that will display that interaction to all that user’s friends? And now, Facebook is allowing that to show prominently in the News Feed.

I’ve personally been using this at http://www.facebook.com/triripped, and it works like a snowball...as more users like and comment, it shows up more and more on other users’ pages. I currently pay about .08 per click for this – basically a few bucks a day.

#3: Turn Your Gymgoers or Clients Into Social Media Promoters with Incentibox

At Incentibox, you can run contests in your gym or studio, or on your website, and give away special prizes and packages to folks who do the best promotion for your service online via Twitter, Facebook and other social media outlets.

Best of all, Incentibox is free! I recommend you check it out now, and experiment with a new campaign.

Do you have questions or feedback? Leave them below!

Ben Greenfield is a fitness business coach and the author of “Personal Trainers’ Guide to Earning Top Dollar.” Visit Ben's blog at http://www.trainfortopdollar.com.

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Lessons from Designing the Annette Lang Experience

I have officially been in the fitness industry since 1983. I say officially because I have been in the fitness business forever – it IS me. If I can help other trainers with anything, it is with this concept: really, truly developing the YOU in you to create a great experience for your clients.

Understanding “Experience”

I started hearing about “experience” a long time ago. The concept sounds so simple, yet it was so difficult to get my head around it – much less understand how to do it well! When I first met the man who is now my husband, he taught a class called Experience Design in the Industrial Design Department at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. I was amazed when he told me that people actually got paid to think about how I might “feel” when picking up a glass, and how that would influence the design of the glass.

Relating that to our work as personal trainers, when I look at two training sessions going on at the same time, I wonder: what is the difference in terms of the experience that each client is having? When I see trainers running in late or answering phone calls while the client is doing jump squats into step-ups, I can’t help but wonder…what is that client experiencing?

Developing a Professional Brand to Match the Experience

When I wanted to incorporate my own training business, I asked a consultant what slogan and logo I should use for my new business cards and website. He laughed! Then he said it didn’t work that way.

Instead, he asked me to start at the beginning and answer these questions:

Who is Annette Lang?
What do people see and feel when they see or interact with you?
What should someone expect when they work with you as a trainer/as a teacher?
What would your current clients say about you?

In terms of a slogan or logo, I told the consultant that I love to move, and feel that this is a basis of my personality and business: the positive connection between movement and physical and mental health. I thought my slogan could be “move more!” I played around with this idea, but after a few weeks of getting to know me better, the consultant pointed out that it was not consistent with my personality because I don’t force fitness on people. I help them when they are ready. The explanation mark was too harsh. My slogan became “move more…”. The “m” is not capitalized, and even the three dots are deliberate; they soften the message.

When it came to a logo, we decided that a bike made sense since I ride for transportation, and it implies activity and motivation. To give a feeling of movement, he suggested the hair flying back.

This sounds simple now but it was very difficult and time-consuming to really get specific and honest with myself. I have since had cards and other products designed with this bicycle and moving theme.

Living the Brand

That brings to mind another important component of experience – looking the part and maintaining consistency within the brand. I remember that as a new trainer I quickly got sick of walking around New York looking like a personal trainer – I wanted to look like a normal person. It didn’t take me long to realize that I was missing a huge marketing opportunity! Potential clients are all around us, and every interaction is a new opportunity. So I decided to be consistent in representing the experience I offered my clients. I made sure people saw my bike helmet with my logo. I walked around with a band around my neck, encouraging people to ask about exercise. I became the fitness person. This, of course, influenced my actual training sessions.

The experience our clients have is a compilation of everything – and I mean EVERYTHING – we offer! It is the way we speak to people, the tone of voice we use, the body language we project.

I remember how I used to be pretty severe in my response when a client would tell me on Monday that she didn’t run over the weekend. I would say something like “Oh, c’mon! You said you were going to run! What happened?” Then started thinking about what I learned in graduate school about how you have to accept people at wherever they are right now. So when a client said she didn’t run over the weekend as planned, I switched my response to things like “What do you think was the reason?” or “What do you think you could do next week to increase the chances of being successful?” Then I realized that even that was not really the best response for her or for me. Now when a client says she didn’t run over the weekend, I pause a second and ask, “How do you feel about that?” This is a profound difference! I have to keep checking to see where she is emotionally in terms of this behavior!

I invite you to start with this self-assessment as you start creating your own professional personal training experience.

Annette Lang has been in the health and fitness industry since 1983, working in sales, education, management and personal training. She is one of the most sought-after presenters at health and fitness conferences in the US and abroad and works as a personal trainer in New York City.

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Turn the Tables on Yourself this New Year

Here it comes…the New Year's phenomenon where everyone’s drive to get in shape takes over. Resolving to get rid of all their nasty overindulgent habits, people push “health” to the top of their priority list. This propels them to the gym eager to drive away those horrible unhealthy monsters that filled their last few months of life.

Yet, as many embark on their journey toward health, they are met with the realization they have no clue where to begin. So, they turn to a fitness professional for some much-needed guidance.

As fitness professionals, we know that this is the busiest time of year, met with a demand of long hours at the gym and multiple new client orientations. And, several months down the road, we also know that those long hours will dwindle and many of the highly motivated people we saw in January will begin to lose the luster and motivation that got them there to begin with. We then point the finger at the clients for losing that drive and falling back into the same old nasty habits.

This is where we can “turn the tables,” and point the finger some where else…maybe even ourselves!

As these new clients come to the gym with hopeful glee and determination to complete the task at hand, we have to meet that drive with our own professionalism and extra effort to meet their requests. Let’s face it, at the beginning of the year, we trainers are motivated, too, and share that same level of energy. However, come March, where will all that energy go?

That may be easy to answer for the client, as they will have to change the very behaviors that got them to where they were at to begin with; but for you as the trainer, where did all your energy go?

It is here that we can recognize that we are just as responsible for keeping our clients motivated at the beginning and throughout the pursuit of their goals. How do we do that?

1. Set an Expectation!
No, not for your clients, I mean YOU! Set an expectation or standard you can maintain throughout the year. In addition to keeping your energy level up, you could set an expectation of to always be on time, complete better follow-ups, make extra effort in your program design, or reach out to your clients more often. Let your expectations for yourself be known in the client orientation. We expect nothing less than the best effort from our clients; don’t you think they expect the same of us?

2. Create a Motivating Environment!
Many of the determined clientele rushing through the door may be driven to change a behavior, but most often something extrinsic is encouraging them to be there. For example, an upcoming class reunion or a family vacation could be their extrinsic motivator. As Daniel Pink states in his book Drive, “…The problem with extrinsic rewards… the only destination that matters is that some people will choose the quickest route there even if it means taking the low road.” When it comes to exercise and health, you will often see this exhibited through a quick-fix diet, or taking some magic supplement pill. As a trainer, don’t let their restricted view limit your ability to create an environment where exercise is the “reward.”

Within the client orientation find out what motivates them. What is it that they enjoy, and what is the purpose of getting in shape beyond “looking like Pamela Anderson”? With answers like these, you can program your sessions around autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

Autonomy: You may have a goal for the client to complete a total-body metabolic workout for the day (which is a small task that must be accomplished multiple times to get them to their goal), but the client gets to choose HOW to get that total body metabolic workout. For example, their cup of tea might be a pool workout.
Mastery: Give clients a task they are somewhat successful at, but still haven’t mastered. This drives them to keep doing it in the pursuit of mastery. (This is a tricky thing…we can program for mastery infinitely.)
Purpose: Explain the reason behind the workout, but most importantly tie it to individual goals. Having a purpose is why people work hard in the first place.

By providing autonomy, mastery, and purpose in each session we are creating a motivating environment that encourages the client to keep coming back again and again.

So, before you throw in the towel on all the clients who will jump off the cliff without a parachute this January…Recognize that WE are the ones who need to provide that parachute if they are going to land safely!

Move More!

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From Resolution to Resolute…

Typically, there is nothing resolute about New Year’s resolutions. Many center on the topic of “exercising” or even “exercising more consistently.” But by February, resolution has become dissolution, what was hopeful has turned dreadful, and the promise of success has once again gone down in ball of flaming failure. So, how can we help these well-intended, potential exercise enthusiasts to get their resolutions to stick?

It’s a great question. And, if we can address it, we position ourselves to make a massive impact on society, the industry and our businesses.

You interested? Here’s the story…

Currently, the exercise recommendation for adults in the United States is 150 minutes of moderate activity or 75 minutes of vigorous activity per week. Interestingly enough, a recent study has noted that one of the major obstacles for participants adhering to an exercise program is the suggested time required to exercise. In other words, when people are asked to exercise for extended periods of time (i.e. following the “guidelines”) they are more likely to quit. Sound familiar?

In a new book entitled Engaging and Retaining Clients in Healthy Behaviour Change: A Guide to Motivation for Personal Trainers and Coaches, world-renowned Clinical Neuropsychologist, Dr. Roy Sugarman states that “People don’t mind change, they just hate being told to change” and also that people “need the reward of micro‐goal successes to avoid ambivalence about the big goals.” Simply put, people are more likely to change when they feel that they have a sense of control, can manage the process and see some quick “micro” results.

You’re thinking, “Yea, what’s your point…?”

Well, given the statistics, I would say we have a situation:

Globally:

1.6 billion people are overweight and/or obese.
60% of people worldwide do not get “sufficient” physical activity.
Less than 12% of people carry a gym membership.

In the US:

Nearly 70% of adults are overweight and/or obese (20% of children).
Less than 20% get the recommended amount of physical activity, while about 25% get no physical activity.
Less than 15% of the population belong to a gym.

I would further say that this situation is an inability to effectively alter the current behavior practices of people worldwide. All of the best “guidelines” in the world are useless if we can’t get people to follow them. People will not follow them just because we tell them to.

So what do we do?

Build a bridge! We “baby-step” people all the way to these guidelines. We must create a habit by instilling in people a ritualistic behavioral pattern. Dr. Sugarman says that by building out “micro-goals” (small, manageable goals that are not too far outside of a person’s comfort zone), we can help decrease the fear of the ultimate “big” goal (the overall result that can be very far from the current comfort zone).
Train the client, not the guideline. We must create a paradigm shift toward “exercise.” The guidelines say we have to do 150 minutes of exercise (big goal). The client’s response is a fear-based “What?!?” To people familiar with physical activity, these guidelines aren’t so bad. However, to the more than 4.2 billion people worldwide who do not achieve sufficient activity, these guidelines are a mountain. What if we set the “big-goal” guidelines aside for the moment and create some “micro-goal” guidelines. Instead of the 30 minutes of exercise 5 days per week minimum, what if we can get people to achieve a micro-goal of being physically active for 5-10 minutes 2-3 days per week?

Not buying it?

Try this… Go find someone who hates exercising. Tell them they need to exercise 30 minutes a day everyday of the week and see what their response is. Now, ask them if they would be willing to spend 5-10 minutes 2-3 days per week doing some simple movements…Was there a difference in their response?
Emotionally charge people! We need to do a better job of matching a person’s exercise with their personality and behavioral patterns. Give them activities that they enjoy, not what a book or video or the latest guru says is “best.” Train the client, not the guideline.

If we truly desire to enhance the current level of well-being in our businesses, our clients, our industry and in our society, we must address and influence the behavioral practices of each person. To effectively accomplish this task, we need to train the client, not the guideline. Creating a better, easier and more manageable experience will go a long way to establishing practices that are holistically healthier.

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Do You Feel Like a Fitness Fraud?

I often visit the website of Craig Harper, a really good mate of mine. Craig is a prolific author, television/radio personality, successful fitness studio owner and sensationally successful international speaker. I enjoy his posts because they’re to the point, insightful and often quite funny.

In one of his posts, “Feeling Like a Fake,” he begins by saying, “Put up your hand if you ever feel like a fraud. A fake? A phony? A pretender? Me too. Even in the middle of some (relative) success, I have often felt not ‘something’ enough. Not smart enough. Qualified enough. Experienced enough. Lean enough. Young enough. Old enough. Funny enough. Academic enough. In short; not good enough.”

This post resonated with many people and inspired a long string of comments from readers because we all feel this way at some point.

It reminded me of another recent conversation I had with a trainer — an Ivy League-educated, highly accomplished genius who conceded to me that many of her accomplishments in the past have been driven by the need to prove her worth to others, driven by the fear that she will be found out, that she is a fraud.

This is a bit perplexing. A fraud practices deceit and trickery. When we feel like a fraud, who is it exactly that we’re deceiving? Is it other people? If so, what are the terms of the agreement with them that we are violating? Do we even know? How can we as fitness professionals, or as people, know who we are if we spend our time guessing who we are supposed to be?

If our motives lead us to do more in order to be accepted or make our inequities inconspicuous, are we human beings or human doings?

The truth is that none of us are as good or bad as we think we are. We can’t be completely objective, and always either over- or underestimate ourselves.

If we feel like we are a fraud it must be because we feel we are violating some rule that we are pretending to live by.

But who makes these rules? If they’re our own, we have the right to change them if they’re no longer serving us. If they’re someone else’s rules, what makes those rules so important that we need to live by them? What if we don’t live by someone else’s rules? What does that make us? And what does it make the other person if he or she imposes conditions on our worth, whether implicitly or explicitly?

For every book written on the subject of unlimited power and unstoppable momentum, the truth is that, like all resources, our energy does have limits. Where our attention goes, energy flows. If we spend our energy proving, justifying and analyzing, we’ll soon exhaust the creativity that could be otherwise allocated to learning, caring, coaching and…creating.

We don’t need to feel like frauds if we understand that we can create our own rules, but that only works if we have the courage to live by them.

When we are honest about what we want, why we want it, and whether we are willing to stick to our own set of rules and ideals, we never need to feel like a fraud.

The only trick is getting clear on what those ideals are. Beyond that, when we let go of the need for acceptance, the need to be right, and the need for perfectionism, we are free to grab onto something far more valuable: our freedom to be who we choose to be.

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