5 Teaching Anchors of Personal Trainers Explained

John Izzo · 06-26-2006, 02:15 PM

For those of you aspiring to be a fitness trainer...or those of you who already are: This is an excerpt from my ebook. It identifies some factors that I believe are pertinet to a successful career in the fit biz. Love to hear your thoughts...enjoy!

Teaching Anchor #1:
“People that you share your company with become an extension of you.”

Clients become your representatives. Not in the notion that they will make the sale for you, but in the fact that they represent everything you know. You service them in order to accomplish a goal. That goal is facilitated through your knowledge, wisdom, expertise, and planning. If your client has attained a goal (fat loss, marathon completion, bigger bench, etc), then they accomplished it partially by what you taught them. They did this because every session, every set, and every rep you were there—encouraging, motivating, and understanding their struggle. Why do you understand their struggle? Because you represent this thing called fitness, and your goal is to continuously be a billboard of fitness for everyone to recognize. All that handwork that you put in…the working out, the studying, the seminars—that is your struggle.

Teaching Anchor #2
“You have to be in a position where you “service others”.

Gas attendants pump your gas, waiters take your food order, police protect you…How do you service others in personal training? You have to understand and accept the position of helping others for the betterment of others, and not for self-serving pleasure. Help someone achieve their goal because it is what they have struggled to do for years and with your help they accomplished it. Don’t view these successes as notches under your belt, but rather, as more and more experiences with the diversity of the human spirit. The human spirit can be strong, weak, sturdy, fragile, complicated, simple, driven, or misguided. You “give” yourself to improve your own spirit.

Teaching Anchor #3
“You have to have interaction to be an effective communicator”.

To be an effective communicator in personal training…and let me explain that: In order for your clients to perform the exercises you prescribe and execute them properly, you need to give them the

instructions effectively. The difference between you and the newest issue of a muscle magazine is you can provide auditory cues to your clients. A page in a magazine cannot. Remember you can’t communicate with some effectively if there is no interaction with the both of you. Sure, training someone one-on-one is a type of interaction, but not in the sense of being effective to convey your expertise. Usually, the clients you have really good relationships with are the ones they succeed. Why? Good communication not only provides effective instruction but also: support, rapport, openness, and caring.

Teaching Anchor #4
“Instruct…Inspire…Integrate.”

This is not PhD material. This is stuff I realized through the years. This is the stuff that made me successful—successful in terms of the number of my clients that reached their goals—not how much money I made. I tend to be like you…I am not in it for the money, but I know that if I want to keep doing this, I need to make money off of it.
Instructing is the skills you acquire through education, experience, or certification courses. These are the skills that your exercise programming originates from.
Inspiring is the subconscious technique of putting into action the first three teaching anchors: realizing that clients are representative of you (extensions), servicing others, and being an effective communicator. These are the skills not taught in certification courses.
Integrating yourself into your client’s life. I love trainers that start each sentence with, “I am going to have you do…”, ‘I want you to perform…”, and “We are going to get to this by…”. Do you see what I am talking about? Good trainers make the client’s goal—BOTH of their goals.

Teaching Anchor #5
“The client is your boss.”

Yes. It’s true. Good trainers realize this. You work for every client. They don’t work for you. Just as you can “fire” your client, they can also fire you. And if they fire you, it doesn’t make you look good and you run the risk of bad-mouthing, loss of referrals, and loss of income. If you understand and apply the first 4 Teaching Anchors, then this last one should not be a problem. If you accept that every client is your responsibility and that you have goals (deadlines), and if you are insubordinate (tardy, habitual calling out, lying, etc), you can be let go! It’s the trainers that don’t believe this (or don’t want to), they don’t last more than 6 months in the business.
Show them they that you are a responsible professional from day one. Show them that you are respected among your peers and fellow staff. Show them that you have accomplished a lot to earn their trust and business.

ryan122185 · 06-26-2006, 02:58 PM

John what are your big lift numbers

Lisa~ · 06-26-2006, 03:02 PM

Quote:

Clients become your representatives. Not in the notion that they will make the sale for you, but in the fact that they represent everything you know.

No they don't. They represent only those things which I've had the opportunity to teach them. And they often make a sale for me. Word of mouth is my best marketing.

Lisa

Jean-Paul · 06-26-2006, 03:11 PM

I think you just said what he said in a slightly different way. Word of mouth really is the best advertising, I have to agree.

Great excerpt, John. I like your training philosophy and agree with it wholeheartedly.

Ryan, you really want to know those numbers, don't you? I would just PM him directly if you are curious instead of hijacking his posts. I'm sure he'll share them with you.