Raising The Bar Athletics
My Experience
I began working at my local YMCA as a personal trainer during the summer of 2016 between my sophomore and junior year of college. I think it is interesting to note that before I started working this job at the YMCA, the job was not even posted. I wanted to work as a personal trainer so I went in to my local YMCA, asked to speak with the Health and Wellness Director, and proceeded to show her all the fitness programs and nutrition diets that I was capable of putting together for clients. She hired me on the spot.
I studied for and obtained my Certified Personal Trainer certification in October of 2015. I then worked as a freelance personal trainer creating fitness and nutrition plans as well as educational PDF documents for little money in order to obtain some experience. I used that experience to then secure myself a position at the YMCA as a personal trainer.
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In the beginning of my time at the YMCA I struggled with how to properly train clients. The structure of the training and the relationship between client and trainer was skewed. A member would walk in and I would try to sell them my services. They would buy 3-4 sessions for me to train them and after those 3-4 sessions was over we would go our separate ways. It didn't seem to me that the client was benefiting all that much from that type of traditional personal trainer experience. In light of that, I decided to develop a training program that focused on educating the client and giving the client the tools needed to be self-sufficient in health and wellness. I called this program Raising The Bar Athletics and I designed it the way a college science course is designed. You have a lecture portion and a lab portion. In the lecture portion I sat down with clients and broke down the way the body functioned anatomically and how understanding the manner in which muscles mechanically work in the body can help when deciding how to exercise that muscle. The other lecture portions were on nutrition and how to properly eat to achieve certain fitness goals. The lab portion, is as expected, when I would work with the client in the gym. However, these training sessions were not workout sessions. They were sessions designed to demonstrate what was taught in the lecture and to teach proper form. After those two parts of the program were complete I would do two training sessions where I took them through an intense and proper workout and gave them a personalized fitness and nutrition plan to follow. This program that I created and implemented turned out to be a great success and allowed me to help 10 clients reach their fitness goals in a short 3 month period.
Skills Learned
As a personal trainer it is of the utmost importance to have tact and interpersonal skills. Lets face it, no one really wants to share private information about their health habits, especially if they are self conscious. So, it is important to possess tact and interpersonal skills to make clients feel at ease and comfortable with telling you all the nitty gritty details you need to know in order to help that client. On the other hand, you could get a client who is really gung ho, ready to get after it, and open to share anything with you. So, it is also important to not only know how to handle different people but to know how to observe and assess when to act a certain way towards that person.
When broken down, a personal trainer is a type of teacher and the client is a type of student. The ability to teach and communicate complex information in an easy to understand way is imperative. This is an especially important skill to have in the fitness industry due to all the fads and trends that end up confusing people who need help. A personal trainer is an expert in that field and needs to pass on that knowledge effectively to their clients to properly deliver a high quality service.
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A personal trainer is a problem solver. Every client that seeks out a trainer is unique in their own way. Some clients already know a lot about health and wellness while others do not. All clients have different habits, needs, and goals. A personal trainer needs to be able to look at each individual client's unique situation and pull together all the facts to come to a conclusion on how to proceed from day 1 of training to the end goal of the client achieving their goal.
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In the end, a personal trainer is a leader helping each client develop action plans for them to achieve a S.M.A.R.T. goal by a deadline specified by the client. A personal trainer is there to advice and assist each client through out the process.
