Taking on New Clients

I’ve been working as a Personal Trainer for over two years now and in that time I’ve worked with more than 100 different clients, some just for the occasional session and some that have been with me for a significant period of time. After that length of time and with that many clients I consider myself quite experienced, I know there’s more out there for me to learn, but that’s the beauty of the way I work, I master my current level and then look for challenging exercises that can take me up to the next level. So far my methodology has worked well for me, I’ve received a lot of good feedback from a lot of satisfied clients.

Despite this, whenever I take on a new client I do have a few nerves. However I consider this to be the same as some actors must suffer on opening night, they know their lines but are fearful they may forget some or mess them up in front of the audience – I know my stuff but what if I get a blank when somebody asks me a question, or like a sportsman anxious before a big game or race – I’m usually able to combat pre-race nerves and I manage to do the same with a new client. I feel that the nerves are telling me that I really care about how my work comes across, I want to be successful by having my clients successfully reach their goals.

The way to ensure that my first session is a success is to make sure I’m properly prepared, I don’t have a stock session that I do for all comers, like some Personal Trainers do, I prefer to tailor each of my sessions to the specific requirements of each specific client. So I try to find out as much about the client before I take them on and then put a little thought into how I’m going to help them to achieve their goal. However it’s not always possible to get all the information before the first session, despite using a form asking various questions about a client’s fitness and previous injuries I’ll sometimes only find out about a previous injury during the session because the client forgot or didn’t consider it to be relevant.   

That first session then becomes the base as I find out what a client’s abilities and limitations are, what weight they can lift or push, how flexible they are, how fit they are and how capable they are with tools of instability. Occasionally I’ve made an assumption that a client is more able than they are, usually when they’ve already been using another Personal Trainer, but I just tone down the session if need be, other times their ability is pretty good for a beginner so I realise I can try some of the more intricate exercises in my repertoire. After that first session I’ll have a good idea of what we can do next time and start thinking about a plan to move that client forward in their training.

I like to keep things interesting for the client by mixing up the exercises across sessions and trying exercises that are new to them, but sometimes the client just isn’t ready for new but tricky exercises so I have to stick to more standardised solutions.

I’ve recently taken on a number of new clients and it’s been quite interesting trying out aspects of routines that are working for existing clients. The mix is good, some need more coaching than others, some need more pushing than others but all in all the feedback I’m getting is that the exercise routines I give them are fun and challenging.

If you read last week’s blog you’ll know that, last week, I pulled my lower back muscles lifting some rubble. It was really annoying, I couldn’t possibly have done that using weights, but in a different environment accidents happen. It’s meant very little exercise for me, in particular no running for more than a week (which I suppose can be counted as a blessing as it’s made me rest my knee niggle). It’s been pretty painful driving to clients but I’ve not yet had to cancel a session. True, I cannot demonstrate abs exercises but I can talk the clients through them. Thankfully in demonstrating kettlebell exercises I realised that they was actually helping to loosen up the back so I’ve been doing kettlebell exercises and some bicep, tricep and shoulder combination endurance lifting to keep me from losing all my muscle tone. No pure aerobic activity, though I did manage 20 minutes on my healthrider today, so I’ll be finding it tough when I get back to running (hopefully tomorrow, but I’m not counting on it).

Two of my marathon clients took part in half marathons over the last two weeks. Rich ran in Liverpool and managed 1:24:11 and Katy ran Wilmslow in 1:43:36. I know Katy was a little disappointed with her result but I pointed out that the temperature, whilst not baking, was significantly warmer than it had been for some time and that she was probably a little bit more dehydrated than she’d realised. It turns out that quite a few people found Wilmslow hard this year. I feel both Rich and Katy are on target for their marathon goals, at least Katy has done her Killer session, Rich is doing his next month.


Written by Roger Alsop
http://www.rogeralsop.co.uk/

Weight Loss

As a Personal Trainer many of the people I talk to, and a lot of my clients in particular, are interested in weight loss. But what are they really talking about? It’s often the case that trimming the body, getting rid of the overhanging belly or toning the bum are associated with weight loss. Numerous times I’ve been accosted by people telling me that they’ve been doing this and that and haven’t lost an ounce of weight. And why is that? Well read on, you may find out.

Firstly, we shouldn’t be talking about weight loss but a reduction in % body fat. It’s inevitable that when you start a new exercise regime your muscles are going to tone and there is going to be some increase in the size of your muscles. Don’t panic, you’re not going to turn into the incredible Hulk, unless of course you want to, but muscles that haven’t been worked before are going to grow in size with exercise (to further allay your fears, take a look at the picture of me in the blog about my gym, I think you’ll agree I look more like the incredible Sulk). As muscle weighs more than fat you could be losing body fat but gaining muscle, leaving you with no overall change in weight.

When starting out on an exercise regime you should look at the big picture, I always measure arms, chest, waist, hips and legs. You should also consider taking a before picture, to remind you what you used to look like whenever you think you’ve plateaued. At regular times you should get re-measured and take another snap. Naturally there is no problem with weighing yourself but take the other things into consideration too. In fact you can also get scales that can calculate a fat % too.

So how do you go about losing fat. Well, different people will swear by different diets, or long and slow exercise regimes or even using big weights to increase your metabolism and burn the calories. All of these methods can help but I prefer a more balanced approach, after all I’m a pretty balanced kind of guy.

The first thing I do when I meet a new client, as I’m measuring them up, is talk to them about their lifestyle. That includes things like, how often they exercise, what type of exercise they do, how often they eat, how much they eat, when they eat, what they eat, the same with respects to what they drink, what their work entails, what they do when they get home from work and how many hours sleep they get. That’s a lot of information to take in and the client may not always know all the answers, because they’ve not given it any thought. This enables me to build a picture of the client’s lifestyle and what needs to change. I discuss their motivation for making the change and what they’re prepared to do to achieve their goal.

From that information I’ll recommend certain changes and begin planning their exercise regime. I’ll motivate the client to achieve their goal but I’m not going to force them against their will, if I push them too far they won’t enjoy working out and it could put them off exercise for life, which isn’t going to achieve anything for anyone.

In my exercise routines I try to combine a number of principles; endurance, speed, strength, encouragement and nutrition. I like to mix my sessions around too, that way the client won’t get bored, though they do have to listen to my stories. I can pack a lot into an hour, as my clients would tell you, I even have one client who has a weekly 90 minute session, so imagine how much more I can pack into that. Obviously what I pack into sessions depends very much on the experience of the client. A number of my clients have been new to exercise so require more coaching and showing and this takes up some of the time of a session, which is probably a good thing as it gives them more rest between exercises. As they become fitter and more familiar with the exercises we can do more and therefore burn more calories. Naturally I’m constantly looking out for new exercises and will still throw in the odd newbie exercise, or combine exercises together to make things a little more interesting. Afterall variety not only keeps the client happy it makes me happy as I’m able to stretch the client’s boundaries. I also give advice about nutrition, which to my mind is not about cutting out food you love, it’s about cutting back on the things that are less healthy and portion size and the timings of when you eat. That’s why I recommend my own meal planning programme, it selects meals that you will like, in correct portion sizes and takes into account how long you have to prepare each meal (to find out more go to www.rogeralsop.co.uk/nutrition).

But when all is said and done there will be clients who are not completely happy with their weight reduction, they hear about the huge weight losses reported on programmes such as Strictly Come Dancing (not surprising as the celebrities are being paid to spend hours in a studio dancing and not eating too much, don’t get me wrong I’d happily spend 8 hours a day with a client, keeping them active and watching their diet and it would work and I’d be healthily paid, but it’s not really practical for my clients) or reading about these fantastic diets that help you to lose weight quickly (inevitably lots of people on those diets tend to put weight on quickly again after they’ve got bored of it). To me it’s about striking a balance between exercise and nutrition, which ultimately needs to fit into your lifestyle, and it will believe me, it does. Why might you fail to achieve your goal? Going completely against the meal plan and eating things that are not good for you, drinking too much alcohol, not exercising enough or effectively enough – but I’d soon know once we discuss your progress.

Now what’s been going on with me this week. Last week I told you I’d been to Edinburgh to pick up my previous life, which consisted of lots of boxes full of mine and Carole’s past as well as a couple of exercise machines and my bike. This week I’ve spent a lot of time moving stuff out of boxes and trying to find somewhere to put it in the house, but ultimately I think it’s time to declutter.

Having my Healthrider and rowing machine in my gym has changed my exercise regime a little and I now incorporate a 20 minute session on those machines. I brought my first Healthrider back in the mid 90’s and loved it for it’s overall muscle toning benefits and cardiovascular exercise, back then I used to do a 40 minute session every night and managed to break two machines within 9 months, for which the company replaced them, this ones much better, it’s still my 3^rd machine and it’s taken a battering off me for about 14 years and it’s still going strong (2 years of inactivity in an Edinburgh garage seem to have done it no harm and I’m already feeling the benefits of using it again). I used them every day Monday to Thursday and felt great afterwards, I felt so good I intended to use them on Friday too but following another session with Rich (in which we increased the quality element somewhat) on Thursday my legs were feeling a little tired on Friday so I just did a 4 mile run.

I was feeling so good I thought I’d look for a race, one that I could test myself against my peers. Ideally I would have like to have headed down to another part of my past and run for Herne Hill Harriers in the Surrey League Cross Country on Wimbledon Common, but I was conscious of trying to clear as many of the boxes as possible before Carole returned from San Francisco so decided against that (thankfully my team mates didn’t need me as they ran fantastically to record a huge winning margin). I looked at the Sandbach 10k taking place this coming weekend, but it was full, and the Congleton Half Marathon on Sunday but that was also full. Then Ray suggested the Parkrun, so that’s what I did.

It had been a wet and windy week and I knew it would be muddy at Pennington Flash but I wasn’t bothered about the time, I wanted to push myself and, to be quite frank, if you want a hard Parkrun I think you’ll be hard pushed to find many harder than Pennington Flash. Hard as it is it’s actually a really nice course and it’s a really friendly crowd who turn up, but I’ve said all that before so no point to keep reiterating it. It was so muddy they adjusted the course slightly, taking us away from the grass, which required a small jump over part of a gate (I haven’t run steeplechase since 1991, and that was a disaster, so that was a daunting prospect). I set off with intent and was soon away from the crowd, it wasn’t as windy or as muddy as I was expecting but I still managed to slip a couple of times and had a bit of bother slowing down for a tight downhill corner, though my jumps were good, all in all I had a good run finishing in 17:31, almost 3 minutes clear of 2^nd place. So I was happy with that, though having recorded my 5^th win at the venue I was starting to feel a bit greedy and thought I ought to give someone else a chance but then there have been 31 races so that makes 26 other chances. In fact Ray, who was watching with his son, Jake, Sharon, his wife, who was running, and I were discussing trying a few different Parkruns in the region, so we may well do that, though we’ve built up a relationship with Pennington Flash and Bill, the Event and Race Director, so we’ll always go back.

On Sunday it was the Chester Marathon, not only was Ray making his marathon debut but another of my Pennington Flash pals, Jeff Whittington, was also running. Ray finished in 3:49:35 (I go off gun times not chip times), a little off his goal of sub 3:30 but you just never know with the marathon. Jeff was also a little down on his best with 3:29:40 and there were others, I know, that were also slower than anticipated. Maybe it was the heat, it’s been a cold week so I went out for my 9 mile run in long sleeves and lycras and was sweating heavily within a couple of minutes, as the temperature had risen about 8 degrees C within a day. There will be other chances, in fact we start Ray’s recovery session and future planning this week.