#2 Successful Personal Trainers are Coaches.

Gone are the days when a personal trainer just gave workouts. The best trainers now seek to help clients achieve greater results by implementing a coaching relationship. Coaching begins by using Motivational Interviewing techniques that use open-ended questions to uncover a client’s beliefs and values and is a way to get your clients to create and sustain change. Coaches don’t tell a client what to do. They are a facilitator that allows the client to discover their own path of change. In other words, coaching gets them to come up with their own solutions. When the client comes up with the answers for what they need to do and are ready to do, they are more likely to follow through with those actions.

The coach helps clients clarify their goals and uncover past and potential future obstacles. The coach will then guide the client to come up with viable solutions, help them define action plans, and create a system of accountability.

A coach offers the client safe, open, and honest dialogue without judgment (something many people are missing in their lives), as well as ongoing support and encouragement. With the right guidance, you can help them to accomplish more than they believed possible.

Successful Personal Trainers utilize coaching techniques to get and keep their clients engaged in their programs. While some Trainers inherently use many of these skills, a formal training program will take you to the next level.

FYI: New York Times 2010 article Approach May Matter In Advice On Weight

Recognized Coaching certification organizations:
Wellcoaches (the Wellness Coach program I went through)
International Coach Academy
International Coach Federation (ICF)

A good resource to get started:
 Lifestyle Fitness Coaching

Check out the full series.
Top 10 Traits of Successful Personal Trainers #1
Top 10 Traits of Successful Personal Trainers #2
Top 10 Traits of Successful Personal Trainers #3
Top 10 Traits of Successful Personal Trainers #4
Top 10 Traits of Successful Personal Trainers #5
Top 10 Traits of Successful Personal Trainers #6
Top 10 Traits of Successful Personal Trainers #7
Top 10 Traits of Successful Personal Trainers #8
Top 10 Traits of Successful Personal Trainers #9
Top 10 Traits of Successful Personal Trainers #10

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