Volo Innovations

Two things that I feel are often not taught and that I talk about with every new trainer in our gym are absolutes and justifications. One, absolutes, you need to avoid the other, justifications, you need to be able to do no matter what.

At our personal training studio we do an active interview for new trainers, any prospective trainer, no matter how much experience they have, has to put one of the owners through a work out. We don't pretend to be someone we're not but we ask the trainer how they would modify an exercise for a person with a specific health consideration.

These questions are as much about finding out what the personal trainer knows but are also designed to see if they are an absolute type of trainer. An absolute trainer tends to say things like "the best exercise is" or "I like this exercise" or "you can't do that" all of which are absolute answers. An absolute leaves you no room to move or progress and they cause a client to think that there is only one answer to their problems.

In fitness there are not really any absolutes, more often we have recommendations and progressions to exercise, just because a person herniated a disk does not mean they can never do squats it may mean they need to build back up through a progression that is safe and right for them and their fitness level.

Trainer may take a different approach to the same problem and this leadsus to justification. A great trainer will always know why they have a client do an exercise, if you are asked why you are doing something from a client you better be able to answer it and make it relevant to the client.

Years ago I had a young female client that was dating a NHL hockey player and she came in one day and said she wants to stop doing squats.

I of course asked why and her reply was that her NHL boyfriend said that squats are for athletes and that they will make her butt bigger. I reminded her that she wanted to fit into a specific pair of jeans that had become baggy in the butt therefore squats are good because they will help create some muscle to fill out her pants. The real reason we did squats was she had a weakness in her hips that was causing a knee tracking issue and knee pain, so the weight was never going to get heavy, but by justifying it for her on her terms made it better than me having to stop doing squats with her and finding an alternative exercise.

How you run your fitness business is the same as how you train your clients, are you an absolute or a justification type business person? When you set an absolute you make it hard for you to adapt to the ever changing landscape of business. So I hope that you can decide on a course of action in your business, justify why you are doing the things that you are doing and know that things may change in the future and so may your business. Leave the door open to see where you might end up going next!