What makes a fitness client successful? In the past three years of working with people one-on-one and with groups, I’ve noticed some commonalities that my most successful clients share. They’ve adopted some specific behaviors and have been able to establish an appropriate mindset when it comes to training. They rise to the challenges that inevitably spring up in life and keep on going forward while others seem to fade away and lose sight of what initially brought them to training. I recently interviewed several clients to listen to their experiences in their own words. If you’ve ever struggled to maintain a fitness routine, take these experiences to heart. We can all learn about how to improve our training strategies by learning from the people who have found success.
Make a commitment
Catherine came to me a couple of years ago, wanting to get into a regular fitness routine. She quickly demonstrated her willingness to work hard and her strength gains were hard to miss. When Catherine doesn’t want to muster up the willpower to get up for her 6:00 amappointment, she does it anyway. She knows that the days she least wants to get out of bed are the exact days she needs to keep the appointment. After an hour of exercise it’s all too clear that establishing a regular fitness routine has been a great way to stay grounded when life gets busy, complicated, or challenging. When most people throw in the towel, Catherine forges ahead and puts in her best effort, keeping her appointments instead of canceling. It’s a little easier, she says, because I show up at her house, so there are fewer barriers to success. In her words: “it is a great start to my day. Jess kicks my rear in the nicest way possible.”
Anticipating obstacles and developing a plan to handle them is a key tenet of establishing and maintaining habits. Catherine has succeeded in making plans and sticking to them. The result: getting ridiculously strong, resilient, adaptable and capable. Replacing the 45 lb water jug at the office? No problem! Let Catherine do it. She could probably even carry that water jug in a suit and high heels. That’s practical strength.
Be accountable
Brian appeared to be an ideal client when we met for training. He was always ready on time, worked hard, asked great questions, and was sold on the value of training. But for many weeks, something was missing. Brian was unsuccessful at establishing an exercise routine outside of our sessions together. So, progress was slow. I helped him make plans, worked out strategies to help set aside the time, and did everything the coaching manuals told me to do. And at our next appointment, there were a million and one reasons why Brian was unable to practice on his own.
One day I asked him what would help him stick with his plan and he replied with a question. “Can I send you a text when I’m done with my workout?” I said, sure, anytime, that sounds great.
That week, Brian was 100% compliant with his plan and the success just cascaded from there. “I’ve now gone from zero workouts to working out three times a week and running on the off days. In just three weeks, I’m finding that I move so much easier and I feel so much stronger when I run. I also find myself paying attention to posture at my desk and just being mindful about all of the stuff that Jess is teaching me.” Last week, Brian texted me that his plantar fascitis seems to be gone and this week his text reported a faster running pace. He’s not only checking in but also reporting his observations about the benefits of training, thus reinforcing why he’s doing what he’s doing.
Trust the process
Girls more than boys are taught from an early age that there are lots of things they can’t do. When those girls grow up, it becomes pretty ingrained that we are weaker and less capable than men. So we are shuttled into things like yoga and barre and are encouraged to jog for fitness. They rarely find themselves joining a strength training class or braving it in the weight room. Both Amy and Tracy came to me as women who identified as runners and they both felt like active, outdoorsy people. We immediately connected.
Amy was dead-set on being able to do a pull-up, even though she hadn’t been able to do one in decades. And Tracy just wanted to be more well-rounded and better at running. Both of these women were clearly in need of strength training, even though they didn’t know it yet.
As we approached the pull-up bar, Amy had lots of fears and misgivings about her own abilities. There was a big “I can’t do this” attitude that we needed to push through. But with a steady progression of strength training and mindset coaching, Amy found that working with a trainer “helps you do things you didn’t think you could do.” And she feels “motivated, energized, like [she] accomplished something” after each session. Once she was able to get “I can’t” out of her head, so many doors were opened. Now she’s working on getting her first pistol squat.
Tracy was (and is) a trainer’s dream. She’s disciplined, committed, and does anything I ask her to do. But in the beginning she was very afraid of lifting weights. We started off really slowly with bodyweight exercise and just getting used to the fact that women can lift, too. She had a million questions and was really interested in doing everything perfectly. While this was great, to a point, that meant we spent more time talking than moving. She was not only lacking in strength, but also confidence. The good news is, training can improve both.
Through personal training, group classes, and lots of work on her own, Tracy blossomed into a lifting machine. She professed that she gained “confidence in [her] ability to grow stronger” and I couldn’t have said it better myself. Once she relaxed enough to trust me and trust the process, she was able to hammer out solid sets of push-ups, Turkish get-ups, swings, squats, and she’s >this< close to getting her first unassisted pull-up.
When I began working with Jess I presented myself as a runner who was getting injured more than I knew was right, and I…
Posted by Tracy Stuart Byers on Monday, August 24, 2015
See the big picture
Peg started training with me a little over two years ago, when my group classes were just getting started. Often she would be the only participant in my class. She had the usual complaints about getting older and experiencing chronic and debilitating psoas muscle pain. But, she was really curious about finding ways to feel better and made an early commitment to train once per week.
Over days, weeks, months and now years of training, Peg has realized that the effects of consistent training go far beyond the physical realm. “Training has had a huge impact on my mental health,” Peg reports. She has seen an increased ability to manage stress and cultivate better personal relationships as a result of attending group fitness classes. She has also noticed how cooperative games and partner exercise has made her long-time friends more empathetic, patient and able to work well with others.
Today, Peg is not only older and wiser, but stronger, more confident, and more mobile than ever before, and the debilitating pain is virtually gone. I can barely explain the directions for the next game or suite of movements and she’s climbing on the monkey bars or grabbing a partner to get a head start. She shows up to 2, maybe 3 classes each week and gives 100% effort every time. I’m thrilled to see Peg’s smiling face every week and to notice how much improvement she’s made through our training. She has remained a committed member of our group classes because of the impact that training has had in multiple areas of her life and because of how great she feels after class.
Have fun
Aaron has always had a passion for his hobbies, whether it was snowboarding, diving or climbing. However, finding an exercise program that got him excited was always a challenge. Over the years he has practiced karate, judo, and jiu-jitsu and tried to get into regular routines at the gym. But, none of it really stuck. After discovering outdoor movement training with Jess, things finally felt like they clicked. “For me it has just the right combination of the creativity and flow of snowboarding, the mobility of martial arts and the problem solving of climbing”.
His excitement is obvious once he’s given some freedom to practice a new skill or come up with a creative new combination of movements. He’s been attending our outdoor movement classes consistently since their inception. When his work schedule began to interfere with his ability to come to class, he had a conversation with his boss, re-prioritized and adjusted his schedule accordingly. Now he is able to attend two classes a week and he has been a part of all the “Train to Climb” classes in the past 2 1/2 years, climbing South Sister twice, Mt. St. Helens twice, and snowshoeing at Crater Lake twice.
According to Aaron, “Changing my mindset from ‘working out’ to playing has really transformed my relationship with exercise. Instead of counting reps I’m more like a kid that you have to drag off the playground at the end of the day.”
It’s not all just fun and games; Aaron also notes how applicable the training is to his daily life. “Whether I am helping a friend move an awkward washing machine or trying to keep my balance on a volcanic mountainside; the mobility, strength and balance I get from movement training serves me well.”