Keeping Long-Term Clients Engaged After All This Time.

If you’ve been training long enough, you have the clients who’ve got it figured out. They’ve gotten as strong as they’d like and have completed every workout you’ve thrown at them with perfect technique and optimal pace. They’ve gotten to the point where they can duplicate what you do during sessions on their off days when they hit the gym solo. Now, all this is great, but now the trainer is faced with a question that doesn’t have as quite an obvious solution as you may think.

How do we adjust sessions so that our now fully capable client doesn’t just become bored with the routines?

We all love to have clients that do everything right and can almost read our mind when it comes to weight, reps, and pairing exercises that may follow because, let’s be honest, it makes our job easier. It allows us to focus on other clients that are working out at the same time who may need the help with their lifts, and it gives us peace of mind that our student-to-master client won’t injure themselves due to incompetence. Some clients are just looking to come in and get an hour of exercise in a few times per week and really aren’t bother my doing similar workouts forever, they just want to get their heart rate up and get a good workout in. This article is not geared towards them.

So…. WHAT CHANGES NEED TO BE MADE?

Sure, it all depends, and yes, everyone is different, but I’m willing to bet 90% of your clients who fit the description laid out above will benefit from at least one, if not all these ideas. There are plenty of things you can do, but here are my 3 favorites.

·       Gadgets

o   Bands, chains, slingshots, boxes, balance-manipulating devices, and fat grips. My apologies to any mechanisms I left out, but please know I enjoy your workout enhancing properties just as much as those listed. What is so nice about the workout varying pieces of niche equipment is that it allows you to continue using the tried and true lifts and systems that have worked since the first piece of iron was lifted for more than one repetition. These devices command more recruitment of assisting muscles that you may not be using during your regular lifts and provide an additional challenge layer upon what your normal routine consists of. I’m not saying I use them EVERY time but adding them in forces your client to focus on something new and adapt to the extra challenge. The mental and physical adaptation is not only fulfilling but gives a sense of doing that little extra that others haven’t quite thought to do. Not that it’s a competition or anything……

·       Specificity

o   Very few clients that I have ever trained are ONLY into lifting weights. Most people have another activity that they participate in the can be enhanced with either weight training or controlled cardio. Hiking, golf, pick-up hoops, canoeing, swimming, and I could go on for a few more lines, but the point is any routine can be geared toward that activity. I’m not saying give up the bench press to focus strictly on golf maneuvers, but maybe substitute sets 7, 8, and 9 for something a little more sport specific. If they have been training with you this long, the strength they have gained from benching every other workout isn’t going to go anywhere as other assisting muscles are not being challenged.

·       Pace

o   Seems like the most obvious one, I know, but I think the pace of workouts can be lost on even the most veteran and diligent of trainers. The raise in level of intensity that is necessary to increase the pace of a workout is challenging to bring to the gym every day at every hour of the day. Monotony hits us all, in one way of another, and going through the motions is always something that we can be guilty of from time to time, especially when we are training someone who has become well versed in whatever style of working out we normally put forth. An injection of intensity, or even just a refocusing one the client’s goals can get the juices back flowing as they did when you guys first started training together.

I get it, maybe you’re reading this and saying “Not Me, I am always fresh, new, high energy, unique, and just the perfect trainer that has ever graced the Earth” …. Ok fine, but for everyone else out there, I hope this entry got your juices flowing about how to freshen up a workout for your wonderful clients who have been loyal to you since the beginning of your Personal Training career.

Garrett Theriot, C.S.C.S., CPT, GFS