Bringing out your best

“Your training is not only hard but you push people to be better, I have never seen that before in a trainer”-Dave Morgan

I am not sure if you know who Dave Morgan is, up until about 3 years ago I didn’t know who he was either!  Dave is one of the good guys, signing up for personal training to support his wife and give training another go, he was one of the unfortunate ones to come to me! OK, jokes jokes…

While training Dave today he made this quote and it really stuck to me, I have always brought the right attitude towards training with my clients as I truly believe that once you set foot inside the gym, your time is valuable and I need to mentally run at 100%.

I see great trainers giving great workouts, are the trainers pushing beyond their clients capability to make them ‘better’ or are they pushing their client to the capability they know their client can handle? Or worse-less than they can do?

Solutions are not always easy, it is just as challenging for a trainer as a client going through the workout! I have a list of how to effectively bring a better contraction during the workout and overall improve the clients efforts.

• Don’t be a number counter, first and foremost! Our bodies are not limited to a certain rep range, either high or low we will not be able to determine before the weight is lifted what number a client will be able to do.
• Utilize the clients range of motion, either a full range or short range constantly change the clients point of contraction, don’t stick to the mentality of half the effort-twice the results.
• Pay close attention to the contraction of the prime muscle you are aiming to break down, make sure that there is that extra squeeze and flex in the muscle, don’t let your client move the weight from A to B, make sure they pay close attention to the muscle at its highest point of contraction.
• Watch and see if a client is utilizing the negative portion of the lift, not just dropping the weight, the negative part should be a slower movement than the contraction, make sure that the client allows the muscle to come to its full stretched position before pushing the weight forward.
• Watch how your other muscles are contracting during a lift, are your stabilizer muscles contracting or holding the muscle in a prime mover spot? Your assisted muscles should not be taking the load of the weight or contraction, take pictures, videos and talk to your client, show your clients hands on how to do the movement, make sure they are paying attention to you.
• Eliminate a clients fear or heavy weight by adding confidence, ensure the client that you have control over the weight and you are paying attention, if you truly believe in a clients ability then they have no choice but to believe in themselves.
• Assist the client in a movement when form starts to break, teach a client to keep contracting the muscle and you will help with the weight portion of the lift, your body will start to adapt to a stronger physique to where they do not need as much assistance.  At that point, keep adding weight and reps.
• Train with intensity! Plain and simple!  Give your client all of what YOU have, do not expect them to encourage you to train them.