One of the big differences between life/work coaching and personal training is how much subject-specific expertise the practitioner needs.
As a coach there’s a huge emphasis on asking questions but leaving the decisions on what to do firmly in the client’s hands. This partly reflects the fact that in most cases the client will know their own business far better than the coach. But it’s also an important principle that people are more likely to act on ideas that they have come up with themselves than ones others have suggested.
As a personal trainer it’s up to my client to set the goals, and the coaches role is merely to help clarify and refine those. However, the PT has a much greater role in deciding what they need to do to achieve their goals. It’s the PT’s role to identify appropriate exercises, intensities and frequencies to move them towards the goals. This feels a really responsible job, because if I get it wrong they might make slower progress or, at worst, do damage to their bodies.
Reflecting on this took me back to a very interesting podcast from the related field of health coachingm, https://lnkd.in/eTgem5-n This conversation between Ana Paula Nacif and Christian van Nieuwerburgh emphasises importance of offering evidence-based good practice, but doing so in a way that gives the client agency over how to use it.
Their approach emphasises the importance of creating a partnership between the person making the changes and someone with expertise in what works to make those changes.
For me just now, making it a partnership means giving my clients choices about what works for them. The evidence makes clear that cardio is good for us. But my clients get to choose how they fit that into their lives. Choosing something that works for them makes them much more likely to stick to their programme. And when it comes to injury prevention, making it a partnership means taking time to equip them with checks for good form that they can use themselves, rather than being dependent on me standing over them to correct form.
But no talk about partnership takes away the fact that it’s my job to give the best advice I can. And if that sometimes feels like a daunting level of responsibility, I think it would be wrong to get too comfortable.
I hope that, as I build more and more experience as a PT, I continue to be mindful of the trust that my clients put in my hands and humble about recognising that there will always be more for me to learn.
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