Truth be told I really shouldn’t be a Personal Trainer. I mean, I’m not perky, I won’t do giddy, and there are not enough stimulants in the world to make me overly enthusiastic about a 60 minute workout. I don’t want to scream and yell at people all day long. I refrain from shaming clients about their diets online and in person. And I absolutely refuse to high five anyone for doing anything that they should be doing anyways, regardless of whether they are inside or outside of the gym. I don’t care about “Booty Gains” and inspirational quotes attached to gym selfies make me nauseous. I don’t believe in forcing people to do “1 MORE REP!!!!” when it’s quite obvious that they should have stopped 5 reps earlier when their form began to look like shit. I can’t get behind man buns and I don’t support Intermittent Fasting. I don’t record my clients’ workouts in a diary nor do I care to find out what their PR’s are (Personal Records). Generic warm-ups on the treadmill bore me. Olympic Lifting for beginners scares me. And CrossFit……Well CrossFit just annoys me.
With that said, I am what I am. And my chosen profession is that of a Personal Trainer. However even though that might be my official title, by no means do I consider myself to be your typical Trainer. My methods for getting people in shape are atypical. The formulas I use in my nutritional plans to help people lose fat and build muscle are abnormal. And the ways in which I run our Personal Training Company are most certainly unique. For these reasons and more, there is nothing conventional about my services. Hence why I’ve given myself the title of “The Unconventional Trainer.”
Accountability – The Lost Art
It’s no secret that many people work with Personal Trainers to help keep them accountable with their training and hopefully with their diets as well. And I know for a fact that not a single one of our clients can state that we do not hold them accountable for their workouts or their nutritional plans. But we won’t get upset with them if they miss a session or cancel on us last minute. And if they decide to cheat on their diets, we won’t lecture them or lose any sleep over it either.
We’re not babysitters, we’re educators. We try to motivate and inspire others by promoting a healthy and fit lifestyle. We practice what we preach and we love what we do. We help people better themselves by helping them improve their bodies and by strengthening their minds.
So do we hold our clients accountable for their training? Considering that neither myself or anyone that has worked for/with me has ever once called in sick or cancelled a session within 24 hours notice, I would say you’re damn right we do!
Customer Appreciation – Does It Still Exist?
I’ve been working in the fitness industry for over two decades. I’ve ran my own company for the majority of that time. I’ve made lots of mistakes and I have learned lots of lessons along the way. Given the fact that I work in a highly competitive field, I feel very fortunate to have become so successful these past few years. I’m now in a place where I feel that I have aligned myself with the right people. I work alongside some pretty amazing trainers of whom I have the utmost of respect for. I’m grateful for the opportunities that I have been given and continue to receive from people who appreciate and support me.
My style of training might seem odd and my views on diet and nutrition might appear outrageous to many people. But they both have a track record for success and quite frankly, they work.
Our clients results speak for themselves. A referral from a satisfied client is the most powerful marketing tool that no amount of money could ever buy. We don’t record/”use” our clients while they are training with us on the floor in videos to help promote our services on our social media platforms. We respect our clients privacy and appreciate their business. I think this appreciation gets lost with many of our competitors as sometimes the owners don’t even know who their clients even are. Most trainers I’ve spoken to don’t even have a strategy to help their own clients achieve their target fitness goals. They just do what they’ve been told to do in some generic Personal Training course because “it’s the way that it’s always been done.”
Why Unconventional Works For Me
As all of our clients know, I don’t believe in following generic training programs or cookie cutter diet plans. When it comes to injuries and health issues, I don’t work around the numbers that are sent to me by a client’s doctor or physician. I work around the symptoms that my client is feeling and experiencing on each given day. There is no user manual for my job. What may have worked for one client will usually and most likely not work for the next. I treat our clients as individuals and don’t provide blanket statements to answer questions or solve problems. If I don’t know the answer, I don’t pretend that I do. I listen to my clients and learn from the feedback that they give me with regards to how they are feeling and how they are doing during their workouts and their day to day lives. If something is not working, then we change it. If what we’re doing in the gym and in the kitchen is working, then we leave it alone until we hit a plateau.
So if working against the grid and not always following the logical explanation makes me appear unprofessional, then I’m about as unprofessional as they come. And if refusing to believe that certain health issues are unfixable and are just future death sentences waiting to happen, makes me naive and delusional, then I probably am. But regardless of how unprofessional, naive and delusional I might be, I’m okay with it. After all, all great innovators are just a little crazy aren’t they?
“When all think alike, then no one is thinking”
Walter Lippman
Nick Cosgrove
Forever Fit Performance