The 4 Skills Every Trainer Should be Dropping EVERYTHING to Learn Right Now
What would you do if someone gave you $2,000 right now to invest in your education as a personal trainer or fitness coach? $2000 is enough money to dial in some serious skills and take your career to the next level.
But where do you invest the time and money to learn? What skills actually make a difference? What education will even be useful when all is said and done?
I’m guessing if you’re like me, you’ve pulled the trigger on some education that you get excited about, learned but then never actually did anything about it.
So as someone who has picked the RIGHT educational programs and some of the WRONG ones, I’ll pretend you’re asking me what I would do with your $2k.
And NO I’m not just going to say “buy my course” because that would be the LAMEST blog post in history.
Assuming I can’t answer that way, I’ll tell you what I told everyone before I built my own course and certification program.
If you have $2000 to devote to growing your skillset, here are the 4 skills that will set you apart EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
1. A deep dive into FUNCTIONAL bio-mechanics
2. A movement screen (in all three planes of motion) that teaches you how to spot movement dysfunction effectively
3. A course or training on how to understand the 4 dominant communication styles and how to shift your style to meet your clients’ needs
4. A soft-tissue hands on training to help you learn how to release muscle tension and not have to rely on foam rollers to aid your clients
Let me share a bit of what these skills can unlock for you as a professional and how it can make a HUGE impact on your results.
1. Functional Bio-Mechanics.
Elite trainers don’t isolate muscle groups and focus there without integrating movement to be functional to how the athlete ACTUALLY plans to use his/her body. While clients still get stuck on “leg days” and “ads blast” programs, truly gifted coaches are so far beyond that. THIS is the future and the best trainers are focused on the human body as it works together. The best of the best think about the body as it was designed to move: a chain reaction. At the end of the day they know the clients that pay the most and are the most rewarding to work with care more about how their body performs than just how they look naked.
Benefits: If you think holistically about the body and consider it’s whole before programming for its parts, your clients will unlock their potential in a way they have not with any other trainer. They may not know why, or how you did it, but they will sing your praises to their friends. They will say things like “you make me feel young again” or “I’ve never felt this good this consistently” and they will find a way to fit you into their busy lives. You will literally watch them cut out things in their budget to make room for paying you. It’s THAT powerful and unique.
2. 3D Movement Screen.
You will never go wrong investing in your ability to spot movement that is functional AND dysfunctional. This is so much more than spotting good or bad form. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about building the skills to watch someone with knee pain do a transverse plane lunge, seeing their foot rotate with their lunge and knowing EXACTLY what that dysfunction means to that athlete. Spotting the foot shifting its position, could allow you to recognize the culprit for low back pain, or a weak pelvic floor. Learn how to spot function and dysfunction and how to use it as a clue for something bigger. Be a risk assessor who can pin point where that athlete will run into trouble BEFORE you start training them.
Benefits: If you want to be someone who your clients think is a magician and whose work is “magic” investing in your ability to spot function and dysfunction is what you want to do. If you can train your eyes to see what the client doesn’t even know they’re doing, you’ll be able to identify what future problems or past issues they’ve had without them telling you. It’ll be like voodoo to them, but the kind that they can’t help but pull out their wallet to get more. Outside of the money you can make from educating and informing clients on how they are unique and what their individual risk level is, you’ll be able to set them up for success BEFORE they do a single workout with you. This helps safeguard them from injury and helps you establish expectations that build trust with you.
3. Dominant Communication Style.
Everyone has a default communication style that comes so naturally to them, it is the filter through which they decide who to like, who to trust and what information compels them to act. Basically, it’s super important. But one of the biggest “ah-ha” moments in my career came when I realized that it’s not good enough to explain exercises, concepts or even try to motivate clients in the way I would like it. I like TONS of detail and information, but plenty of people only care about the bottomline and what they get out of it. So investing in the skills to spot someone’s communication style and instantly start shifting your own style to meet their needs, will have a profound affect on your ability to connect and inspire someone.
Benefit: We’ve heard it before but people buy on emotion. If you can trigger them to have an emotional response to that you are offering, they will join 10 out of 10 times. People pay to feel heard, seen and important. This is priceless. Knowing how to adjust your style to better connect and communicate with someone who isn’t exactly like you allows you to create a more meaningful experience with someone. Train your whole team to do this and that’s how you build a community that feels cultish and has absurd loyalty.
4. Soft Tissue Workshop.
Most of us love hands on learning environments. While there are plenty out there that are fun to go through, what are the workshops you will actually use? I share one of the best workshops I ever went to. It was entirely devoted to soft tissue work. I started to use it in my semi-private and exclusive sessions with clients and it was so powerful to combine hands on soft tissue work with intelligent exercise. I’m currently completing my Massage Therapy License because I’ve seen first hand how transformative it is to be able to use my hands to release muscle tension the foam roller can’t quite get to. It’s a rare thing for a trainer to be skilled enough to actually put their hands on a client and help facilitate tension release.
Benefits: People pay for value. They get the value of soft tissue work because buying an hour massage is something most people love doing. So if you create a workout experience that integrates some soft tissue work, they will assume it’s more expensive because the value is there. You will also get better results working with them this way and results of course are what we are all paid to get.
So there you have it. The 4 skills that I know will differentiate you from any of your competition. So few trainers are even thinking like this and that’s why less superior training programs are coming in and able to steal clients away.
Even though you probably don’t have someone giving you $2000 to put to education, I recommend you consider these 4 skills and start saving so that you end up with that amount ready and available to you to take action and start investing in the skillset you need to join the elite trainers helping elevate the fitness industry and teach clients what a skills trainer really looks like.
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