Read any of my previous articles and you will discover that I don’t spend an inordinate amount of time telling you how to do a particular exercise or go into great details about workout programs.
Bodybuilding is not a cookie cutter approach. What may work for one individual, invariably might not work for the next. What I do however, and some may say it borders on the excessive is to detail, the desire, the motivation, and the willingness or lack thereof, why some are able to reach their fitness goals, while others are abject failures.
My job as a Certified Personal Trainer, if I take you on as a client, is to ensure that the goals we set are accomplished. When you hire me, you give me license to use whatever tools are at my disposal, to ensure that the objectives we are working towards are met.
Your reasons for deviating from the plan, while may be completely legitimate, are merely excuses to me. After an initial assessment, which consists of getting to know you, watching you perform a Push, Pull, and Overhead exercise, and the most important part, gathering information on what brought you to seek me out.
The latter is so crucial that the individual’s nebulous answer will dissuade me from working with them. I am not a babysitter, but more like a hired assassin, hellbent on completing what am I paid to do, at all cost.
One would say with such a discriminating attitude, you cannot have many clients. On the contrary the opposite is true. The people that I work with are busy professionals, who are accustomed to getting things done.
I don’t waste time with individuals that need me to motivate them. I have learned from experience that the litany of excuses for not making a scheduled session can be exhausting. What I look for is a hidden desire, which I can exploit, which will spur the client to be accountable to his or her goal.
Most of my clients are referrals. They are vetted because the person sending them to me knows my exacting standards, and risks condemnation if they were to send an individual, who did not meet my criteria.
On this occasion, the person referring the prospective client, although they knew of my demanding ways, reasoned that I, and I alone would be able to help this young lady.
I remember how adroitly she put forth the proposal . . .
“I need your help,” she said in earnest.
“With?”
“There is a young lady,” she sighed.
“What about her?”
“She is morbidly obese.”
“No different from any other.”
“Her parents are close friends of mine.”
“Doesn’t move the needle for me.”
“Will you at least meet her?”
“Why, by your intonation, she does not fit my criteria.”
“Perhaps she does.”
“I’m much too busy.”
“I never would have thought?”
“What?”
“An excuse coming from you?”
“No, merely stating facts. I have far too many clients.”
“Not like this one, you don’t.”
“How so?”
“Meet her. See if you can tell her no. I dare you . . .
B.M.Booth (NASM-CPT)
Strength & Vigour 