Professional/Self Development The Future of Personal Training by John Berardi | Date Released : 06 Dec 2010 6 comments Print Close As it stands right now, we—as coaches and trainers—are not yet doing enough to help our clients achieve their goals and live better. We’re on the right path and while it’s important to recognize that, it’s time to turn our baby steps into long strides. In order to change our clients’ lives – to get consistent, dramatic, lasting results while giving them the tools to maintain that change and grow—we must alter our approach. And it starts with defining what we do. Despite what it says on our business cards, we are not “personal trainers.” No, you and I transform bodies. We use things like exercise and nutrition to change lives. And that truth is much more powerful. Think about the last time a client came to you… Did they want an exercise program? Chances are, the answer is no. Rarely does someone come in and say, “I’d like to do squats and push-ups.” Yet most trainers and coaches simply write a personalized training program and take their clients through a few workouts per week, even though it’s not what the client asked for. What 99% of clients want—and, if you listen closely, you’ll see it communicated every time they step through our front doors—is change. They want to change their bodies from its current state to the idealized version of the “perfect body” they have in their minds. And they’re asking for your help to do it. They don’t care how they get there as long as they get there. Think about the gravity of this request. Think about the trust they’re putting in you. Think about the pressure it puts on you to deliver that result—it’s enough to make any trainer nervous. But it shouldn’t. With the right tools and education, you can deliver that change. And you can do it with every single person who walks through your door. That’s the truth. But you can’t do it by focusing on just one aspect of body transformation. You can’t do it by defining yourself as a “personal trainer.” As someone who helps people exercise with good form. Rather, to create the most dramatic results, you need to help manage your clients’ exercise (when they’re with you), as well as their lives (when they’re not with you). Now let’s not be naive—exercise is a crucial component of body transformation. But what is your client doing the other 165 hours of the week? They’re eating. That’s why an exercise program is never enough to see real, honest-to-goodness body transformation. And that’s why knowing how to change the way your clients eat is the biggest advantage you can have as fitness professional. Trust me, in five years, knowing how to help change your clients’ eating habits will be what separates the “personal trainer” from the person who changes lives. And, simple as it may sound, if you want to be the latter, you have to stop thinking of yourself as a “personal trainer” and start thinking of yourself as a “body transformation specialist.” Or, more simply, as a “life changer.” The next step—is to learn how to coach nutrition. Why aren’t you coaching nutrition now? Let’s face it: most trainers don’t feel like they’re qualified to help their clients change their eating habits. Why? Well, here are the reasons most of them give: “I’m not a dietitian.” (Doesn’t matter—very few dietitians are trained in exercise nutrition anyway.) “It’s illegal to give nutrition advice.” (No, it’s not. You can’t do medical nutrition therapy, but you give advice to active, exercising people.) “That’s not my scope of practice.” (Well, why not? It certainly should be. And, in five years, it’ll have to be.) As you can see, these responses all limit your ability to adapt and grow as a professional. And, the body transformation industry is evolving so quickly that, in the near future, there won’t be a place for the current definition of “personal trainer.” Look how far Personal Training has come already… A few months ago I had dinner with a friend, a highly respected physical therapist. I won’t mention his name, but he’s basically “the guy” that introduced physical therapy techniques to the fitness industry. Because of his determination, and his techniques, trainers around the world now assess their clients’ needs with movement screens. And they keep their clients injury-free with corrective exercises. But it wasn’t always this way. About 10 years ago, movement screens and corrective exercise were considered “outside the scope” of personal training. Sound familiar? Back then, people were saying, “I’m not a physical therapist,” “It’s illegal to give physical therapy advice,” and “That’s not my scope of practice.” However, that’s old news. Because nowadays, if you’re not using corrective exercise and movement screening in your practice, you’re considered irrelevant—behind the times. So, what’s the next big thing in personal training? Of course, it’s nutrition coaching. Now, I’m not saying that personal trainers have to go to school for 10 years to become full-fledged masters of nutritional biochemistry. Quite the contrary. Nutritional biochemists are often ill-equipped to coach nutrition too. What I am saying is that if you hope to survive in the fitness world through the next five years, you’d better understand that nutrition coaching—the real world application of habit-based nutrition—is the “missing piece” in the body transformation puzzle. And that’s a topic that doesn’t require an RD or a PhD to master. But, I don’t think I know enough to do a good job. One less-commonly cited reason for not including nutrition in the personal training environment is the most honest one: “I just don’t think I know enough to do a good job.” I can identify with this because when I started out as a personal trainer, that’s exactly how I felt. And, 15 years ago, when I struck out to do something about it, there were only two options for learning more about nutrition. Option 1. Higher Education With this option, you devote your entire professional career to learning about nutrition. This means undergrad degrees, grad degrees, and attending countless seminars. Essentially, you devote 10 years of your life to becoming “the nutrition guru.” Of course, this is the route I chose. And while I wouldn’t change it for the world, let’s be honest, I spent over $100,000 in tuition and expenses, and 10 years of my life to achieve this. Not everyone is willing and/or able to go this route. Option 2. The Weekend Seminar The second option includes taking a weekend “nutrition certification course” and getting a rubber stamp of approval that, frankly, doesn’t mean anything. Sure, you’ve got the “nutrition” credential. But you don’t really feel you’ve learned much. Obviously, I think this option is a waste of time. It probably won’t make you a better “life changer.” And you’ll probably even be a little embarrassed showing off your weekend certification credential. Option 3. Complete Nutrition Education Programs Times have changed and the two options above are no longer the only pathways to build up a strong nutritional foundation. There are a few additional programs out there—complete nutrition education programs—that can help you take your nutritional knowledge to the next level. However, these programs are few and far between. So you have to keep your head up and look for programs that teach you how to work with real, live human beings. Humans who want to look better and feel better—who want to change their lives – but who also have loads of rationalizations and excuses preventing them from being able to change on their own. The good news is that they’re out there. And that these programs represent the future of personal training. The future of personal training has begun… One of the things I love about the fitness industry is that it’s still young. And with youth comes optimism and a passion for growth. That’s why I’m excited for the future of fitness. People become fitness pros because they truly want to make a positive difference in the lives of their clients. And, for me, I love that feeling too. I love helping my coaching clients. But it takes a complete effort to help them. Movement coaching, corrective exercise, proper programming, nutritional improvements and, if necessary, appropriate supplementation. Learning to add all these tools to your toolbox will help you make the transition from personal trainer to life changer. And, in the process, realize the career path you set out to join when you started helping people exercise in the first place. Back to top About the author: John Berardi Dr. John Berardi has been recognized as one of the top exercise nutrition experts in the world. His work has been published in numerous textbooks, peer-reviewed academic journals, and in countless popular exercise and nutrition books and magazines. Through his company, Precision Nutrition, Dr. Berardi has worked with over 60,000 clients in over 100 countries. These clients range from recreational exercisers all the way up to the athletic elite, including: The Cleveland Browns, The Toronto Maple Leafs, The Texas Longhorns, Canada’s Olympic Ski Teams, Canada’s Olympic Bobsleigh and Skeleton Racers, World Champion UFC Fighters, Canada’s Olympic Speed Skaters, and more. Dr. Berardi has also created the highly acclaimed Precision Nutrition Certification program, a sport and exercise nutrition mentorship program designed exclusively for elite fitness professionals. To learn more, visit Dr. Berardi’s web site and take his free “Essentials of Nutrition Coaching” video course. Full Author Details Related content Content from John Berardi Intermittent Fasting: What You Should Know John Berardi | Articles The Power of Influence: Strategies for Attracting New Clients, Better Retention & More Referrals John Berardi | Articles Becoming an Effective Fitness Coach, Part 3: The Exercise Myth John Berardi | Articles Becoming an Effective Fitness Coach, Part 2: Mentorship and Social Support John Berardi | Articles Becoming an Effective Fitness Coach, Part 1: Eight Lessons on Change John Berardi | Articles How Much Fat Should My Clients Be Losing? 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John Berardi | Articles The 3 Types of Clients and How To Coach Them John Berardi | Articles Why My PhD Was Almost Worthless John Berardi | Articles Top 7 Books for Becoming a Better Personal Trainer and Coach John Berardi | Articles 7 Personal Training Insights That Rocked My World John Berardi | Articles 10 Characteristics of the Best (and Worst) Trainers and Nutrition Coaches John Berardi | Articles Blood Type Diets John Berardi | Articles Nutrition Programs John Berardi | Articles Glycemic Index and Weight Loss John Berardi | Articles Dietary Acids and Bases John Berardi | Articles Revive Your Metabolism John Berardi | Articles The Future of Personal Training: What to Do When “Personal Training” Becomes Obsolete John Berardi | Articles Please login to leave a comment Comments (6) Berardi, John | 28 Dec 2010, 05:06 AM To Tiffany: that's a great question - and one I explore further in this free 5-day course for fitness pros - here: http://www.precisionnutrition.com/course-for-fitness-professionals. In the course, and in the follow-up certification program, I talk about how we often, as trainers, deepen our clients' resistance to change by the words we choose and how we say them to our clients. This was a tough lesson for me - but one of the most important of my career. I was deepening my client's resistance to change. Thereby LOWERING their compliance myself. Once I learned how to, as the authors of the awesome books Switch suggest, "motivate the elephant, direct the rider, and shape the path", my ability to help improve client compliance skyrocketed. And the best part, it became actually EASY to help clients improve compliance. I'll warn you - the stuff you'll learn is counter-intuitive at first. And it won't "feel" right because the fitness industry has been doing this incorrectly for YEARS. But, if you check out the resources I recommend, you'll quickly learn that there's another way - an EASIER way - to improve your clients' ability to follow the rules. Reply Fuentes, Tiffany | 23 Dec 2010, 12:27 PM Thank you for the article and postings. One component, I am just not sure is easy to grasp and master, regardless of what educational route we take as trainers. How do we achieve compliance? How do we get individuals to stop saying they are too busy throughout the day to eat every three hours? How do we get them to record what they eat, even if we have signed them up with a site that has comprehensive database for them to easily just plug in their meals? How do we help them to turn the stove on and boil some eggs or make food so they don't have to eat out throughout the day? Even if we have already given them recipes? How do we get them to regard themselves first over their work, so that they get up from the desk and fill their water bottle, again and again so they are properly hydrated throughout the day? This is my struggle. I have the information, and the communication, but WHAT ABOUT COMPLIANCE? Any thoughts? Reply Berardi, John | 10 Dec 2010, 18:23 PM To Jaimi: Thanks for the feedback. As far as your comment re: grad school or higher education, that wasn't my point at all. To quickly clarify, please re-read this passage. "Now, I’m not saying that personal trainers have to go to school for 10 years to become full-fledged masters of nutritional biochemistry. Quite the contrary. Nutritional biochemists are often ill-equipped to coach nutrition too." So the point of the article isn't that you have to go to school for a lot of years. Rather, you have to do SOMETHING to improve your skill set and to include a good understanding of nutrition coaching. Whether it's school, or certifications, or mentorships, whatever it takes to learn more and improve. Because doing NOTHING isn't an option if you want to be your best. Reply Berardi, John | 10 Dec 2010, 18:09 PM To Jordan: Thanks for the feedback. As far as your question, I've created a free 5 day course on the essentials of nutrition for elite fitness professionals. Here's the link. Check it out: http://www.precisionnutrition.com/course-for-fitness-professionals Reply Hunter, Jaimi | 10 Dec 2010, 17:15 PM I agree with alot of things said in this artical and also to survive, nutritional advice is essential. However i think it is a bit presumptious in the way it is categorising everyone that has not done a graduate degree in nutrirtion and spent fortunes on bits of what essentially is a bit of paper just like the weekend seminars, as being some how inferior. In my opinion the material and research paper is all out there and is easily accessable if you really want to be a good trainer and really want to get the basics on nutritional support for your clients it is there to find all you have to do is look. Reply Wright, Jordan | 10 Dec 2010, 11:59 AM I have to agree with John. I have worked hard with my clients to provide them with highly effective workouts and work within their limitations but nutrition is still something I am trying to become more educated on. John you made a good point about the "complete nutrition education programs" Was just wondering if you can shed some light on where to look for these programs and if there are some online versions. Reply Back to top