TFP #8: It’s not me, it’s you
Trainers- No matter how experienced you are, no matter how many certs, no matter how many people you have served intelligently… there will be clients with whom you do not click.
I’ve had clients who were so brutal in their assessment of my performance that I thought about quitting.
If you train enough people it will happen to you. Here’s advice on how you can carry it.
Usually this happens when someone has
failed to see a result.
been hurt on your watch.
If they are not seeing a result remind them of the fact that there are 168 hours in a week and you seeing them at most 3 of those hours. What are they doing the other 165 hours?
And then you can give them an honest assessment of their effort (your call here).
If they get hurt- this one sucks. It’s going to happen. My best advice is to always have a reason to be doing every single exercise you are doing. Explain the reason. They will not be satisfied with your explanation. It will make you feel better though.
But also- your training. Shit happens. The best athletes get hurt all the time. Learn from it and move on.
Some more bullet points:
Don't take it personal.
If someone lashes out there is something else going on in their life. I’ve been angry at people in my life, I have never lashed out or put someone down to feel better. They are involving you in something you are not involved in.
Don’t respond in kind. You can acknowledge mistakes (I see now that programming you this way led to an injury, but my reasoning was xyz) but don’t tell them to screw. Stay professional. One person later apologized for his outburst.
Don’t let it affect your self esteem. This is hard. The best way to stay confident is to prepare, have a plan for the client, assess risk vs reward for every exercise. If they have a problem you can show them the receipts.
I’ve seen this happen to one of the top 3 trainers I ever worked with. He stood his ground, explained his rationale, didn’t cave when the client pressed him and then shrugged it off. I immediately backed him up after the client left. ‘You know more than she could ever, and you handled that really well,’ I said. Reminder- have your co-workers backs.
Stop training them the minute they give you insulting feedback. It’s not you, it’s not going to work, refund them and move on.
I had none of these complaints for about 11 years, then 4 or 5 of these complaints over a 3 year span. Killed my self esteem. Do I think it was related to me feeling depressed at the time (abusive relationship/divorce)? Yes. When someone really comes after you they are punching down. I can’t prove it, I just know it is true. If you’re a good trainer and this shit keeps happening you may be going through some stuff. Give yourself some self love, block out the haters, and then go out and really serve your good clients.
I’ll finish with a story. I had a client for a few years and the guy trained 3x’s a week. He was in his 70’s. He had zero balance (brain injury). He wanted to lift big weights but could not lift them for anything close to a solid range of motion (I’m talking chest presses that were still 12” plus away from his chest at the bottom). He had no personality and wouldn’t respond or joke around with me. He answered questions with a yes, no, or a shrug.
I informed him he was up to renew his package.
He responded that I was really expensive and not challenging him enough. I was doing the same exercises again and again, and not progressing the weights.
I informed him politely that he was in his 70’s with zero balance. Many exercises are off the list right there. I told him if he lifted the weights I gave him for a complete range of motion then I would consider upping the weights, but so far he had not. I thought it may be better to decrease his weights further. I then said it was a pleasure to train with him (it wasn’t) and that I would train him the remainder of the month for free if he liked (about 5 sessions).
I shouldn’t have done that.
He responded with a very direct insult. Had I been a little older I may have asked him what was really going wrong.
I wrote back and said it was a pleasure training with him but I would not stand for the insult. I referred him to another trainer.
He apologized and asked to continue training. I told him flatly no.
He never returned the other trainer’s calls and left the gym.
That’s how it happened. It’ll happen to you. Stay prepped, serve with a smile, take care of yourself and don’t take any shit from asshole clients.
They are out there. Be ready.
