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Why Personal Trainers Make Great Coaches

Guest post by: Terri Levine

Article Overview: The perfect coach for the busy entrepreneur... your personal trainer who doubles as your life coach.

Why Personal Trainers Make Great Coaches

First, for those who don't understand, there are personal trainers and there are coaches and then there are life coaches. The first two are into your health and fitness and sporting success and the "life coach" is like a personal trainer for your life.

Many people don't understand the difference between a personal trainer and a "coach", and many think it is the same thing. Personal Trainers work one-on-one with their clients, and while some of them do come to your home, many work in gyms/health clubs. Personal Trainers work with individuals, providing structure to their workouts and developing programs best suited to their needs. Many also offer dietary advice. These are the hands-on trainers who ensure you know how to use the equipment correctly and what exercise routines best suit your fitness goals. Personal trainers motivate you to keep going when you can't be bothered. They can help you to achieve a greater level of fitness than you would on your own, with continued monitoring of your performance.

Fitness and sporting Coaches, on the other hand, take this one step further. These professionals assist with your workout plans, too, but they also consider your life and goals as a whole. When one of these Coaches designs a program, it can span months and even years, incorporating many aspects of your life, depending on your goals. They look at the broader picture. If you are a sportsperson or athlete, they blend all the elements together with the technical requirements of your chosen sport.

So for example, if you are a golfer, a personal trainer will ensure you exercise correctly to keep fit and motivate you to exercise, but a Coach will do this plus work on your stance and your swing. The Personal Trainer's "goal" is to keep you fit and healthy, but the Coach's goal is to make you a better golfer (and obviously, being fit and healthy is a major part of that).

So where does life coaching fit into the picture? Many sporting "coaches" are already life coaches in a way. They work with individuals or teams who are training for a purpose, but they also help to create healthy balances in their client's lives. Olympic athletes cannot train successfully to compete at this level if their personal life is a mess or disorganized. Their coach works with them to achieve more than just a gold medal.

There are millions of individuals in the world, however, who do not want a gold medal. They just want to lose weight and get fit and healthy and have someone help them maintain that. So they hire a Personal Trainer. Many of these clients also experience the same work/life balance issues and life challenges that we all experience, and often, it is the unbalanced, disorganized life that impacts negatively on motivation and performance. If part of your reasons for using a personal trainer was to conquer a stress problem, it would to an extent. However, if your personal life was a mess, and you fell into the excuse pattern that you were too busy to train, most personal trainers could not help you with that... unless they were also trained Life Coaches.

How many people join a gym, hire a personal trainer, and attend regularly with all the enthusiasm of a new hobbyist? Then, over the next few months, their attendance drops off, until they don't show up at all. Only a small percentage of gym and health/fitness club members ever reach their goals. The personal trainer/life coach can stop this cycle, resulting in permanent, positive changes for their clients.

Personal trainers all over the world are gaining life coaching qualifications to provide the extra service to their clients. The terms personal training and lifestyle management appear together more and more often and this makes perfect sense. It is a holistic approach. If you are going to turn your life around, get fit, lose weight, and enjoy better physical health, why not do things properly and address all the issues in your life? Why not address the issues that keep you stuck and interfere with your having a life that is well-balanced, healthy, happy and successful?

The personal trainer/life coach understands the challenge of fitting daily/weekly exercise into a busy schedule. With their extra skills, they are no longer merely interested in how many sit-ups you did and whether you did them correctly. They are interested in YOU and what is going on in your life. They no longer want to just get you fit and healthy, they want you to enjoy every aspect of your life to the fullest.

Nobody can deny that the way to "well-being" is by healthy living and regular exercise. Many business executives head for the gym and hire personal trainers because they lead sedentary lifestyles that are unhealthy. They know that stress and heart attacks go hand in hand with high-flying careers that require 365 days of long hours and hard slog. Unless they also look at their work/life issues, all the gym workouts in the world are not going to achieve what they truly desire - a healthy, happy, well-balanced and meaningful life.

With life coaching skills behind them, today's personal trainer can help you achieve work/life balance and motivate you to make positive changes in your life. They can help you over the hurdles you face in your private life and put a stop to procrastination and uncertainty. They can help you identify your goals in life and help you to work towards them WHILE helping you get slim and healthy. If you are at a crossroads in your life, there is no better person than a life coach to help you with the major decisions you need to make to proceed successfully. Many people who seek the services of a personal trainer may also desire a change of direction in other aspects of their lives. Until now, to get help with that they would also need to hire a separate life coach. How much simpler it becomes when your personal trainer doubles as both.

Today's coaching trained personal trainer knows the best way for you to achieve any goal is to be accountable for your own progress. As with the exercise equipment, he can't do the workout for you, but he can show you your options, demonstrate, and encourage you to try.

Life Coaching does for the 'life' what personal training does for the body. It fits in well with the personal trainer's desire to help people and gives them an extra opportunity to do the work they love and earn an income from it.

With Life coaching skills under their belt, a personal trainer can help his clients to become more responsible, boost their confidence and improve their self-beliefs. They can help their client overcome obstacles and assist them to make the changes they need to make to improve their lives - inside and outside of the gym.

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Article Tags: coach, coaching, life coach, personal trainer



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