I have been active most of my life. Sports and the gym have always been a part of my routine. Like most active people, I would consider exercise a form of self-care. While it may be self-care for those of us doing the exercising, what does it take for someone teaching us the exercises to maintain passion for doing so without losing the passion to also do it for themselves? Matt Edwards is going to tell us.
“Passions are the winds that fill the ship’s sails. And although they may cause its destruction, it could not proceed without them"
Voltaire, shortly before boarding the ill-fated clipper The Philosopher’s Smugulence, which, while sailing to the highly passionate and not overdressed islanders of French Polynesia, was swept up in a cyclone and thrown tragically into an active volcano.1
Hi, I'm Matt Edwards and I'm passionate about being a personal trainer.
I get very animated when I'm talking to people about it. I take it personally when things don't go well and I am hugely relieved and excited when my clients find success.
Writing this “Feynmansplanation” of personal training I started to wonder exactly how helpful it has been to be passionate about it.
"The road to success is paved with bitter disappointment", said someone in a book somewhere.
If it hurts you when things don't go how you want them to go, you're on to something. It shows you care.
All you need to be a good personal trainer is to care about your client's goals.
You might be good at working out and looking after your own fitness, but if it doesn't break your heart a little when a client doesn't meet their goal, pick something you do care about.
"Set SMART goals during your initial consultation!"
The Big, Useless Book Of Personal Training
I. The Medium.
So there I was, talking to my very first client in my very first consultation as a newly-self-employed personal trainer.
I wasn't nervous because, being relatively inexperienced, I thought I knew everything there was to know about being a personal trainer. I was fully qualified, after all.
It's really only after ten long years of constant learning, the insatiable search for what works and what doesn't, and the imperturbably patient spirit necessary to help other humans in any enterprise, that I have come to the conclusion that I know absolutely nothing and neither does anyone else.
Anyway, so there I was. Jen was a nurse whose sister trained at the gym I'd worked at, and had recommended me as someone who could help her with her weight loss goals.
We were sitting in Jen's living room chatting while her husband did yoga in the kitchen. I had the official "Lose Weight With ME2" consultation form balanced awkwardly on my lap, taking notes as we covered the basics.
Right. SMART goals. Specific, Measurable...Something Something Something...
"So what is it that you'd like to achieve working with me, Jen?"
"I'd just really like to feel, you know, a bit more comfy in myself."
Well that's not very specific, is it? It's got to be specific, it said so in my course manual. I mean, how do I measure that? "Oh great going Jen, you've improved self-comfy-ness by 1.6 Unicorns..." No, what I need to do is impose a corporate performance management system on you until you give in, and then you can tell me some other goal that's less important to you but more important to the system.
"OK, erm, is there a specific amount of weight you'd like to lose?"
"Not really, I just want to feel my best."
Great. Clearly my first client is Chaotic Evil and is refusing to buy into the system! Let's move on.
"Let's look at the nutrition side of things! What does a day of eating and drinking look like for you?"
"Well, I always have banana and peanut butter on toast for breakfast"
"Yum!"
"Yes, and then for lunch it depends on how things are going at work. A lot of the time I don't get the chance to eat and end up really hungry when I get home. I exist solely on coffee most of the time!"
"Right!"
Nodding seriously, scribbling furiously on form.
"Actually last night I held a séance and that always makes me crave chocolate."
:Scribble, scrib: “...whatnow?”
"Yes. I'm a Medium you see, and I always feel so drained after a séance that I need sugar! Normally in the form of a whole Toblerone."
"I used to be a medium you know, but then I switched protein powder so now I'm a large."
Guffaws of companionable laughter failed to materialise. I looked to the husband in the kitchen for some comradely joke-appreciation but he was busy examining his own navel in Downward Dog. I take this shit super seriously though, and I wasn't about to be defeated by the fact that I'd shown up to the consultation with a whole host of assumptions and illusions that were unhelpful at best.
I rallied.
"Right! OK, well, let's try to ensure that you're adequately nourished and hydrated before the, you know, the séance, and then you can tell me if it has any impact on the post-, erm, medium-ing chocolate cravings!"
"OK, sounds great!"
Phew.
Perhaps that was not the time to be setting SMART nutrition goals. It was instead the time for listening to the client, and not forcing my goals or anyone else's onto them. The client is always the foremost world expert in their own goals and preferences and they should be supported in their autonomy.
"Always ensure the client maintains perfect form during any exercise!"
The Big, Useless Book Of Personal Training
II. “Lift your sitting bones!”
What could possibly be more motivating to someone than having all forty eight technical points of their squats picked apart during their first training session?
Back straight! Chest Proud! Lead with the hips (whatever that means)! Knees behind the toes (what?)! Head and neck neutral! When it comes to exercise technique, I've learned that it's only necessary to work on one single point at a time and, unless something potentially dangerous is happening, find something nice to say about what the client is doing.
Make a big deal out of the small things because people like feeling that they are good at what they are doing.
"Lift your sitting bones!"
This hilarious instruction is a quote from a yoga video I saw years ago, and it exemplifies the need for you to use meaningful language in your coaching.
"Point your armpits at the sky!" was another one.
"Educate the client in building balanced, nutritious meals containing adequate macro and micronutrients!"
The Big, Useless Book Of Personal Training
III. Egg In A Waffle Hole.
No phrase in the field of nutrition, a field strewn with the abominable cowpats of marketing fads, diet trends, and snake oils has filled me with such dread. I saw it recently on a popular social media platform under a Meal Ideas hashtag.
There's something almost anti-cuisine about it. A nihilistic attempt to remove all the joy and nourishment from the wonderful art and ritual of feeding oneself and one's loved ones.
From the doom-laden title of the dish (which I vote to be used from now on to describe any cataclysm) to the absence of colour, even to the act of preparation itself, whereby one removes a section of waffle into which one then places a wobblingly underdone fried egg - all have coalesced into the creation of the very nadir of humanity's culinary depths.
Like most dire nutritional transgressions, from deep-fried Mars bars to the newish trend of inserting half a confectionary shop into a milkshake, I think it sounds kind of great. This may point to some unresolved self-destructive tendencies, but I might give it a go for Sunday breakfast the next time I have that particular day off, and will thus have adequate recovery/remorse time.
It's been a rough couple of years, let's face it.
I've been ‘Egg In A Waffle Hole’, we all have, at the utmost ends of our tethers. I'm still trying to figure out how to take positive steps in a world that has gone a bit ‘Egg In A Waffle Hole’, and having the chance to help others take those steps is why I do this job.
What I want to say is that, if such a meal truly exists, then it is possible that when someone seeks out my services as a personal trainer, their approach to nutrition might not benefit from me immediately pointing out the lack of vitamins and minerals, or the suggested inclusion of broccoli.
Instead, I wait for my client to ask me questions, and we start building a picture over time of what might constitute a healthy and enjoyable diet. From there, they can see what sort of changes they will be prepared to make. Ultimately though, if we want an Egg In A Waffle Hole, we should feel free to have it, free from guilt and self-recrimination.
As with the technical form points in exercises, nutritional changes should be approached from the standpoint of supporting the client's feelings of competence.
"Be a good role model! Let the client be guided by the absolute perfection that is your own flawless approach to exercise and nutrition!"
The Big, Useless Book Of Personal Training
IV. Ha!
Disordered eating is what got me into this job in the first place, and to pretend that I have always effortlessly maintained a disciplined approach to nutrition and exercise would miss an opportunity to relate to my clients. Plus, it would be a big fat lie.
I've always struggled with my weight. I still do. I go through phases of strictness and weight loss progress, as well as phases of "comfort eating" and weight gain. When I was 30 or thereabouts I wanted to lose weight in preparation for getting married.
I quit smoking, joined a gym, counted my calories and lost a ton of weight. The wedding came and the wedding went, and eventually so did the wife3.
What stuck however was one of the most important defining points of my life; people wanted to know how I managed to lose the weight, and they would seek out my expertise. People told me how well I'd done and how different I looked.
My self-esteem was established during this time. How I felt about myself was just a reflection of how I thought other people felt about me, so as I perceived their estimation of me to increase, so did my self-esteem increase. I recognised the importance of this, and decided that I would make it my job to help people get the same mental health benefits that I had gotten from getting in shape.
This was the single most pronounced way in which I'd ever felt a sense of positive relatedness to others.
V. Self-determination Theory
"Matt is the most fantastic and wonderful PT on the planet! My life just wouldn't be the same without him!"
A client, shortly before moving to a different part of the country. Forever.
These days, my clients come to my home to train. We talk about nutrition, listen to music, gossip and shoot the breeze as we find fun ways to improve their wellbeing.
But back when I worked in a gym trying to become the best personal trainer on the planet, I searched Google Scholar for what the world of psychology might have to say about motivation, and it was then that I was first introduced to 'models' of behaviour change and motivation such as Self-Determination Theory.
I could see straight away that this model could apply quite nicely to helping people get in shape or improve their wellbeing through exercise and nutrition. In Self-Determination Theory (SDT) there are three 'pillars' supporting a person's motivation to do something.
Autonomy is their sense that they are in control of what they're doing and the direction they're going.
Competence refers to the importance of feeling good at what they do. As soon as a client perceives they're not good at something they'll lose motivation.
Relatedness is someone's sense of how well they relate to others.
As a beginner, I found that SDT gave me a good initial framework for working with clients that did not have its basis in the corporate management-style performance improvement methods that might work well with robots, but which don't work quite so well with chaotic, wonderful, funny creatures like human beings.
Matt’s song choice
Matt’s song comes to us via a different medium than our normal Spotify tracks. Enjoy this 80’s inspired track that gets my “sitting bones” moving.
Jamais Encore by the Niamh Project
Follow your curiosity
Matt shares this fitness playlist with us, Scooby takes us on a fitness journey, as well as travel and other adventures on his channel.
Georgie Fear offers a fresh approach to nutrition in her book, Lean Habits for Lifelong Weight-loss: Mastering 4 Core Eating Behaviors to Stay Slim Forever. In her book we wont focus on quick fixes but we will focus on life changes.
Matt suggests taking a look at the Trans-theoretical model for anyone looking to level up their training for more output of motivation. This particular model provides insight to the various stages a person might go through to adopt healthy behaviours, and looks at the processes they go through to progress through the individual stages.
Matt took us on an entertaining roundabout journey, setting us up to learn that no matter what we’re taking on, it should start with a simple framework to fall back on in times of uncertainty. But most importantly, Matt shows us that a lot of times things don’t go to plan, and that is best to go with the flow and take things as they come.
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Enjoy the chaos,
Skyler
This never happened
A pun on my initials so weak that Jen’s cat, who up until then had been enjoying sniffing my ankles, fled out through the catflap into the garden, where it drowned itself in the birdbath in shared embarrassment
We're still good friends! She OK’d this joke!
Great article, very inspirational
You’re just plain cool, Matt. You’re a lover of souls. Thanks for the transparency and super good verbage. I am also a Health Coach for Optavia. But it’s an extension of our life passions, isn’t it? And it gets our sitting bones up and running. Cheers, Mate!