Since people frequently ask what they need to do to become a PT, I figure there should be a thread on what exactly PT's should be doing, and thus what they need to know in order to become a PT.
Anyone who's received an answer from me in their posts asking what they need to do to become a PT knows that I have relatively high standards on PT's, compared to what the actual legal requirements are to get the job. This is because there are plenty of people working as PT's who shouldn't be. One thing I won't be discussing in this thread is sales skills. While it's generally agreed in the fitness industry that to be a successful PT you need to be able to sell PT, I couldn't care less whether you make squillions or never make a dime as a PT. What I do care about is that whoever you train gets quality service. With PT's commonly charging $60-100+/hour, you'd best be giving a darn good service - it's only fair on your clients, and frankly, if the service you give is genuinely good service it will reflect better on you anyway.
Before even getting into the matter of actual trainer skills, the first step to being a good servant is professionalism, which you will be able to easily aspire towards in ANY industry (not just fitness) if you abide by punctuality, presentation and politeness. So make sure you're always on time, dress appropriately (usually there'll be a uniform involved), groom yourself, and assert some simple good manners.
Onto actual PT knowledge and skills.
Anatomy and physiology in the context of exercise:
This is the foundation of everything else you will learn, and I can't possibly flesh out the vast amounts of knowledge you'll need on this matter. But I'll categorise it into 2 general areas: A&P in relation to variable health concerns, and A&P in relation to general fitness.
You can know all the best exercise programs that are proven to be successful in normal trainees, and that'll serve you wonderfully....until you get a client who isn't normal. In fact, I would argue that most PT's will face more functionally abnormal people than normal people in their careers. Almost everyone has something wrong with their posture, for which you will need a rather direct understanding of origins and insertions of muscles onto skeletons, and an understanding of the roles different muscles play in different exercises/movements. You are also likely encounter people with muscle imbalances (which ties back in with posture), metabolic conditions such as Metabolic Syndrome and PCOS, cardiovascular concerns such as Hypertension, and respiratory concerns such as Asthma and COPD. It's important to understand when you can train someone and when you need to refer them onto an allied health professional. It is better to admit that you lack the skills or resources to deal with a certain type of client than to take their money anyway and hope you don't exascerbate things. But it is even better still to understand how exercise and different health concerns relate to each other, and to be able to train a client in a way that either improves their functional capacity, or at least does not make things worse. On this note, if someone comes to you wanting to train with a known medical condition, or 2+ risk factors for a medical condition, always get a medical clearance from their doctor (or appropriate allied health professional) before commencing training with them. It's better to risk losing a client by not training them when they're unhealthy than to put their health in further jeopardy.
A&P is often taught in systems - the skeletal system, the muscular system, the cardiovascular system, the respiratory system, the neurological system, the endocrine system, the digestive system, etc. Understanding the different systems in the context of exercise will allow you to understand how to train for different goals. You know what? There's a lot of PT's who don't have a firm enough grasp on how exercise interrelates with these systems to really be a service to their clients. If you want to be able to serve your clients appropriately, then you should learn about how the different systems adapt to different types of exercise. This is the basis of exercise programming.
Appraisals and Goal-setting:
PT's should be able to utilise the resources available to make relevant appraisals of fitness at the beginning and end of a program, and throughout the life of a program. The appraisal process should start with a health screening process to find out if your client has a disease/medical condition or if they are at risk of having one. Always respond to this appropriately by seeking medical clearance before training, or referring the client on to someone better equipped to deal with their conditions if need be.
The next step, if all is well, is to provide whatever functional or body composition analysis is appropriate to the client's needs. Many gyms have standardised fitness tests. It's of my opinion that this is not always appropriate, however people often come to the gym for similar reasons, so you may find yourself doing the same tests with many of your clients. At a minimum, you should check your clients' blood pressure at the start of a fitness test, unless they have provided you with a recent BP statement from a doctor...and even then, you should probably still check their BP. Furthermore, you should be ABLE to measure a person's blood pressure by sound using a sphygmomanometer (yes, that's a real word), as digital sphygmos aren't always reliable (in fact I've repeatedly found them to be up to 20points out, which on diastolic BP could be the difference between normality and moderate-to-severe hypertension).
You should be able to accurately measure a person's height, weight, girths and skinfolds. You should also be able to provide appropriate and relevant tests of performance-based fitness, such as VO2max, strength, speed, flexibility and endurance. Reread that sentence, and emphasise the words "appropriate" and "relevant." Not all performance-based fitness is important to every client. In fact, the average client probably isn't concerned with being the fastest sprinter in the world, or being able to squat 500kg, and so on. Furthermore, at various stages of adaptation, certain tests are inappropriate. A complete beginner who's never touched a barbell before shouldn't have their 1RM tested, however a test to see how much they can lift with good form (after you've gone to the trouble of teaching them how to perform the exercise) may be very appropriate for setting starting weights and goals. Likewise, a submaximal VO2max test may be far more appropriate for a beginner than a truly maximal test. Tests should be valid, reliable, repeatable and sensitive. That is, they should test what they claim to test, they should be accurate and consistent, they should be something that can be accurately repeated again in the future, and they should be sensitive to change (as well as sensitive to the client - getting someone to strip naked to test their weight may be the most accurate method, but it probably isn't sensitive to the client).
Knowing where the client is starting from - which is knowledge that you will acquire by providing fitness tests - will make you able to set specific, measurable goals. A good guide is to use SMART goals, ie goals that are Specific, Measurable, Action-oriented, Realistic, and Time/resource constrained. And it is an important skill to be able set such goals with your clients. Something ambiguous such as "I want to tone up and get fit" could be interpreted in thousands of different ways, and defining success would be very difficult.
Programming Prescription:
Once you've defined your client's current fitness, and set appropriate goals, it's time to organise a path to get them from A (where they are now) to B (where they want to be) in X amount of time. That means you're going to need exercise programming skills, which will be based on a broad knowledge of exercises and the functional anatomy related to the various movement patterns. People (especially guys) often go overboard on this when it comes to training their chest and biceps, and often fail to provide even half as much attention to the rest of the body. You should understand the concentric, eccentric and isometric functions of various muscles in various movement patterns. You should be able to use this knowledge to provide the best workout that the client can achieve within their training availability. Take into account that you will probably only work with clients for 30-60min at a time, once a week, on average. Of course the more contact time you can have with your clients the better, but recognising the limitations you have with someone, it's important to give the most efficient training they can receive in the context of what they have time for, what they can safely do and of course, what will lead towards their goals.
Just as fitness appraisals should be specific to the client's needs, actual programs should be specific to their needs. Likewise, nutrition should be looked at and modified appropriately. I'm not going to say that PT's should be able to give full dietary plans for their clients (although it would certainly be a bonus), but you should be able to provide appropriate general information and recommendations on what healthy nutrition entails, and how to tweak that to different fitness goals.
Technical Instruction:
If you can't get this right, there's no doubt in my mind that you're doing a disservice to your clients. Again, your A&P needs to be understood for this, however you don't need to give lectures on how muscles contract (unless your client wants to know). What you do need to do is understand how the body operates, and provide the direct instruction, imagery/cues and demonstrations necessary to get your clients doing the right thing in the gym. Something you'll hear a lot is that a PT should get a client to achieve things they wouldn't have been able to achieve on their own. Simply getting a client to perform a movement correctly is often making them achieve the otherwise unachievable. Not all PT's know how to teach good technique, because not all trainers even know what good technique is. Simply put, good technique is whatever technique provides the most benefits for the goal with the lowest risk of injury. The right squat for one person may be very different to the right squat for another. Arbitrary technique points such as "only go to 90 degrees" do not necessarily provide more benefit or lower risk, so it is important to understand the body's actual mechanics, rather than to rote-learn this.
It is important for a PT to regularly train in order to understand and remember what it's like to experience various exercises. In that vein, it's just as important that you train yourself correctly so that you can train others appropriately. When you know how it's supposed to happen, it's much easier to communicate this to your clients.
Motivation:
Normally I save the best 'til last. This is not the case here. Yes, it's good a PT to provide a client with motivation, but I belive that everything else I've written so far is more important. As I said from the start, I don't care about your financial success as a PT anywhere near as much as I care about your clients' wellbeing. This is where I see a lot of PT's really get it wrong, in my opinion. "It's all about confidence" and some motivational catchphrase about being motivational are the biggest points I ever hear from other PT's, or given as advice to PT's. This is focusing on getting people to pay you in the short term, not on how to be of service to them (which will probably result in much more return business). I'm not saying that a PT sholdn't be confident or motivational, however, only that confidence should come from knowledge rather than ignorance, and motivation should be used approriately.
It doesn't take much for a PT to be acutely motivational. "Come on, you can do it! Just 2 more reps!" There. Done. 10 words and your career's set...maybe. There is, of course, more to it than that. You don't want your client to come back for one more set, you want them to come back for the next 3 months. As I said earlier, getting a client to simply perform an exercise correctly is often making them work harder and more efficiently than they ever have before. Who cares if they could have squeezed out another couple reps, if it would be at sacrifice to their form? It's my opinion that there is a better alternative in the game of motivation than simply making a person feel they have to do more to achieve something. And that is to give appropriate praise for what they already are achieving, and to give positive reinforcement throughout the session.
When dealing with a brand new beginner, simply repeating basic technique points such as "keep your chest up, shoulders down" and congratulating them for things they're getting right (eg "good bar path") can be just as acutely motivating as demanding more work from them. But it can also be much more useful, leave them feeling successful at the end of the session, and probably reduce some DOMS over the next couple days. I definitely recommend avoiding a situation early on in training where the client needs you to spot them on anything. It's helpful for them to know that you're there if they need you, but they should be able to handle the actual weight on their own. Everything about training should be as positive an experience as possible - having some mean guy tell them to do more work when they're already struggling and making them too sore to walk the next day might be motivational to some people, but there's a lot of people who will absolutely be scared off from their PT and training in general if this is the case.
[more in next post...]
Anyone who's received an answer from me in their posts asking what they need to do to become a PT knows that I have relatively high standards on PT's, compared to what the actual legal requirements are to get the job. This is because there are plenty of people working as PT's who shouldn't be. One thing I won't be discussing in this thread is sales skills. While it's generally agreed in the fitness industry that to be a successful PT you need to be able to sell PT, I couldn't care less whether you make squillions or never make a dime as a PT. What I do care about is that whoever you train gets quality service. With PT's commonly charging $60-100+/hour, you'd best be giving a darn good service - it's only fair on your clients, and frankly, if the service you give is genuinely good service it will reflect better on you anyway.
Before even getting into the matter of actual trainer skills, the first step to being a good servant is professionalism, which you will be able to easily aspire towards in ANY industry (not just fitness) if you abide by punctuality, presentation and politeness. So make sure you're always on time, dress appropriately (usually there'll be a uniform involved), groom yourself, and assert some simple good manners.
Onto actual PT knowledge and skills.
Anatomy and physiology in the context of exercise:
This is the foundation of everything else you will learn, and I can't possibly flesh out the vast amounts of knowledge you'll need on this matter. But I'll categorise it into 2 general areas: A&P in relation to variable health concerns, and A&P in relation to general fitness.
You can know all the best exercise programs that are proven to be successful in normal trainees, and that'll serve you wonderfully....until you get a client who isn't normal. In fact, I would argue that most PT's will face more functionally abnormal people than normal people in their careers. Almost everyone has something wrong with their posture, for which you will need a rather direct understanding of origins and insertions of muscles onto skeletons, and an understanding of the roles different muscles play in different exercises/movements. You are also likely encounter people with muscle imbalances (which ties back in with posture), metabolic conditions such as Metabolic Syndrome and PCOS, cardiovascular concerns such as Hypertension, and respiratory concerns such as Asthma and COPD. It's important to understand when you can train someone and when you need to refer them onto an allied health professional. It is better to admit that you lack the skills or resources to deal with a certain type of client than to take their money anyway and hope you don't exascerbate things. But it is even better still to understand how exercise and different health concerns relate to each other, and to be able to train a client in a way that either improves their functional capacity, or at least does not make things worse. On this note, if someone comes to you wanting to train with a known medical condition, or 2+ risk factors for a medical condition, always get a medical clearance from their doctor (or appropriate allied health professional) before commencing training with them. It's better to risk losing a client by not training them when they're unhealthy than to put their health in further jeopardy.
A&P is often taught in systems - the skeletal system, the muscular system, the cardiovascular system, the respiratory system, the neurological system, the endocrine system, the digestive system, etc. Understanding the different systems in the context of exercise will allow you to understand how to train for different goals. You know what? There's a lot of PT's who don't have a firm enough grasp on how exercise interrelates with these systems to really be a service to their clients. If you want to be able to serve your clients appropriately, then you should learn about how the different systems adapt to different types of exercise. This is the basis of exercise programming.
Appraisals and Goal-setting:
PT's should be able to utilise the resources available to make relevant appraisals of fitness at the beginning and end of a program, and throughout the life of a program. The appraisal process should start with a health screening process to find out if your client has a disease/medical condition or if they are at risk of having one. Always respond to this appropriately by seeking medical clearance before training, or referring the client on to someone better equipped to deal with their conditions if need be.
The next step, if all is well, is to provide whatever functional or body composition analysis is appropriate to the client's needs. Many gyms have standardised fitness tests. It's of my opinion that this is not always appropriate, however people often come to the gym for similar reasons, so you may find yourself doing the same tests with many of your clients. At a minimum, you should check your clients' blood pressure at the start of a fitness test, unless they have provided you with a recent BP statement from a doctor...and even then, you should probably still check their BP. Furthermore, you should be ABLE to measure a person's blood pressure by sound using a sphygmomanometer (yes, that's a real word), as digital sphygmos aren't always reliable (in fact I've repeatedly found them to be up to 20points out, which on diastolic BP could be the difference between normality and moderate-to-severe hypertension).
You should be able to accurately measure a person's height, weight, girths and skinfolds. You should also be able to provide appropriate and relevant tests of performance-based fitness, such as VO2max, strength, speed, flexibility and endurance. Reread that sentence, and emphasise the words "appropriate" and "relevant." Not all performance-based fitness is important to every client. In fact, the average client probably isn't concerned with being the fastest sprinter in the world, or being able to squat 500kg, and so on. Furthermore, at various stages of adaptation, certain tests are inappropriate. A complete beginner who's never touched a barbell before shouldn't have their 1RM tested, however a test to see how much they can lift with good form (after you've gone to the trouble of teaching them how to perform the exercise) may be very appropriate for setting starting weights and goals. Likewise, a submaximal VO2max test may be far more appropriate for a beginner than a truly maximal test. Tests should be valid, reliable, repeatable and sensitive. That is, they should test what they claim to test, they should be accurate and consistent, they should be something that can be accurately repeated again in the future, and they should be sensitive to change (as well as sensitive to the client - getting someone to strip naked to test their weight may be the most accurate method, but it probably isn't sensitive to the client).
Knowing where the client is starting from - which is knowledge that you will acquire by providing fitness tests - will make you able to set specific, measurable goals. A good guide is to use SMART goals, ie goals that are Specific, Measurable, Action-oriented, Realistic, and Time/resource constrained. And it is an important skill to be able set such goals with your clients. Something ambiguous such as "I want to tone up and get fit" could be interpreted in thousands of different ways, and defining success would be very difficult.
Programming Prescription:
Once you've defined your client's current fitness, and set appropriate goals, it's time to organise a path to get them from A (where they are now) to B (where they want to be) in X amount of time. That means you're going to need exercise programming skills, which will be based on a broad knowledge of exercises and the functional anatomy related to the various movement patterns. People (especially guys) often go overboard on this when it comes to training their chest and biceps, and often fail to provide even half as much attention to the rest of the body. You should understand the concentric, eccentric and isometric functions of various muscles in various movement patterns. You should be able to use this knowledge to provide the best workout that the client can achieve within their training availability. Take into account that you will probably only work with clients for 30-60min at a time, once a week, on average. Of course the more contact time you can have with your clients the better, but recognising the limitations you have with someone, it's important to give the most efficient training they can receive in the context of what they have time for, what they can safely do and of course, what will lead towards their goals.
Just as fitness appraisals should be specific to the client's needs, actual programs should be specific to their needs. Likewise, nutrition should be looked at and modified appropriately. I'm not going to say that PT's should be able to give full dietary plans for their clients (although it would certainly be a bonus), but you should be able to provide appropriate general information and recommendations on what healthy nutrition entails, and how to tweak that to different fitness goals.
Technical Instruction:
If you can't get this right, there's no doubt in my mind that you're doing a disservice to your clients. Again, your A&P needs to be understood for this, however you don't need to give lectures on how muscles contract (unless your client wants to know). What you do need to do is understand how the body operates, and provide the direct instruction, imagery/cues and demonstrations necessary to get your clients doing the right thing in the gym. Something you'll hear a lot is that a PT should get a client to achieve things they wouldn't have been able to achieve on their own. Simply getting a client to perform a movement correctly is often making them achieve the otherwise unachievable. Not all PT's know how to teach good technique, because not all trainers even know what good technique is. Simply put, good technique is whatever technique provides the most benefits for the goal with the lowest risk of injury. The right squat for one person may be very different to the right squat for another. Arbitrary technique points such as "only go to 90 degrees" do not necessarily provide more benefit or lower risk, so it is important to understand the body's actual mechanics, rather than to rote-learn this.
It is important for a PT to regularly train in order to understand and remember what it's like to experience various exercises. In that vein, it's just as important that you train yourself correctly so that you can train others appropriately. When you know how it's supposed to happen, it's much easier to communicate this to your clients.
Motivation:
Normally I save the best 'til last. This is not the case here. Yes, it's good a PT to provide a client with motivation, but I belive that everything else I've written so far is more important. As I said from the start, I don't care about your financial success as a PT anywhere near as much as I care about your clients' wellbeing. This is where I see a lot of PT's really get it wrong, in my opinion. "It's all about confidence" and some motivational catchphrase about being motivational are the biggest points I ever hear from other PT's, or given as advice to PT's. This is focusing on getting people to pay you in the short term, not on how to be of service to them (which will probably result in much more return business). I'm not saying that a PT sholdn't be confident or motivational, however, only that confidence should come from knowledge rather than ignorance, and motivation should be used approriately.
It doesn't take much for a PT to be acutely motivational. "Come on, you can do it! Just 2 more reps!" There. Done. 10 words and your career's set...maybe. There is, of course, more to it than that. You don't want your client to come back for one more set, you want them to come back for the next 3 months. As I said earlier, getting a client to simply perform an exercise correctly is often making them work harder and more efficiently than they ever have before. Who cares if they could have squeezed out another couple reps, if it would be at sacrifice to their form? It's my opinion that there is a better alternative in the game of motivation than simply making a person feel they have to do more to achieve something. And that is to give appropriate praise for what they already are achieving, and to give positive reinforcement throughout the session.
When dealing with a brand new beginner, simply repeating basic technique points such as "keep your chest up, shoulders down" and congratulating them for things they're getting right (eg "good bar path") can be just as acutely motivating as demanding more work from them. But it can also be much more useful, leave them feeling successful at the end of the session, and probably reduce some DOMS over the next couple days. I definitely recommend avoiding a situation early on in training where the client needs you to spot them on anything. It's helpful for them to know that you're there if they need you, but they should be able to handle the actual weight on their own. Everything about training should be as positive an experience as possible - having some mean guy tell them to do more work when they're already struggling and making them too sore to walk the next day might be motivational to some people, but there's a lot of people who will absolutely be scared off from their PT and training in general if this is the case.
[more in next post...]