A personal trainer’s credo
1. Write programs for the client’s goals (not yours)
You may think it’s impressive to deadlift three times your body weight or look like He-Man, but not every client shares that aim. Some want to look good for a wedding. Others want to reduce chronic lower back pain. Some want to avoid pulling a hamstring that would wreck their recreational softball season. And some might simply want to grow a lumberjack beard. The list goes on. And yes, deadlifting often shows up in many of these plans.
Your job as a fitness professional is to design safe and effective programming that fits the person in front of you. It might sound obvious, but focusing on the client is a proven way to improve retention.
2. Actually do your job (coach!)
Some trainers are known as “clipboard cowboys”—glorified rep counters who don’t truly coach. At $70–$100 per hour, that’s not great value. The difference with great trainers is that they actually coach: they give feedback, make adjustments, and progress or regress exercises based on health and injury history, goals, and ability. In short, they care.
3. Being a hardo is lame
I don’t get the point of the nonstop tough-guy persona. It may work briefly, but most people don’t respond well to it. As strength coach Mike Boyle is quoted (or at least sounds like he would say): don’t be an asshole. Instead, focus on success with your clients—show them what they can do and guide them toward progress. Most people won’t walk in on day one and perform a pristine barbell back squat. If you insist on forcing it, you’ll fail and likely turn people off training.
That doesn’t mean you can’t use tougher movements later. But start with the right entry point for each exercise. A goblet squat is usually a better starting point for most trainees than a back squat, because it feels more natural and doable. The coach’s job is to ensure the right joints are working and loaded correctly, and that the client feels the right muscles firing. You don’t have to be hard to achieve that—you can coach in a way that’s accessible and focused on success.
4. Wash your shaker bottles (for the love of God)
Self-explanatory.
5. Practice what you preach
Call me crazy, but I like to try an exercise myself before putting it into a client’s program. I also tend to test concepts—like density sets, drop sets, 5/3/1, undulated periodization, rest-pause training, and other methods—before including them. How can I expect clients to buy in if I haven’t tried it myself? Integrity matters to me, and I don’t take it lightly. You shouldn’t either. If you ignore it, you’re likely to lose trust. Except for the haircut. Unless we’re talking about kipping pull-ups. That stuff’s dumb.
