In the realm of personal training, especially when working with special population clients, meticulous pre-screening, goal setting, and ongoing research constitute the bedrock of a successful fitness journey. Performing our due diligence before prescribing exercise is not just a best practice; it's a fundamental aspect of ensuring the safety, efficacy, and overall success of our programmes. With any client, the more information we can obtain, the greater the chances for success. This principle is heightened when working with special population clients, where overlooking any aspect becomes not only a missed opportunity for customisation but also a potential health and safety concern. In fact, neglecting to cover all areas before commencing exercise could compromise the well-being of our clients. This holistic approach, encompassing thorough pre-screening, strategic goal setting, and continuous research, is essential for personal trainers committed to crafting programmes that are not only effective but also tailored to the unique needs of special population clients. Let's explore deeper into these elements, fostering a training environment that prioritises individual well-being and inclusivity.
We will look at:
- a thorough pre-screen and client consultation
- goal setting
- research into any medical condition
- liaising with medical relevant medical professionals (where needed)
- health and fitness assessments (appropriately selected).
Many personal trainers underestimate the importance of the screening process. This is a vital step for all clients but particularly a special population client. We need to think long-term when starting out with a client and the more information we can get in the initial consultation, the more we can tailor the programme to their goals and needs, and the more we can build a strong foundation for a positive trainer-client relationship.
Let’s recap the key areas for this initial client consultation:
Find out your client’s emotional driver.
For a client to invest their hard-earned money in a personal trainer usually they have something driving them. It’s important for a trainer to find out the emotional driver – the real purpose of their training.
Some clients’ emotional drivers are quite obvious. For example, they are unable to see their children/grandchildren grow up unless lifestyle changes are made. However often a client will begin with a pretty general goal such as ‘improve fitness’, ‘get healthier’ or ‘trim up’, but if we dig a little deeper we can often find out that emotional driver which could be something like ‘to be able to take my children to the swimming pool without them feeling embarrassed’ or ‘live long and well enough to see my grandkids grow up’. A good way to find out their emotional driver is to use a technique called the 4 W’s:
- What
- Where
- Why
- When
Have a look at the following table that shows an example of a young male who feels insecure with how thin he is:
| Question | Example Answer |
|---|---|
| “What do you want to achieve by working with me?” | Put on weight and build muscle. |
| “Where, on the body, do you want to focus on?” | I’d really like to focus on chest, shoulders, and arms. |
| “Why those areas in particular?” | I feel quite scrawny in my upper body. I’m really self-conscious when I go to the beach with my mates. |
| “When would you like to see results by?” | I’d love to be able to see some noticeable results for the Rhythm and Vines festival in January |
It’s really important that if we are to dig a little deeper and find our client’s emotional driver then we need to ensure we’ve build some trust and rapport beforehand. Client’s will open up and share with you if they like and trust you.
Find out your client’s medical history
This is a crucial health and safety step for all clients but especially a special population client. Get as much information of them as possible about any condition/injury they have. This will provide a strong platform before you research the condition and liase with medical professionals later.
Find out your client’s exercise history
This will really help when designing your client’s programme. Your client’s goals will apply to the principle of Specificity, whereas their medical and exercise history will help you apply the principle of Individualisation. For example, you wouldn’t design an advanced split programme for the client above if he has never lifted weights before?
Obtaining sufficient information on their lifestyle
We all know that exercise is only one step in terms of holistic health, other information we should aim to obtain could be around:
- Nutritional habits
- Stress levels
- Sleep patterns
- Alcolhol/Drug consumption
- Availbility to train (how often, how long, what times)
- Potential barriers or obsticals
- Work
- Family
- Hobbies.
Build a Connection
Often trainers are so fixated on finding out all the technical information in order to design a specific and individualised programme, that they miss the opportunities to connect with their clients on a personal level. Remember the name of the job is Personal Training. Any opportunity to find out personal information about your client and find common ground is vital for the long-term client-trainer relationship.
Let’s look at goal setting from a special populations perspective. Given that a lot of clients who fall under this umbrella are new to exercise or haven’t trained in a long time, we should think about setting goals not only around outcome but also around process (e.g. attendance) and lifestyle.
Before we look deeper into process goals and lifestyle goals let have a refresher of the SMARTER acronym.
Click on each SMARTER goal to remind yourself what each represents.
Goals should be aligned with a clients’ wants and needs.
It's important these goals are able to be accurately measured to ensure that the client is heading in the right direction.
We want to set up our client for success. It’s vital that the goal isn’t set too loftily.
The goal should be important and meaningful to the client (e.g. if the client wanted to trim down in order to fit into a wedding dress, then the goal could be around dropping a dress size).
All goals should have a definitive time placed on it. Often this can be around the planned re-assessment date, which is ideally every 2 months.
As mentioned above, it is important that the client is reassessed at regular intervals in order to see if they have achieved the set goals.
If the goals are achieved, then it’s a great time to re-set/re-adjust goals. If they haven’t been achieved, then look at possible reasons why and make necessary adjustments to the programme.
It’s important that we set SMARTER goals for our special pops clients and evaluate and re-adjust at the re-test time. Given that a lot of special populations clients have a mixed relationship with exercise we need to think about the type of SMARTER goals we set. Outcome goals are great, but clients will not achieve them unless they follow the process and make lifestyle changes in the first instance. Let’s look at all three types of SMARTER goals and apply them to our case study.
- Outcome goals.
- Process goals.
- Lifestyle goals.
Outcome goals
Outcome goals are the ones we are most familiar with. They pertain to achieving a certain outcome around a client’s health and fitness levels. They often relate to the fitness testing results, although they involve other measurable variables such as dress/belt size, time to complete a run or performing a certain lift.
Process goals
Process goals are based around the process needed in order to achieve the outcome goals. They are often around attendance. So it could be exercise sessions per week/month, amount of kms run per week or group fitness sessions performed.
Lifestyle goals
A lifestyle goal focuses on an area outside of the gym. It’s great to factor in problematic aspects of a client’s health and setting a SMART goal around that. Lifestyle goals have a broad reach and can target areas such as:
- NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis), e.g. amount of daily steps
- Nutrition, e.g. takeaways, snacking, breakfast consumption etc
- Hydration, e.g. water intake
- Alcohol, e.g. amount of drinks per week
- Smoking
- Sleep Hygiene
Try it out
Click on the following heading, “Case Study: Franklin”, to expand a case study that you will use to complete the activity that follows.
Meet Franklin!
Franklin has come to see you in a Personal Training capacity. He wants to train with you twice a week for 45-minute sessions.
Franklin has not been feeling himself lately so, after being prompted by his wife, he went to his GP for a check-up. The results from the doctor alarmed him considerably.
Let’s have a look at the key information discovered during his check-up.
- Age: 56
- Height: 178cm
- Weight: 104.7kg
- Waist Girth (Navel Level): 112.7cm
- BMI: 33.0 (Obese category)
- Blood Pressure: 147/98 (Hypertensive)
- LDL Cholesterol: 165
Franklin has a high-stress corporate job in the CBD. He often performs 60-hour work weeks and has really let his health slip.
His way of managing his stress levels is to have a few drinks each night. He averages around 20 alcoholic beverages each week.
He doesn't have very healthy nutritional practices. He usually doesn't eat breakfast and has fast food (pizza, fried chicken) for lunch. His dinners typically consist of large portions of meat and minimal vegetables. He drinks a minimum of 4 coffees a day to get through the workday.
Franklin played rugby when he was at college and went to the gym during his university days but has primarily been sedentary since his early 20s.
He is married with two adult children and has a fair amount of disposable income.
Franklin is expecting his first grandchild in a few months. The doctor had warned him he may not be around to enjoy his grandchild if he continues with his current lifestyle. The GP doesn't want to put him on any blood pressure medication initially. He wants to see if he can turn things around by following an exercise routine and focusing on healthy lifestyle habits.
Franklin was a little shocked and greatly concerned at the findings. He is committed to focusing on his health and motivated to do whatever is necessary to turn things around.
We'll revisit Franklin and use this case study to perform practical activities throughout the content.
Even the most experienced trainers still need to be able to robustly research any medical condition that a client may have. There are so many different possible issues that a client may be suffering from, it is extremely important that you take the time to obtain as much information as possible in order to design a safe and effective exercise programme. Areas that we need to research include:
- What the condition is
- Typical characteristics of the condition
- Who is mainly affected by the condition
- Common symptoms of the condition
- Typical medications for the condition, does your client take these medications and what are the side effects
- How exercise can impact the condition, from both a risk and benefit point of view.
- Special considerations and contraindications for the condition.
The first port of call is a thorough discussion around the condition with your client. They should have a lot of information around it from their own individual perspective so getting as much information from them during the pre-screening process is a good way to form a foundation.
The next step would be to spend some time conducting your own research. This is often done online. It is important to note that when researching online you should use a reputable source, with so much information floating around online not all of it is sound. Google Scholar is an excellent tool when getting for a deeper understanding of information such as a medical condition and the effects of exercise.
Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine provided by Google that specifically focuses on academic and scholarly content. It was launched in 2004 and has since become a valuable tool for researchers, students, academics, health professionals/trainers and anyone interested in accessing scholarly literature. Google Scholar is distinct from the regular Google search engine in that it is designed to index and retrieve scholarly articles, books, conference papers, theses, patents, and more. Many scholarly articles are free of charge, whereas some require payment, and you will only see the abstract (a short summary of the key findings).
Google Scholar serves several key purposes:
- Academic Research: Google Scholar helps you discover academic resources related to their areas of interest. It offers a vast database of scholarly materials, making it an indispensable tool for academic investigations and literature reviews.
- Access to Diverse Sources: You can access a wide range of scholarly sources, including articles from peer-reviewed journals, conference proceedings, books, theses, and dissertations. This diversity enables comprehensive research across various disciplines.
- Citation Tracking: Google Scholar allows you to track citations of their work and monitor the impact of their research.
- Keyword and Author Searches: You can search for specific keywords, phrases, or authors within scholarly literature. This functionality makes it easy to find relevant materials quickly and efficiently.
- Free Access: While some scholarly databases and journals require subscriptions or payment, Google Scholar offers free access to a vast amount of academic content.
- User-Friendly Interface: Google Scholar's clean and user-friendly interface makes it accessible to those of you with varying levels of research experience. It provides a straightforward way to explore and retrieve scholarly content.
Google Scholar is a powerful and user-friendly search engine that can really assist personal trainers who have to deal with tricky medical conditions.
Click on the following document to view an example of a scholarly article on hypertension and exercise that could be used to help with exercise prescription.
Scholarly article: Exercise and Hypertension
To get more familiar with how to best use Google Scholar, navigate to your Nutrition Module and review the
recap the video "Navigating Google Scholar".
Right, time to apply what you have learned. Head to the Assessment 1A tab for a video and instructions on submitting your assessments.
The assessment guide video explains your assessment task, which requires you to use the information you have learned on this topic to help with your Special Pops client.
The video will explain the tasks you must complete for the assessment. Ensure you are prepared for this set of assessments by having a committed and available special populations client.
- Give an overview of your client
- Give a detailed explanation of your client’s condition, including common medications used
- Describe the impact of exercise for the client’s condition, both benefits and risks.
- Highlight any exercise considerations needed for your client and their condition.
- Conduct a pre-screen on your client
- Write a summary of your findings from the pre-screen
- Give details of the goals you have set with your client.
