For a short overview of a healthier weight-loss program, “weight-loss” is intended to reduce the client’s entire body weight.
Furthermore, this bodyweight change readily and deliberately concentrates on losing body fat but, it can also unconsciously comprise muscle, protein and other bodily elements.
However, a personal trainer’s plan for weight loss should focus more than just a scale dropping process.
Eight ways that personal trainers should adapt to develop their client’s post-pandemic weight loss plans.
These ways are to navigate the weight loss planning of a client with motivation and purpose to achieve their goals for more lasting and sustainable results while keeping accountability of their individuality, resources, and background.
1. Address the Basic Weight Loss Hows and Whys
Before designing their plan, ensure to ask them the required primary set of questions to understand the client’s goals, habits, personality, and unique body type. Always try to make the client an engaged participant in preparing their program rather than just composing a plan based on numbers and expertise. It educates the client and builds an inherent motivation to achieve higher success rates in their weight loss journey.
2. Deploy the Beyond-Scope Areas
During the primary question prep, it will become clear about what areas of the client’s requirement go beyond your personal training scope. In such a case, it is advised to reach out to those relevant specialists when required, such as therapists, primary care physicians, or nutritionists.
3. Preparatory Analysis of Client’s Unique Body
It is crucial to recognise and access the client’s body, to formulate their body’s realistic objectives. For example,
- Do they have any impairments or injuries to oblige for?
- Before and after the pandemic, what was their body like?
- What do they have to say about their weight gain during and where it is visible?
- What is their aptitude concerning strength exercises?
- What is their fitness level concerning cardiovascular healt?
4. Consider the Weight Loss Basics
In addition to the weight loss workout tips suggested above, always ensure to keep the basics of weight loss on your list.
- They will require a caloric deficit to some degree.
- They need to go through a combination of strength and cardiovascular training.
- If strength gain and weight loss are simultaneous aims, make them do weight-bearing workouts around 3 times each week and cardio workouts nearly 2 days through the week.
- Alternatively, if strength maintenance and weight loss are their goals, create a plan with weight-bearing workouts around 2 times each week and cardio exercises equalizing 3-4 days per week.
5. Workout Options with Minimal Tools
Being stuck near/at home for such a long time, client’s may feel weak to lose weight. You can give them an option to utilize their home-like resources to do physical activities. Below are some of the homebody workout tools that can help.
- Steady furniture such as a table for squats or twist lunges.
- Weighted tools such as bags, books, and door stoppers which can help to do high reps.
- Accessories that increase vertical movements like a skipping rope and/or tools that increase sidelong movement like bands.
- Composite moves with more substantial furniture.
- Utilizing kitchen facades like ballet barres to make oneself steady and help in stretching.
- And some outdoors like steps, hills, and curbs.
6. Flexible Discipline
Gone are the days when working out at the exact time and place was a thing, so to maintain that discipline, especially in the initial stages, make workout windows for your clients where they are able to meet you online. Since we are living in a world of advanced technology, you can also record your curated workouts which they can access to while they exercise. Or you can also assemble personal training sessions for 20, 40, 60 or 90 minutes. With this routine, you can uphold the client’s discipline as well as allow flexibility. The idea is to be consistent at it and to do it correctly more often since firm benchmarks will not work out in today’s wellness world.
7. Enabling Energy Hacks
Since it’s not possible to coach and monitor them all the time your client spends on their weight loss, it’s best you teach them boundary-setting which is a worthy tool to help them save enough energy to put into their personal training sessions with you. You can measure their energy metric of a day by asking them a few questions, for instance, are they setting work parameters? Do they seriously practice a balanced nutrition at least 80% of the time? Have they set any parameters concerning technology intake? How is their self-dialogue before, amidst, and post exercise, are they unconsciously rebuking themselves for some reason? Is their sleeping cycle correct and sufficient? And lastly, are their workouts inspiring them or refilling their energy in any way?
Measure their energy score as 1 for tiring, 2 for neutral, and 3 for energizing. Have a detailed discussion with your clients on this and see how you can help them reduce their 1’s by all possible means
8. Program Analysis
Have these follow-up check in with your clients at least one a week if possible to analyse if they have lost their weight and how they feel about it? They can also have a body fat percentage scale which moves up and down during their weight loss journey through which you will have additional metrics to adjust their programs. You can also take them through the 5-questions survey, periodically.
Important Takeaways
There are many people that have put-on their weight unusual to their body’s normal comfort and functioning plus, “pandemic weight-losing” has been a very carelessly marketed notion in a vulnerable time like this. So personal trainers should now enable re-routing their clients weight-gain by also showing compassion during their client’s weight loss journey.
IFSI Institute located in Mumbai, Pune, and Goa offers integrated personal trainer courses like Diploma in Personal Trainer plus they also provide offline and online personal trainer certification. IFSI Institute grants one of the most extensive online fitness training courses in India with a complete personalized program that covers all the elements of fitness and training.
