Trainers Feel It Too

After spending close to a year in the fitness industry as a coach, I am realizing that every trainer is dealing with something, and that seems off, or does it?

I’ve been around the gym for essentially all my life. Throughout my life, especially when I was younger, I would look at personal trainers like superhero’s. Maybe they couldn’t play basketball as well as I could (or maybe they could even better), but I also associated them with having a kink of armor.

Even as I got older and was in my adult years, I never correlated injury with them unless there was something noticeable like an arm splint or ankle brace. I was completely aware that everyone has their own battles that they are dealing with, however, it was quite the eye opener when these now colleagues/teammates would share their aches and pains. Seems like we are always going through something.

There were three main themes that I noticed when it came to what fellow trainers were dealing with. These are injuries/pains, rest/lack of sleep, and not working on personal fitness.

Injuries happen, and so does pain. And in almost every case, I believe pain is a good thing and there is growth to be had. Even at first if one isn’t completely aware of what good the pain is doing, I do believe there will be an underlying value in what this pain is bringing to light.

Again, injuries happen, and they usually stem from a lack of strength, mobility, stability, recovery, and other times there are just freak accidents. With the nature of the job of being a personal trainer, it is a very physical job. This leads to stress and can lead to injuries. The other, more impactful part of being a trainer is that we look to be our best ourselves and we do that through challenging ourselves. This leads to great results but can also lead to injury as we aim to set new PR’s and try out new moves and exercises, as well as hobbies.

All of this brings on a beat-up body that isn’t always seen by the members of the gym. Kudos to the trainers for hiding it, but maybe this can be a time to also voice that one is going through an injury and even members and clients can help with how trainings go.

This leads to a next step or lack thereof that usually ends up even prolonging the injury. This is a lack of rest/recovery. The day of a trainer/coach can be a wild day, and that’s a big part of the fun in it. Hours are scattered, the mornings are usually booked along with the evenings and naps in the middle of the day or a nice thought, though rarely happen. So now, trainers become sleep deprived. If there is one medicine, exercise, secret pill, magic, prescription, whatever you want to call it that we cannot forego, it is sleep.

You probably noticed trainers with their coffees, and you can imagine how you feel after a session and then the trainer goes at it again. So again, shoutout to the trainers hiding their tiredness because I can certainly confirm, how that third, fourth and so on back-to-back session can be. This is all taxing and the only way to pay for this tax is through sleep. So, this is another way that the body can break down, as well as the mind.

A final theme that is all too familiar is that with all the client work, at times our own personal fitness gets the backseat. This becomes a big-time management skill coupled with prioritization. Ultimately, it’s easy to see how if one’s personal fitness isn’t tended too, there is a downturn bound to happen.

More importantly, working on one’s own personal fitness will lead to better client interactions, sessions, and growth as the trainer is stronger and more capable.

Putting a prioritization in taking care of these pitfalls can lead to a whole better training experience. It will not guarantee to be completely injury and pain free, however, this can prevent and even if something does pop up, one will be much more ready to take on the challenge.

This was also a bit of a surprise for me when I started working in the gym session, so I wanted to shed light on it as I do believe we are in it together, members, clients, and trainers, and the more that there is open conversation the better the relationship can be which ultimately leads to better results!

Here’s to being mindful of one’s own priorities that leads to helping clients with theirs!