By Stefan Ianev
Your Guide to Master the Art of Coaching
If you want to master the art of coaching, you need to understand one thing – The results you get as a coach ultimately boil down one key element… client adherence!
You can have the perfect training or nutrition plan, but if your client doesn’t follow it properly, they won’t get the results they’re after. The key to being a good coach is getting your clients to change their behaviour. This is what separates good coaches from the average trainer.
Over the years we have found that there are certain things good coaches consistently do in order to help their clients change their behaviour and achieve their goals.
In this article we’re going to give you our top 6 tips to help you master the art of coaching and become the best coach possible.
Collect as Much Information as Possible
The reason why you have the opportunity to coach someone is because they believe you can help them reach a goal they wouldn’t or couldn’t otherwise reach on their own. To meet their expectations, the first thing you need to understand is who they are as a person. What are their goals? What were their past attempts, and where did they go wrong? You’ll need to go deep and uncover anything and everything that might impact what you give them to help reach their goals.
Set Clear and Achievable Goals
Again, your client is coming to see you to help them achieve a goal. The only way to know whether you have served that purpose is by having them set clear and measurable goals against which you can track progress.
Furthermore, you need make sure that your clients set true goals, that is, goals that are truly important to them with no conditions or secondary intentions attached. If you can figure out what they’re after, and we mean REALLY after, they can tap into an emotional reservoir of energy that will help motivate them and propel them through the program.
Set Clear Expectations
Those who have found a way to master the art of coaching understand that it’s a two-way commitment. The client has a goal that they expect you to help them achieve, and you have a strategy and a plan that you expect them to execute. Understanding the client’s goals sets their expectations of you. You need to also make sure that you make it crystal clear what will be required of them in order to reach their goals.
Take Before and After Photos
Photos are the lifeblood of any transformation business, be it nutrition, fitness, or otherwise. They spark inspiration and generate new leads. Just think about your typical client’s journey. Most clients will start out looking like X, but they want to look like Y. One day someone might see a pic of one of your transformations on Instagram or Facebook and decide it is time for a change. That picture could be the catalyst that gets them started on their own transformation journey.
Take Weekly Measurements
Taking weekly measurements such as weight, girths, and skinfolds helps keep clients more motivated and accountable because they have a way of tracking their progress towards their goal. When you are not seeing any visual changes, which can take longer to come about, and you have no other way of tracking your progress, it’s really easy to fall off track.
Set Performance Goals
Some weeks the scale or girth measurements may not shift and that can lead to clients feeling deflated or upset with themselves. Setting performance goals in the gym alongside the measurement gives clients an extra means of measuring their progress and helps keep them motivated during their workouts.
When clients can see their numbers in the gym going up, that is usually a sign that they are responding positively to the training stimulus, and changes in body composition should follow shortly after.
Biofeedback Tracking
Biofeedback tracking includes monitoring physiological functions such as energy, appetite, mood, sleep, libido, digestion, and stress. These markers give us an insight into the client’s physiological state and whether we can push them more or if we need to back off.
In addition, smart wearable devices such as the Apple watch or Oura ring allow you to track additional biometrics such as heart rate variability (HRV) and sleep, which can provide further information about the physiological state of your clients, so that you can adjust their training load accordingly.
