Dealing With Client Attitudes

If she is having a difficult time grasping the exercise and that is causing the frustration (I see this quite often) then try breaking it into segments and linking the segments back to back. In time she will witness herself being able to perform the complete exercise and that kind of accomplishment can give her the right attitude about overcoming temporarily frustrating obstacles. Light at the end of the tunnel kind of mentality. If its the difficulty thats getting to her, try counting her completed repititions in a given time (w/ good form of course) and let her witness her progress there. Once people begin to see little improvements, they start looking to their future, instead of cursing their present. Hope this helps a bit. It has often worked for me.

Hello Daniel,

I see that you are an ACSM certified personal trainer.

One of the things that I do when I when I encounter clients who have an unbalanced viewpoint of how I should approach training is to share the science with them.

ACSM resources do a fine job with that. I share with them ACSM guidelines for muscular strength and endurance and well as cardiorespiratory strength and endurance. I help them appreciate what moderate intensity and vigorous intensity is by using the 1-20 scale and explain that the manner in which she wants to train is not based upon science.

I then explain that is not how I approach training and perhaps I may not be the right personal trainer for her. I ask whether the individual would like to utilize scientific guidelines in reaching her goals or does she/he want to just wing it. If he/she chooses "wing it', I'm out.

Our profession is based upon science, there is no need to dumb ourselves down.

I wish you the best.

I would have a frank conversation with her and let her know that you notice certain responses during her workouts. Also ask her if she's getting what she wants out of her training and if there is anything else she would like to concentrate on.

Another option would be to video tape a session, possibly she is totally unaware of her "attitude".

You may also want to re evaluate her desire to crawl out of the gym.....

I think Karin has given a great, simple response. Start by just showing your concern in a matter of fact way so that she doesn't get too freaked out, but be sincere. Karin's words were great. If you don't get anywhere with that, consider your professional resources. It could be that she's one of those people who just gets into it by focusing really hard. Maybe she's hard on herself because she feels like she needs to be. If she's getting to her sessions and putting 100% in, then for now she's probably right where she needs to be. By being positive, you'll eventually get through to her and help her to see exercise as fun and rewarding!

I would have a talk with her. It sounds as if she wants to be there but she may have a different view of "being pushed hard". Find out what/where her frustration is coming from and then go from there. You may find that she might have been expecting a different "road map" for how her sessions should be and might have to change directions. But you'll never know if you don't ask! Hope this helps!

Thank you all for your responses. This client actually did warn me before we started training that she tends to get frustrated during workouts, but more as a way of being hard on herself. Her former trainer told me the same thing and told me not to read much into it. She's just a very competitive person.

I would definitely have a conversation with her. One of the things she might be experiencing is frustration at perceived lack of progress.

If your client is a Type A perfectionist, like me, her emotions might stem from a task, in this case, weight loss, that is not coming as easy to her as other things.

Whatever the reason is, just have a good sit down and relate to her. Just because you're her trainer doesn't mean you don't care about other things in her life!