How do other trainers who suffer from chronic pain manage training clients?
I think one of the dirty secrets of fitness is that many of us who teach and train are in pain.
Are you teaching group-ex, training one on one, or both?
I have had various chronic pain for the last few years. Plantar fasciitis (mostly gone, but flares if I don’t MELT consistently), mid-back for over a year, and then pinched nerve L5/S1. I teach group-ex, small group PT, and one on one PT. Right now, I only have 8 classes a week as I’m waiting for a new studio to open to get my new classes, but my typical load is 13-17.
My group-ex clients don’t know when I’m in pain, and they don’t need to know. I’ve developed my coaching and cuing skills so that I can get them started with a movement or dance (I teach Zumba among other a lot of other things), and then I cue the room with facial expressions, words, thumbs up, verbal corrections, etc. This way, I’m not wearing my body down. I also use other class members who are doing a higher intensity version of my moves as examples. I don’t need to jump high when I have an athlete in the front row doing it.
My personal training clients sometimes know I’m in pain, when it’s relevant to training them. IE, if they are in pain and I can use my pain to relate to them (without one-upping them), or if there’s something I typically help them with that I can’t do on that day (“I have a pinched nerve L5/S1 and I can’t bend to squat today. Can you please re-rack the weights?”)