Adapt to the Client — Not the Other Way Around
It is great in theory to tell an obese person to stop eating cake every day, but what good does that do if the person cannot stop? A much better approach would be something like:
"Hey, you told me you eat a lot of cake every evening. Now cake is tasty and I love it too — but I think we can both agree it's making our fat-loss goal more difficult. I was wondering if maybe we could start by not keeping it at home? If you eat it when you're out, that's fine."
If you spoke kindly, the client at this point would probably agree and go somewhat along with the plan. This is perfectly normal and does not show laziness or weakness. From here, further small changes can be introduced gradually.
In other words, we are trying to make change as easy and non-confrontational as possible. Sustainable transformation compounds from small, manageable steps.
Never Forget the Basis of the Relationship
Here is a very important but often neglected part of our field — keeping very strong professional boundaries. You are paid in money and respect for giving your client the path to good health. If any of these things is missing, there is something wrong.
- If a client consistently pays late, fails to respect your time, or communicates disrespectfully — address it directly.
- If behaviour does not change after one or two conversations, release the client.
- The reverse is also true — never get verbally disrespectful with clients, never arrive late without prior notice.
A useful script for the first conversation: "I've noticed [specific behaviour] has happened a few times now, and I want to flag it before it becomes a pattern between us. Is everything okay, and is there something I can do differently to help?" This opens with curiosity rather than accusation, gives the client a chance to explain a genuine circumstance, and still makes clear that the behaviour has been noticed and matters.
Make Fitness Their Best Friend
We all know there are ways of exercising that are useful and effective, and there are ways that are less optimal but make people feel like exercising is the best part of their day. The second option is almost always preferable for general population clients.
For example, a client loves chest exercises but dislikes leg exercises:
- Ask the client if there are leg exercises they enjoy — maybe they prefer bodyweight work, or cycling, or some other form of lower body training.
- Reduce volume and/or load so that the workout doesn't feel super hard on the legs. This is especially important early in the coaching relationship.
- Celebrate performance milestones (personal bests, technique improvements) rather than appearance-based metrics, which change slowly.
Understanding where people are and giving them things they CAN do rather than demanding what they "should" do — that is the job of a great coach.
Resolve Issues Quickly
This comes as a rule you can generally apply in life: the quicker you resolve a problem, the more trust you build. A coach who resolves a client's problem rapidly — whether it is a stiff back, a persistent knee ache, or a training plateau — dramatically increases their perceived value.
This does not mean every issue can be solved instantly — it means every issue should be acknowledged instantly. A client mentioning knee discomfort deserves a same-session response ("let's modify today's squats and I'll look into this properly before our next session"), not silence followed by the exact same programme a week later as though nothing was said.
The "Best" Method to Learn
Decades of research into this question have led to a model called the Optimal Theory of Learning. The three factors that most powerfully accelerate skill acquisition are:
- Autonomy — freedom of choice. Rather than "do push-ups now," ask "ready for some push-ups?" and be genuinely willing to adapt. Research shows that perceived autonomy significantly increases both performance and long-term adherence.
- Enhanced Expectations — people perform better when told sincerely that they are capable. Positive expectation is not false praise; it is the evidence-based recognition that belief in a client's capacity tends to generate the very capacity it predicts.
- External Focus — directing attention toward an object or outcome in the environment produces faster, more automatic skill learning than focusing on a body part. This is why all exercise cues in this book are framed externally wherever possible.
Teaching exercises with an external cue focus has been shown to increase the speed of learning, quality of movement, and retention of skills. As an example: telling a person to jump and reach their fingers as high as possible produces a better jump than telling them to "extend your knees and hips powerfully."
Training an individual versus training a group should in theory be the same — human bodies don't change in groups. But why is this different in practice, and what changes need to be made?