Conducting a Thorough Interview
The more information you gather during the initial appointment, the better equipped you will be to serve your client. Keep in mind, however, that if you have just met the client, he may feel apprehensive about providing you with personal information. Explaining the purpose of the interview ahead of time may help put your clients at ease and make them more willing to open up.
Your Clients' Lifestyle
In addition to a health history questionnaire, many trainers will also ask their clients to complete a lifestyle questionnaire. The information gathered here is used to determine the current and past levels of physical activity, eating habits, and other lifestyle factors that may influence compliance and success.
Armed with this data, you will be better equipped to address individual needs and create a personalized program. Once again, if the form is completed before the appointment, it will save valuable time. If upon reviewing the document you find you have more specific questions, you can ask them during the appointment.
There are six main components of a lifestyle questionnaire:
Exercise history and current activity level
Occupation
Hobbies
Nutritional habits
Mental health
Support systems
Learning about your clients' past and present exercise habits will give you a great deal of insight into where to begin and how to progress. Ask for details about the types of exercise performed in the past and the intensity at which they were performed. Did they run, swim, dance, weight lift? Were they a competitive athlete, and if so, at what level did they compete? People who were competitive athletes will tend to want a more intense workout than those who were not.
What do they do now for exercise? What forms of exercise do they most enjoy? Everyone's attitudes toward exercise will be different as well. For some it will be a chore, while others will look forward to it as a stress reliever or down time. It is helpful to know where each client is coming from. Try to obtain as much detailed information as possible without sounding like you are interrogating the client.
What your client does for work will also play a role in their program. The client who sits behind a desk all day will have different physical and dietary needs than the client who owns and operates a moving company. You also want to find out what kind of hours he is working so you can best determine when he can exercise and when he needs to rest.
Asking your clients about their hobbies may seem silly or not relevant, but this could not be further from the truth. Your clients' hobbies will give you further insight into their personalities and overall level of physical activity. A client who enjoys outdoor activities may want to exercise outside as much as possible. You will want to incorporate this into her program so she finds enjoyment in her exercise routine. Learning about what your clients do in their spare time might also help you find common interests that you share and give you things to talk about.
Remember to inquire about nutritional habits on your lifestyle forms. Have they dieted in the past? What types of diets have they tried? Are they dieting now? What do they typically eat in a day? A full program takes into account all aspects of health. Your clients' success will be limited if they have poor eating habits.
Stress level and support systems also play key roles in the success or failure of a program. People who can deal well with stress and have adequate support from family and friends will be able to persevere, and will be more compliant than those with excessive amounts of stress and no support system.
Alert
Consider all aspects of your clients' lives, not just the time they spend in the gym. What they eat and how much they move during the day will have an enormous impact on their health, appearance, and well-being. A client who spends two hours a day in the gym, then eats and drinks all night will sabotage her health and her program.
Your Clients' Expectations and Goals
When your clients contact you to set up an initial appointment, they will give you a vague idea why they want to meet with you. They will typically say something like, “I want to lose weight” or “I want to get back into shape.” You may get a bit more information, but usually not much more. The interview is the time to get specific about precisely what they wish to accomplish. How much weight do they want to lose, and in what time frame? What does being in shape mean to them? Once you understand where the client is coming from and what they are hoping for, you can set the long- and short-term goals.
At this point, most clients will have a high level of enthusiasm and excitement. They are ready to make changes in their lives and are feeling pretty motivated.
In some cases, they are so enthusiastic that they will have unrealistic expectations of you and of themselves. You may have a client who expects to lose 20 pounds in a month, or bench press the weight he lifted in college, on the first day. These are unrealistic and unsafe expectations, and you must find a way to convey that message without wrecking the client's enthusiasm.
Take this time to educate your clients about how the body works, as well as what they can expect from their programs. Use the gist of their expectations to help them set realistic, achievable goals with a reasonable time frame.
