10 Minutes of Fitness: What’s the Hurry?

In this weeks 10 Minutes of Fitness James FitzGerald and Micheal Pilhofer discuss how to deal with clients that are in a hurry to do intense exercise. Watch the full episode for yourself here.

Clients Want Intens[it]y Now

We live in a world of instant gratification, Amazon packages show up at our door the day after they’re ordered, and meals are delivered to our homes at a click of a button. Clients are hooked on instant gratification and they bring this same mindset to fitness. You as a coach have probably seen the client James is referring to numerous times, clients that love fitness and want to perform intense exercise even though they do not have the prerequisites skills or strengths. You know as a coach they should not be participating in intense exercise but you feel the need to balance what they want with what they need. But, before you go begin to appease the client James prompts you to try to connect the client with their purpose for doing fitness.

(Coach’s Resource: Learn how we assess the prerequisites for intense exercise in this free course.)

Why Are They Doing Fitness?

“Start by asking the clients why are they doing fitness,” says James. “Most clients will answer that they want to be active forever”. This is an insight into their priorities. While these clients may ask for intense exercise what they really want is to be active forever. Now that you understand your client’s priorities James recommends using this line of questioning “What is the hurry? If the goal is to be active forever shouldn’t you focus on doing challenges (exercises) that let come back the next day and do them again?”  

Check Your Self Also

James wraps us this topic by saying “If you are regularly seeing clients that want intense fitness check your self, your marketing, and your business. Obviously, there is something broken in your business if you are attracting clients that don’t align with your service offering.” While you might have great intentions as a coach to only give clients what they need to live long and prosper, if you are unable to market those intentions you could still attract the wrong clients. To counteract this it’s worth taking the time to write out your business intentions our free guide ‘5 Steps to Building A Sustainable Coaching Business’ will help you define your target market and do just that.

Master the Consult

James’ answer to dealing with clients who want intense exercise is based on great consultation practices. It is tremendously important that you as a coach develop your consultation practices as this skill set will help you understand your clients better and align your coaching with their goals and highest priorities. Get an introduction to the same method of consulting clients we teach OPEX Coaches worldwide with The Free Coach’s Toolkit. Sign up today and get our consultation method delivered to your inbox.