I’ve completed over 10,000 personal training sessions BUT i’d be lying if I said that every single one of them has been ‘excellent’ – especially at the start of my career when I had zero clue what I was doing!

Over the years though i’m very confident that I provide an excellent service (check out my reviews). That’s because i’ve learned what works (and what doesn’t!) and created a simple formula that I follow each and every session.

Why read this article?

If you implement the below 5 points into your PT sessions I can guarantee that…

• your level of service will improve
• you’ll get better results with clients
• have a longer client retention rate
• generate more income
• grow your personal training business further!

Sound good? 

5 Things That Make An Excellent Personal Training Session…

#1 Good Chat

Now i’m talking about what I call “sh*t chat” (another way of saying chit chat! lol) but by ‘good chat’ what I mean is…

You have empowering conversations with your client(s). You get them in a good mood to work out, ask them questions which evoke a positive answer to start with, things like…

“what’s been the best part of your day today?”

“what’s been the highlight of your week?”

“what positive changes have you made towards your health this week?”

Obviously make the above natural in conversation, but by asking the above you are putting your clients into a more positive state and they will likely train much better.

Then throughout the session (in between sets) have good chats…helping your client with anything they may be struggling with. Share your stories and wisdom and help them! 

#2 Powerful Music 

Do you own your own PT studio? If not I guess this may be hard to implement, unless you can have a word with your gym manager? Music has the power to either ‘make’ or ‘break’ your personal training session with your client.

Two examples of this…

1) I remember working out in Nuffield Health (Sheffield) and the music was diabolical! They had Spotify on… however it was the free version! and adverts would appear in between every other song! It was very unprofessional, especially when members pay £50 per month! 

To make matters worse they had Frank Sinatra on “I did it my way!” – now don’t get me wrong I love that song, but it’s not a workout tune is it? 

There’s no way you can get your clients pumped up with this type of music! 

2) The other memory I have is going to a privately owned gym where they had great house music on! The music was loud (but not too loud!) and the atmosphere was electric!

IF YOU CAN… pick upbeat music in your session, and watch your clients intensity go through the roof!

#3 Focus on One Thing…

Of course there are lots of things to focus on in your personal training session(s), for example technique, reps, sets, looking at your pre written workout sheet, etc, etc. 

BUT when I say “focus on ONE THING” what I mean is that have a number one priority for each of your clients sessions. For example…”my aim today is to get client X to increase their training intensity in our session’. Then write a plan for how you are going to do this, for example…

“i’m going to get client X to train harder. I’m going to do this by explaining to them the importance of intensity for getting results. I’ll tell them that it’s normal for the last few reps to feel very difficult BUT i’ll explain how these reps force the body to adapt, and overtime your muscles will get stronger.”

Of course the above is just a very simple example, but just FOCUS ON ONE MAIN PRIORITY EACH SESSION. 

There’s a great book which I stole this idea from called THE ONE THING by Gary Keller – i’d highly recommend you to read the book, especially if you’re into business and being more productive! 

#4 Home Work

Unless your personal training clients are working with you 4-5 days per week (most of your clients probably don’t?!?!) then you’ve got to be setting them work to do outside of your session. I know this may be pointing out the obvious for some, but it still amazes me to see how many personal trainers just do their 1-1 coaching session and then expect clients to do the rest in their own time and off their own back!

As a coach you should be setting your clients home work, things like extra gym sessions (Which you’ve already taken them through so that they feel confident doing the workout alone) and extra challenges like runs, or 10,000 steps per day, etc. 

There are 168hrs in a week, even if you train your clients 7 hours a week (an hour a day!) that still leaves 161 unaccounted hours! How you get your clients to use their time away from you is what will determine whether they get ‘amazing’ results, ‘average’ results…or even worse ‘no results’ at all!

#5 Feedback 

At the end of your session I think it’s really important to ask your clients what they learned. Ask them for 1-3 things that they’ve take away from the session. What you are looking for as a coach is that they are taking in the information you are giving them. 

Most of my clients are used to this now and they have quick answers because they’re expecting me to ask questions at the end of each session! lol!

However when I first started doing this…

They would often hesitate and say… “what do you mean?” 

You may need to prompt them and ask questions like “what are you trying to focus on with your squat?” or “what are your goals to complete outside of our sessions this week?” 

Build a good relationship with your clients and regularly ask for their feedback. Ask them what they have learned, whether they enjoyed the session, and how you can help them more and add even more value to their life!

Thanks for reading,

Nick 🙂

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this post! If you’re a personal trainer I have a question for you…

What do you do to provide an excellent personal training session? It would be great to hear from you! Is there anything that i’ve not mentioned that you do in your own sessions? 

Also, make-sure to check out my blog for personal trainers – there are tons of free articles to help you with your PT business 🙂