As personal trainers we spend hrs upon hrs on the gym floor, sharing our hard-earned expertise with clients. We can get busy and fall into the trap of sticking to what we know, which subsequently stalls our development as coaches.

Before we know it years and years go by… but our coaching skills STAY EXACTLY THE SAME – because we haven’t learned anything new!

The aim of this post is to put forth some different opinions and discuss whether as coaches, we should have our own personal trainer?

All of the best coaches have mentors!

All the coaches that I’ve hired in the past have had coaches and mentors helping them! Regardless of how skilled they are they continue to invest in their development because they know it will keep them at the top of their game, and improve their business offering!

That said there are lots of reason why coaches are scared to hire a coach and here’s why…

Hiring A Coach Means I’m not good enough!

I know that one of the major issues that coaches have when it comes to hiring a personal trainer is that it dents their ego – they get paranoid that their clients will think less of them! They think stuff like…“Maybe my client will find out who’s coaching me and go and hire them instead!”

This is just the ego talking, ignore the ego and great things will happen! I tell all of my clients about the coaches I’ve either worked with or are currently working with and guess what? not one client has left!

If anything it actually shows that you are humble and want to keep learning, It shows that you are willing to invest in yourself. Ultimately this attitude will improve your coaching skills and the level of service you provide to your clients.

Lose the ego…

The moment we stop learning… is the moment we stop growing! Learning should never stop regardless of how many years you’ve been a personal trainer. There’s always something new which can benefit you and your clients.

So many coaches think they know it all! The truth is that although we may know a lot about the human body it’s impossible to know absolutely everything, mainly due to unlimited variables and new scientific findings – which are discovered regularly.

Spending More Time on Clients Than Ourselves…

One thing I noticed when I started to become busy with personal training sessions (30+ sessions per week) is that my own workouts suffered, either by not going to the gym as much or not training as hard (because I was pooped!).

It’s not just hrs on the gym floor that takes up our time, we also spend time: writing diet plans, texting and emailing clients, taking consultations, traveling to work, etc, etc. If we are not careful our own health and fitness could suffer due to excess workload.

Hiring our own personal trainer is a good way to keep us accountable to our own fitness goals – just like we keep our clients accountable to us!

Hiring A Coach…

We could either hire an online personal trainer or look for a personal trainer to train us on a 1-1 basis like we do with our clients.

At the moment I’m currently contemplating whether to hire an Olympic lifting coach. I want a coach to help me improve my execution with exercises like the snatch, and overhead squat. I’d like to work on these exercise for my own training development and improve my overall knowledge to help clients too.

Personal Training Resources for Coaches 

Even if you don’t want to hire a coach you could improve your coaching skills by tapping into resources like podcasts, audiobooks, courses, and books!

The beauty of the internet is that we have access to a wide range of elite coaches, people like Mark Coles, Phil Graham, Jordan Peters, Phil Learney, Ben Coomber, and so many others! There are so many amazing coaches who share extremely valuable content.

Final Words…

I think it’s pretty clear to see that I’m a big fan of hiring coaches and committing to constant and never ending improvement. I’d strongly encourage every personal trainer to do the same.

I can safely say that the investments I’ve made both financially and time wise have been worth their weight in gold! My physique, knowledge, and business have continued to improve and I can’t see that stopping anytime soon… unless I stop investing in coaching!

With a coach helping us…ultimately we can achieve our own physical goals, become more marketable and also stay up-to-date with the latest knowledge from a coach that knows more than we do!

Thanks so much for reading, if you enjoyed this post or learned something helpful please leave your comment below!

Nick