What Soft Skills Does A Personal Trainer Need?

In one of his recent blogs, our Course Tutor, Chris Baird, talked about Perfecting Your Delivery which looked at spending time reflecting on things such as how well did your session go? Did you achieve the objective of the session? How did you interact with your client? Some of these elements include the soft skills you have as a personal trainer, and how effectively you use these skills.

Recently, I’ve also been part of some research by Sports Coach UK, looking into how to get more people active. I was involved in discussing the public’s perceptions of coaches and personal trainers and how we interact with our clients, again looking at the soft skills of the personal trainer rather than the technical skills.

Both reading Chris’ blog and also taking part in the research by Sports Coach UK made me think about how important our soft skills are as Personal Trainers. If you are a good personal trainer or coach, these soft skills often come naturally to you and are often taken for granted but what about for those of us who these skills don’t come naturally to? Do the Level 2, Level 3 and CPD courses you attend teach you these skills? I believe they should, for being a successful personal trainer isn’t just about having the technical, physiological and biomechanical knowledge in how to achieve your client’s goals, but it’s about that relationship you form with your client. I remember when I first started working as a Personal Trainer (back in the days when dinosuars roamed the streets), I worked with another trainer who intimidated me with their knowledge, BUT I had more clients than them and this was because I had better soft skills than they did so I had a better rapport with my clients and a better retention rate.

What Is a Soft Skill?

If you look in the dictionary, a soft skill is defined as the personal attributes that enable someone to interact harmoniously and effectively with others. This is key to being a successful personal trainer, and I’d argue that having good soft skills is as important as the technical knowledge a personal trainer or fitness instructor has…..well, if you want to retain your clients and be successful anyway!

What Soft Skills Do Personal Trainers & Fitness Instructors Need?

1. Effective Communication Skills – communication is not just about talking. All of your clients learn in different ways; are you able to adjust your communication skills for each client? Some people learn by doing, some by watching, some learn by listening to your advice/how to execute an exercise. You need to figure out which learning method your client prefers and be adaptable from client to client, session to session.
2. Listening Skills – Whilst we spend a lot of time in our sessions giving advice, it is essential that you can listen to your clients. I’m not talking about what their views are on the latest episode of Eastenders, but their views on how they feel their programme is going, the progress they are making, any obstacles they are facing in achieving their goals. If you fail to listen and understand then you will fail to deliver what they want because the likelihood is that you won’t understand what they want to achieve.
3. Be Empathetic – I remember when I first started working as a personal trainer, I thought being empathetic made me a soft personal trainer. What poppycock! We all have issues which life throws at us and understanding these situations with clients and looking at ways to work around them and still help them achieve their goals makes you a great personal trainer.
4. Honesty & Integrity – You need to ensure that you are honest with your clients about their goals. If losing 2 stone in 4 weeks is not possible then explain why to your client; they will respect you for being honest. Likewise, being honest and giving a bit of tough love every now again if a client is slacking towards achieving their goals is also ok. Just remember the point about empathy above – it’s important to workout when empathy is important or when a reality check is required.
5. Adaptability – A client’s progress isn’t going to plan, what do you do?….just plod on with your programme and mutter to yourself that the reason they aren’t making progress is because they aren’t working hard enough. NO!!!! You talk (communicate) to them, listen to them, show some empathy and adapt their workouts and training schedule so they still make progress.

Having awesome technical knowledge will make you a good personal trainer. Having awesome knowledge AND awesome soft skills will make you an AWESOME, successful personal trainer.