ACE Personal Trainer Certificate Ch. 4

Stages of the Client-Personal Trainer Relationship

rapport, investigation, planning, action

rapport stage of personal training relationship

based on mutual understanding and trust.

investigation stage of personal training relationship

the focus is on discussing the client's health, fitness, and lifestyle information, any available test results, physician recommendations, and the client's goals and exercise history, and during this stage, active listening and utilizing the skills of motivational interviewing

planning stage of personal training relationship

the personal trainer designs an exercise program in partnership with the client, drawing upon effective verbal and nonverbal communication skills.

action stage of personal training relationship

begines during the planning stage

the time spent in the rapport stage:

establishing a good working relationship enhances adherence to behavior-change programs

Personal trainers' attempts to understand are conveyed through:

active listening with an open, nonjudgmental mind as they ask questions and try to paraphrase, reflect, and summarize what they are hearing.

Culturally competent workers have the ability to:

recognize social and cultural differences that may exist between providers and clients and adapt their communication styles accordingly

increase your cultural competence by:

acknowledging your own biases regarding people of other backgrounds, including ethnic background, race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, age, socioeconomic level, size, and physical ability.

Personal trainers who are working with clients from an unfamiliar demographic can:

learn about clients' beliefs, attitudes, and lifestyles by talking to others who work with similar groups and reading any information they can find about that group.

If someone's words and body language do not match:

people generally trust body language over verbal content

Nonverbal communication has many components, including:

Voice quality, Eye contact, Facial expression, Hand gestures, Body position

Maintaining professional boundaries also comes into play when coaching clients on:

movement techniques

Personal trainers who encounter resistance from their clients may be able to:

ask clarifying questions to better understand clients' perspectives about exercise and what they see as barriers, challenges, and discomforts, as well as what they see as the value/benefit of being more active.

taking time to review the lifestyle and health history form with clients can help:

clarify questions and elicit more information.

Use the investigation stage not only to learn about a client's current health and fitness levels, but also:

to understand a client's exercise likes and dislikes and their reasons for exercising.

Active listening occurs when:

the personal trainer listens to a client carefully, empathetically, and with an open mind, trying to put themself in the client's shoes.

Unless a client has made a decision to change, their exercise attempts are likely to be short-lived. A more beneficial approach is to

discuss why clients feel unable to become more active.

Motivational interviewing is designed to show

supportive concern while challenging a client's current behavior

the process of motivational interviewing parallels

the contemplation stage of change, given that the client is ready to explore their ambivalence about behavior change

directing style of communication vs guiding

the personal trainer takes charge of the conversation and advises a client on what to do whereas guiding has the personal trainer encourage, support, and assist the client in the process of change.

Motivational interviewing emphasizes:

establishing rapport, reducing resistance, and eliciting a client's own rationale for change, or change talk.

The aims of motivational interviewing are to:

support people as they resolve their ambivalence toward behavior change, decide to make a change, and then persevere with the new behavior.

For clients who are weighing the pros and cons of committing to a behavior change, personal trainers may find it beneficial to:

evoke change talk through the use of scaling questions such as the "importance ruler."

motivational interviewing is rooted in four key interconnected components:

collaboration, acceptance, compassion, and evocation, a set of conversational skills comprised of asking open-ended questions, offering affirmations, reflective listening, and summarizing (referred to as OARS)

motivational interviewing and OARS are put into practice throughout the following overlapping processes of:

Engaging, focusing, evoking, planning

Engaging:

personal trainers talk with their clients to understand their perspectives in a nonjudgmental way. Key components of engaging include developing rapport and building a helpful connection and working relationship.

Focusing:

The process of engaging leads the client to express areas on which they would like to focus. A direction toward one or more goals usually emerges. Focusing is a collaborative process wherein the client's goals are clarified and the direction the client wants to move is determined.

Evoking:

After a focus on a particular change is identified, the personal trainer elicits the client's own motivations for change. Evoking is prompting the client to voice their arguments for change (change talk) and is considered the heart of motivational interviewing. If a client expresses reasons why they cannot make a change (sustain talk), the personal trainer redirects the conversation back to change talk.

Planning:

During the planning process, the client and personal trainer collaborate on how to execute change. Personal trainers help clients talk through their goals, identify resources to achieve those goals, and set up ways to evaluate how well the plan worked after it is enacted.

OARS: The Core Communication Skills of Motivational Interviewing

asking open ended questions, offering affirmations, reflective listening, summarizing

righting reflex:

relies heavily on directing individuals to "fix" what seems to be wrong with them in an effort to set them on a better path

personal trainers hear information that worries them and should:

follow referral procedures that encourage the client to seek professional help

The planning stage generally moves through the following steps:

• Setting goals

• Generating and discussing alternatives

• Formulating a plan

• Evaluating the exercise program

Setting goals

Avoid setting too many goals, Avoid setting negative goals, Set short- and long-term goals, as well as process and performance goals, Include the client in the process, Revisit the goals on a regular basis:

goals affect people's performance, or inspire behavioral change, through four primary mechanisms:

Directed attention, Mobilized effort, Persistence, Strategy

Goal commitment:

The stronger a client's personal commitment to a goal, the more effective the goal will be in motivating behavior change.

Goal importance:

The more important the client considers the goal and the more they view the goal as being in alignment with their values, the more motivating the goal.

Self-efficacy:

The higher a person's self-efficacy with regard to the behaviors needed for reaching a goal, the more likely they will be to persist in the face of difficulty.

Feedback:

Clients who receive feedback on their progress toward a goal are more likely to continue pursuing that goal. This can be accomplished through check-ins during personal-training sessions and/or via daily self-monitoring of goal progress through the use of apps or wearable devices.

Task complexity:

As the complexity of goals increases, individuals will need more strategies for achieving the goal. As such, personal trainers can collaborate with clients to establish both process goals and performance goals (also called product goals).

SMART Goals

• Specific: Goals must be clear and unambiguous

• Measurable: Goals must be trackable

• Attainable: Goals should be realistically achievable by the individual

• Relevant: Goals must be pertinent to the particular interests, needs, and abilities of the individual

• Time-bound:Goals must contain estimated timelines for completion. Clients should regularly monitor progress toward goals.

A process goal is vs. performance goal

A process goal is something a client does, such as completing a certain number of workouts per week. A performance goal is something achieved, like weight loss or a resistance lifted on a strength-training machine.

Fitness Indicators for SMART Goal Setting

emotional health indicators

resting heart rate

heart rate during a given submax workload

muscular strength and endurance

walking test

flexibility

skill level

medical indicators

body weight

body size

body composition

How to Set Health and Fitness Goals That Motivate Clients for Long-term Adherence

Listen carefully to understand what clients hope to accomplish,

Help them define specific goals,

Suggest additional goals that clients may not have thought of,

Break large goals into small goals and even weekly goals

Include many process goals,

Record goals and set up a record-keeping system to record workouts and track

Be sure clients understand what types of exercise will help them reach their health and fitness goals,

Reevaluate and revise goals and exercise recommendations periodically

If a client has dropped out of programs in in the past, it makes sense for the personal trainer to:

encourage a fairly modest exercise program

the personal trainer may give the client a system for:

recording exercise sessions, including any relevant data the personal trainer and client wish to track.

Research has shown that self-monitoring is one of the most effective ways to:

support behavioral change, including exercise program adherence and improved eating behaviors

Self-monitoring systems help in two ways.

First, they increase client self-awareness. Second, self-monitoring systems may enhance client-personal trainer communication, questions

about what is working and what is not working will arise, leading to productive discussions between personal trainers and their clients.

clients try to understand the new skill, they are said to be in:

the cognitive stage of learning.

Neuroscientists have demonstrated that different brain activity occurs when:

new motor skills are first being learned, as compared to the brain activity demonstrated once the motor skill has become more established

clients begin to master the basics and are ready for more specific feedback that will help them refine the motor skills

associative stage of learning

clients are performing motor skills effectively and naturally, and the personal trainer is doing less teaching and more observing.

autonomous stage of learning

Some research suggests that to much explanation and cognitive work may actually:

interfere with learning complex motor skills

Motor learning is:

the process of acquiring and improving motor skills

Motor skills are taught most effectively if the following points are kept in mind:

• Remind beginners that it takes time and practice to improve motor skills

While ability in the motor-skills domain certainly varies from person to person, motor skills are more strongly related to:

practice and experience than strictly to natural ability.

personal trainers must select exercises that are:

appropriate for the client's current ability level to help build self-efficacy through successful performance.

Introduce new skills slowly and clearly by:

"Tell, show, do"

the personal trainer should focus on explaining the goal of the movement rather than

giving distracting details about limb position

Allow clients the opportunity for:

focused practice

People learn more quickly when they focus on

performing the motor skill without being distracted by talking or listening.

The type of feedback that provides information on progress can be referred to as:

knowledge of results

Feedback helps in the:

goal-setting process. Both intrinsic feedback and extrinsic feedback can contribute to knowledge of results and provide information about progress toward goal attainment.

Extrinsic feedback is the:

reinforcement, error correction, and encouragement that personal trainers give to their clients.

Intrinsic feedback is:

information that the clients provide themselves based on their own sensory systems (e.g., what they feel, see, or hear).

During an exercise session, once a client has tried a new skill, the personal trainer should respond by giving helpful feedback. The feedback should do three things:

• Provide reinforcement for what was done well

• Correct errors

• Motivate clients to continue practicing and improving

The correcting of errors should be sandwiched between:

reinforcement and motivation

It is important for personal trainers to model the healthful lifestyle guidance they are providing to their clients because

it is good for business, since it enhances a personal trainer's credibility and when personal trainers model a healthful lifestyle, clients see that it can be done and it gives them confidence that they can do it, too.

Behavioral contracting is:

an effective behavior-modification strategy.

In behavioral contracting for lifestyle change:

the client and personal trainer set up a system of rewards for adopting a new behavior.

behavior contracting is most effective when:

the rewards are outlined by, and meaningful to, the client.

Incorporating Effective Communication and Teaching Techniques into Daily Interactions with Clients

attend conferences and continuing education, mindful presence, asking for feedback from clients, use electronic communication with discretion, make training fun