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June 27, 2005
Good Job!
How do you motivate your clients? Here’s a helpful analogy from Becoming a Personal Trainer for Dummies:
When you’re training a dog and the dog does something you want him to do, like sitting on command or not peeing on the floor, you reward him with pats and doggie treats. It works the same way with people . . . [w]hen they’re rewarded for a certain behavior, they want to do it more often.
(Dummies, p. 144). Playing catch with a client on a stability ball is more like training a circus seal than a dog, but the Dummies are otherwise on target. Clients need positive reinforcement. And since we can’t toss them fish (they’re too uncoordinated to catch it in their mouths), all we have is words.
The Dummies authors suggest saying things like “good going” and “good job on the cardio today” and “good form.” That might be to much of a “good” thing, though. Clients who hear the same kind of compliment after each exercise might start to question your sincerity, viewing you like the kindergarten teacher who gives out the same gold star to every kid no matter how badly they trace the letters of the alphabet. If you’re going to be that unoriginal you might as well reward your client’s performance with a yawn.
The authors do suggest more specific, complicated forms of praise, but those might be hard to remember unless you bring their book along. And that would be a terrible mistake. You can say the nicest things in the world, but you’ll have no credibility left if you’re caught reading them out of a book, especially one written for dummies.
The most direct approach would seem to be to ask the client what he or she would like to hear. After all, even a trained chicken gets to choose which colored button to peck to send that tasty pellet down the chute. Unfortunately, with humans that’s the worst option of all.
Never, I repeat, never, have a discussion about praise-words with your client. Once you’ve brought that issue out into the open it’s all over. The notion that it’s all a big game will forever hover over your relationship like a dark cloud. You’ll feel awkward and self-conscious offering any words of encouragement at all, knowing that your client knows you’re just a parrot repeating the phrases you’ve been taught. You won’t be able to save things by trying to say something off the script. The client will see right through that, viewing it as a sad attempt to escape the predicament you’ve created, or possibly a form of disobedience. And if you give up and go back to just saying “good” you’ll be laughed out of the gym.
Got it? Good job!
Posted by Kristen at June 27, 2005 08:27 AM