I know that you have heard these excuses from your clients before. Read this week’s addition to my series on helping your clients overcome obstacles and excuses.
Getting your clients past these excuses can be the key to getting them to invest in your services!
I Hate exercise
In the beginning, exercise may feel like a chore to your clients but eventually it will become a physical and mental health need. It is important to find activities your clients enjoy doing so that they will participate in them regularly, see the results and get hooked. Have your clients use music, try hiking or walking and add variety to their program to make it more fun. Have them exercise with friends. Studies show you tend to achieve better results that way because it will become more difficult to skip workouts. There is also 
no evidence to suggest that exercise needs to be painful. If it hurts that much, your clients may be doing too much, too soon. While exercising, they may feel some discomfort, muscular fatigue or a burning sensation near the end of a set or an exercise bout. These feelings are normal. However, while performing an exercise, they should not feel sharp pain. This is not normal and they should stop the exercise immediately and consult a sports physician or physiotherapist. All of us have experienced muscle soreness after a new activity or highly intense workout. Remember the feeling after your first day of skiing, first aerobics class or the first run of the summer? This sensation is referred to as delayed onset muscle soreness because it usually takes one to three days after the workout to kick in. Many participants rate the effectiveness of a workout by how sore they are afterwards. But it you are training appropriately, there is no need to be sore. It is okay to think “Hey, my muscles feel like they had a great workout yesterday.” However, if your clients have a problem getting out of a chair, walking, or even just moving, they are training too hard – and not very sensibly. To reduce the likelihood of extreme muscle soreness from training sessions, always warm up, cool down, and stretch your clients and progress them slowly. Once they have established a consistent exercise routine, there are no extra health benefits from pushing them to be extremely sore. Remember – pain is a warning signal that their body has done too much too soon. When they experience extreme muscle soreness or pain, back off on the intensity of the program and progress more slowly. “No pain, no gain” is a myth. Pain is not necessary to improve their fitness and get results.
I’m too out of shape to exerciseOne survey found the top reason why people choose not to join a gym is because they want to get into better shape or lose weight first. This backwards approach may never get your clients to their goals. Help your clients feel comfortable going at their own pace and wearing whatever they want or design a program that allows your clients to workout in the privacy of their own home or neighborhood.
The Gym scene is not my thing
Sorry this will not wash. There are literally hundreds of things you can teach your clients do at home to help them get in shape. You could even suggest a couple good videos or books to help them. And luckily, our studio is a very non-intimidating environment.
Stay tuned for next week’s obstacles & excuses…and how we combat them!
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