First Things First
By James Wilson, MSS

For most new fitness trainers, nothing is as intimidating as starting a program for your first client. While it seems that designing a program for themselves has gotten pretty easy with their experience and newfound knowledge, the desire to do the best for their clients will sometimes cause doubt to creep in as to how effective the program they designed for someone else will be. A good way to overcome these doubts is to have a game plan; a way of making sure the program you design is realistic, and is not only effective but also enjoyable for your client. Since this type of thing is best formed through experience, and since by virtue of being new some trainers lack this experience, below are some guidelines and things to watch out for when designing that first client's program.

When designing a strength-training program several things need to be taken into account, first and foremost, the time frame within which you have to work. When starting out, many personal trainers do not consider the fact that you can only do so much in one training session. They proceed to design a program for their first client containing 20- 30 total sets in the workout, and wonder why they can only get through half of it.

The reason they run out of time is simple; If you take 5 minutes to warm-up, 5 minutes to stretch, add in a few warm-up sets (remembering to keep in mind that the client will need about 10 minutes to cool down and stretch after working out), and you're left with a little less than 40 minutes to fit in your strength training program. Simple math tells us that if a set lasts 1 minute from the time the client sits down to begin the set to the time they get up and start their rest (a conservative estimate), and you allow 30 seconds to rest between sets (again a conservative estimate), you can only fit in 26 total sets. Also bear in mind that this is not taking into account time needed to change exercise stations, time taken for water/ bathroom breaks, time taken to find and add plates, or a host of other things that veteran trainers know to prepare for. It quickly becomes apparent that somewhere around 20 total sets is the best we can hope to fit into an extremely well-organized training session, and as any trainer who has experienced it can tell you, training sessions with a new client can be notoriously unorganized.

Now this is no excuse to not have a plan or to think that you can't effectively train clients in such a time frame. It simply means that you have to be practical about your workout design. Remember that if your new client has been sedentary for some time, you can have them curl a soup can and get results. It will be several months before you need to have the program perfectly dialed in, so take a relaxed approach to your first couple of training sessions. In fact, it has been our experience that a good trainer's job when they first start working with a client is to keep them reigned in and under control - and that's tough to do if you give them a program that a veteran client would be hard pressed to finish.

Guided Discovery

A perfect way to ease both your client and yourself into a client's training program is to take them on the "guided discovery". This is discussed as one of the Five Steps of the Drawing in Phase in ISSA's Fitness: The Complete Guide. A great way to go about this is to construct a circuit set program with one exercise per muscle group. While machines have traditionally been the cornerstones of many beginner's circuit set programs they are not the best way to train new clients. In his book, Periodization Training: Theory and Methodology, Tudor Bompa, Ph.D. presents his four laws of strength. Among those presented is one that states "before you strengthen the prime movers, strengthen your stabilizers." This means that machines, which lock you into one plane of movement and take away from stabilizer development, are the absolute last things at your disposal in the gym. Many an uneducated trainer has done their clients and the fitness industry a great disservice by recommending exclusively machine circuit training for beginners.

So we know to stay out of the machine section and concentrate on free weights, but now what? At this point you should pick three exercises for each bodypart. Try to pick as many compound exercises as you can. For example, chest exercises could include flat bench, incline bench and dumbbell flat bench. Stay away from isolation movements like cable-crossovers and flyes at first. Your clients will get much better results if your programs do not include these isolation movements at first, and instead emphasize as many compound ones as possible.

So, how many bodyparts should you include? Start with the major ones: chest, back, quads, hamstrings, biceps, triceps, shoulders, calves, lower back and abs. After you have your three exercises for each bodypart picked, you are ready to design the circuit. For the first day choose one of the three exercises you picked for each bodypart and arrange them in a circuit fashion. Have the client go through the circuit once using a weight that allows them to complete at least 15 reps. Avoid training to failure. Pay close attention to see if they particularly love or hate any of the exercises, taking note of those preferences / dislikes. At your next training session pick from the exercises you have not already used, and employ them in your circuit. At your third session use the last remaining exercises for each bodypart to construct your circuit. An example of how this might be done is below:

	Training Day 1	Training Day 2	Training Day 3
Chest	Bench Press	Incline Bench Press	DB Bench Press
Back	Lat- Pull Down	Barbell Row	DB Shrugs
Quads	Squat	Leg Press	Leg Extension
Hamstrings	Lying Leg Curl	Stiff Leg Deadlift	Good Morning
Biceps	Preacher Curl	Seated DB Curl	Barbell Curl
Triceps	Tricep Pushdowns	Nose Crusher	Close Grip Bench
Shoulders	Seated DB Press	Lateral Raises	Bent Raises
Calves	Standing Calf Raises	Seated Calf Raises	Standing Unilateral DB Calf Raise
Abs	Floor Crunches	Swiss Ball Crunches	Russian Twist
Lower Back	Back Extension	Reverse Back Extension	Floor Back Raises

This accomplishes a couple of things; First, you only have 10 total sets planned in each training session. So you can take your time, and make sure that your client gets the best possible instruction on form and technique. You can not do this if you are rushing around trying to fit in 20- 30 total sets. Second, you have exposed them to a variety of exercises, and begun the process of reversing the effects of being sedentary.

At this point you should design a circuit based on their preferences. After the third training session you should look back at your notes, and see if your client expressed any particular interest towards some of the exercises. For example, if they were visibly uncomfortable doing the dumbbell bench press, but showed a real interest in the incline bench press, you would make sure to include the incline press to begin with. They may not express a preference for every bodypart, and in that case use your own judgement.

With a new client who has been sedentary for some time, it's a good idea to have them do a whole body circuit 2-3 times a week for the first month or so. After designing a circuit set based on your client's preferences (if they had any), you can start to push them a little. The next couple weeks will be spent finding the best weight to use for each exercise, correcting and perfecting form, going over nutritional/ diet recommendations and a host of other things, basically laying the fitness foundation from which to build on in the future. This is an important time in a beginning client's program. Many of the habits and attitudes towards working out are formed during this period.

Once your client can comfortably finish one circuit in a timely manner you can start to have them go through it one more time. They may not make it all the way through again at first, so make sure you put the main bodyparts like legs, chest and back, at the top of the circuit, ensuring that the client at least gets to these main exercises twice. They may also not be able to get through the same number of extra exercises at each training session. This is natural, and you should be flexible during this period. Once a client can comfortably finish two entire circuits at three consecutive training sessions, it's time to use a little more advanced approach with them. Now that they have an introduction to a fitness lifestyle, you can ask them what it is they would like to accomplish through their workouts, and tailor the program to those goals.

While the guided discovery is a great tool to use when introducing someone to the fitness lifestyle, remember to be flexible. While most will enjoy it, not all clients will.