As a personal trainer, your passion lies in helping others achieve their fitness goals. However, amidst guiding clients on their wellness journeys, it can be hard to to prioritize your own fitness and well-being too. Not to mention avoiding sprains, strains and other injuries to yourself.
Maintaining your personal fitness as a personal trainer not only enhances your credibility but also sets a powerful example for your clients. But finding time to focus on your personal exercise training in between client sessions can be a juggling act, to say the least.
We’ve taken a look at ten effective ways for personal trainers to manage their own fitness and lead a healthy and inspiring lifestyle.
1. Prioritize Regular Workouts
Make time for your own workouts just like you would for your clients. Schedule dedicated sessions for exercise, whtstrength or weight training, cardio sessions, and flexibility workouts. In short, create your own personal training routine as part of the daily schedule that you manage.
While many PTs will grab a session in between clients, or sneak in a quick weight training before they go home, it’s also a good idea to add a structured plan. Even if that plan is flexible.
2. Set Goals and Track Progress
Just like with your own clients, it’s a good idea to establish clear fitness goals for yourself and monitor your progress. Whether it’s increasing your bench press or improving your running speed, having measurable objectives keeps you motivated and accountable whenever you exercise.
If you use gym class software for your private clients, add yourself as a client and track your performance and results on there.
3. Embrace Varied Training Modalities
As a personal trainer, you understand the importance of varying your exercise and keeping your own fitness journey fun and interesting. Apply this principle to your own fitness routine by exploring various training modalities. Make sure to include strength training, HIIT workouts, yoga, martial arts or even dance classes to keep your workouts fresh and engaging for yourself.
Of course, you’ll also need to make sure you don’t do yourself any injuries as you’ll need to stay fit for your next client. So only hit that workout that you’re confident won’t bust your back or crook your knee.
4. Fuel Your Body with Nutrient-Rich Foods
You already know that a well-balanced diet is vital to fuel your active lifestyle, and this goes double for YOU, the personal trainer professional. Eating well isn’t just good for your lifestyle and fitness, but it also key to helping your body recover quickly.
But hey. You don’t need me to tell you that…
Prioritize whole, nutrient-dense foods, including lean proteins, healthy fats, complex carbohydrates, and plenty of fruits and vegetables. Oh and drink plenty of water too, right!
5. Practice Rest and Recovery
Don’t forget the importance of rest days, especially as a fitness pro. Allowing your body time to recover and repair after busy training periods will help to maintain your fitness levels and ensure you’re staying healthy overall.
Getting plenty of sleep is equally vital for your overall well-being, especially if you’re putting your body through it’s paces every day. Being well rested means you’ll be energized when training clients and ready for another day of physical activity.
6. Using Natural Supplements to Aid Recovery
Of course there are plenty of great natural supplements that can help you to boost recovery time, and reduce the chances of injuries. As a personal trainer, using supplements can greatly help your performance.
Protein based shakes obviously make a great addition to your daily routine, helping to speed up recovery to your muscles.
CBD products are also becoming an increasingly popular addition for personal trainers, helping to boost both muscle recovery and aiding with mental health too. While there are a lot of CBD products tailored to the fitness industry out there, some simple options are CBD creams that can help soothe aches and pains at the end of the day, and CBD gummies or edibles which are great as a quick aid to relaxing and pain relief.
To be absolutely clear: we do not believe that using steroids is a necessary part of being a professional personal trainer. In fact, we think that these substances could actually hinder your performance as a personal trainer and even undermine your authority as a fitness expert. Best to keep it natural!
7. Engage in Active Hobbies
Incorporate physical activity into your hobbies. Whether it’s tennis, cycling, swimming, or playing a sport, participating in activities you enjoy adds fun to your fitness routine and promotes an active lifestyle beyond the gym.
Some great low impact sports for personal trainers that can be really good to keep you active can include paddle boarding, swimming, yoga and hiking.
8. Seek Quick Treatment for Injuries
It happens to us all. A pulled muscle, a tweak here or there, even the dreaded slipped disc. But the key as a professional personal trainer is to make sure that you nurse any injuries promptly to avoid them flaring up later or causing you long term damage.
Because you are often participating in high intensity workouts, even as an observer, you need to be on your best physical form. And carrying an injury can result in increased stress or damage to the body, which you just don’t need when trying to coach your personal training clients.
Make sure to have access to pain killers such as ibuprofen and paracetamol, and if you do injure yourself, seek medical help as soon as possible.
Read our guide: How to avoid liability as a personal trainer
9. Enjoy Yourself – But Avoid Excess
Even personal trainers need to go out and have fun. And no that doesn’t mean one more high intensity interval training session on a Sunday!
Enjoying yourself in your free time is key to both enjoying your job and your life. And although you do need to take care of your fitness by staying healthy and doing regular exercise, you do also need to go out and socialise, visit restaurants and go for nights out.
Drinking a few glasses of wine or beer on a weekend will not undo all that work on your abdominal muscles But be careful not to overdo any excess. And bear in mind that if you need to host a client at the gym, you’ll need to do so with a clear head.
10. Lead by Example
As a personal trainer, you’re an influential figure for your clients. So, by prioritizing your own fitness and well-being, you inspire and motivate your clients to do the same.
Embody the healthy lifestyle you advocate, reinforcing your expertise and commitment to overall wellness.
This means focusing on what you eat, having a solid fitness campaign of regular exercise (for your own benefit) and taking care of your own body.
Make sure to study the latest trends in food and nutrition to offer support and advice, beyond just exercises. And remember that if you look good, you probably feel good too!
TL;DR: In Summary…
As a personal trainer, maintaining your personal fitness is not only essential for your well-being but also for your professional credibility.
By prioritizing regular workouts, setting measurable goals, embracing varied training modalities, and fueling your body with nutrient-rich foods, you lead by example and inspire others to follow suit. Remember, self-care is crucial in a profession centered around empowering others.
All fitness professionals needs to take care of themselves to ensure that they can offer the best support to their clients and keep on being awesome!
