focus away from being a private trainer to an approach of ‘putting the
personal back into personal trainer’.
I learned to open up and start sharing – but not oversharing – more
of my personal life with them. They learnt when my birthday was and
when I got engaged and then married. They learnt the real details
of my personal fitness goals. Sharing more about myself created a
stronger bond in our client: trainer relationship and the support for
achieving goals ended up going both ways. We worked together to
keep each other accountable. They had always been accountable to
me, but for the first time ever I found that I was also being kept on
track by them.
Team support
The biggest goal I shared with my clients started three years ago
when I first decided to compete in a fitness model competition. I was
on the fence about competing because I’d heard about the negative
impact it can have on health and hormones for females. My clients,
however, were excited about the idea of me competing because
they wanted to watch me transform myself and be up on stage. They
In my mind, the client was paying for my time and
knowledge to help them, not to hear about my goals
or my personal activities
28 | NETWORK AUTUMN 2019
encouraged me, saying they knew I could do
it because I’m so strong minded.
Initially, I had my doubts as prepping for
a comp requires consistency and structure
when it comes to training and eating. As a
personal trainer my schedule was all over
the place. I’d grab a coffee, protein bar or
banana bread to quickly give me energy
between sessions. As a trainer, my daily
schedule would often alter according to
changes to my client’s availability. In a
nutshell, my days were the opposite of
consistency and structure!
Transparency
After meeting with my comp coach, Steve
Baudo, who was my original mentor back
when I was studying my Cert III and Cert IV, I
learnt that if I wanted to achieve my goal and
win, I’d have to be clear with all my clients
about my goal. This transparency would
allow me to tell them, guilt-free, that I would
be unavailable to train them at specific
times. It gave me the confidence to block off
my schedule to sit and eat a proper meal,
and the time to get my own training session
in each day.
With the support and encouragement of
my clients I trained harder than ever before.