GX SKILLS
EXTENDING
RAPPORT
TO UNEARTH
PARTICIPANTS’ ‘WHY’
Opening up about their real motivations for exercising can strengthen participants’
commitment to working out, as well as to you and your facility, writes instructor Mel Morony.
ome on, let’s work off all the cake
and wine you had at the weekend’
the instructor says, ‘Time to take
it up a couple of gears.’
One of the participants, Jana, does as she
is told but also rolls her eyes. Her weekend
didn’t involve cake or wine. Instead she went
bike riding with a big group, tackling terrains,
weather and even inclines that never feature
in her indoor cycling class. The class she is
participating in first thing Monday morning
is her recovery. She’s never dared to tell the
instructor this, however, so she just keeps
powering on.
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A sea of faces?
As instructors, it is very easy for us to
perceive our class as a sea of faces. Since
these people have all come to our class we
can fall into the trap of assuming that they
are all there for the same reason. Yet as the
story above – taken from a conversation I
had years ago with a patron (name changed)
– illustrates, the reasons participants attend
classes are many and varied.
In the first part of this article (Building
rapport to keep ‘em coming back) we looked
at rapport building from the perspective
of how the bonds of community formed
between the instructor and new patrons
(and also between the patrons themselves)
could impact a fitness facility’s member
retention. In this article we’ll look at how
we can build rapport with our long-term
members, not just so that they will stay, but
so that they can express their true reasons
for exercising.
As fitness professionals, it should be a
no-brainer that very few people exercise
for the love of it. Some do, but most don’t.
However, despite how it may seem, neither
are they motivated to participate in an
exercise program because they want results
such as weight loss, sports conditioning,
stress relief or increased energy. As Sigmund
Freud noted (and Aristotle hinted at a couple
of millenia ago), ‘All human behaviour is
motivated by one thing – to avoid/ move
away from pain and move toward pleasure.’
Hence, there will be goals and motivations
that underpin someone’s training for those
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