Jackson Dobesh
Responsibilities
Deliver Comprehensive Health & Fitness Programs For Clients: You'll receive coaching and training on our fitness system and programs, but you'll be expected to deliver them in a fun, enthusiastic, educational, and supportive manner. Tracking Client Progress: In order to ensure a client's success in our programs, you'll need to track weekly progress, current successes and challenges, review client nutrition and exercise log worksheets, and more on a weekly basis. It will be your job to hold the client's accountable to his/her health and fitness program to ensure the best results possible. Perform Fitness Evaluations: Ideally, you'll have some fitness assessment skills and can test for: body composition, body weight, girth measurements, and various strength and flexibility tests. You do not need previous experience, but if you do, that's a bonus. Demonstrate Proper Exercise Instruction: This is a big one. I need you to be able to provide proper coaching, instruction, and motivation during a client training session. You should have a working knowledge of the human body (i.e. muscles, movements, functions, etc.) and be able to provide appropriate exercises for the client's goals. Provide Ongoing Health and Fitness Education: Our clients rely on us to service all of their health and fitness needs. It is your job as a fitness coach to provide our clients with health and fitness education on various topics that will empower them to lead healthy lives forever. You'll be provided with educational tools and resources, will be expected to study them and speak about them with your clients. We also spend time covering this in our weekly staff meetings.
Accomplishments
Some of my greatest accomplishments include building my personal relationships with clients, teaching clients new tips during exercises, fixing form on big compound lifts, and helping clients achieve their goals and progress towards their future goals. It is the best feeling in the world when someone who has been lifting for 5+ years is able to learn something new. It is an even better feeling when you are the coach who gave them that insight. Goals and progression are both big aspects of losing weight, gaining muscle, and gaining strength. At the end of the day, if you are able to impact any client in a positive way that will help them in their fitness journey, then you are doing something right.
Learning experience
Some of my greatest lessons include the need for being open and honest with clients, organization for different class sizes and types of people, different ways of forming workouts with the goals of everyone in mind, and insight into the personal side of group fitness. It can be messy when you are a new trainer for clients that have had multiple previous trainers. The clients will have preconceived ideas about everything involving fitness. Some past trainers may have had knowledge about things, and others might not have. Either way, you are now coaching clients that see the past trainers' ideas as fact, even if it isn't. As a coach, it is your job to be personable with your clients when it comes to progressions, modifications, nutrition, form, exercise selection, recovery methods, and holding them accountable. You need to be someone that they look up to and will want to contact for guidance about any of those topics.
What advice would you give?
Put yourself out there and experience as much of the fitness industry as you can. Every job is going to be different. There are also a lot of different aspects of the fitness industry included in different jobs. The more experience you get in different fields, the more you will be able to see what you are truly passionate about and want to do as a lifelong career.