Add Mental Training to Your Physical Training Program

I am writing another book and although it’s gear towards fitness professionals some of the principles could be used by coaches. It’s a step by step education & process for adding mental skills into a physical skills training program. What could be better than having a more well rounded arsenal of knowledge and skills to better help your clients and athletes? 🙂 It’s not as difficult as it sounds!

One of the biggest things I hope to get across in this book is that what you do as a personal trainer and coach can have a huge impact on people’s lives but only if you are willing to accept your responsibility in the relationship. The relationship used to be ‘I’ll tell you what to do and you just do it’ but times have changed. Today’s relationships are more reciprocal. Athletes and exercisers need improved communication, a different kind of relationship and more support.

Personal trainers and coaches need to assess mental skills

The ability to mentally assess a client and athlete is as important as a physical assessment. The problem is, although fitness professionals & coaches have gotten really good at the physical there is none/not much consideration for the mental. Without the mental or emotional awareness an athlete might falter and a client will fail.

Fitness

In fitness this is the reason that approximately 75% of the population either does not exercise or does not exercising regularly. Their needs have not been met and what I mean by this is that their mental need to understand change, transition and adjust to exercise have not only not been met but have not been considered or communicated.

It’s important for fitness professionals to understand that once someone who does not exercise or does not exercise regularly contacts them there is an unconscious mental process. This process involves: how inviting is the facility, how do personal trainers, fitness staff or other staff communicate, how supportive are the staff (or personal trainers) and how in touch with my ‘needs’ are they.

We live in a world where obesity is no longer epidemic but pandemic! Fitness professionals still assume that if a client contacts them they must be ready and prepared to exercise yet we still have approximately 75% of the population who is not exercising or does not exercising regularly and we have an obesity pandemic that is not getting better.

Part of what is going to help facilitate change is educating fitness professionals on the mental components of activity, exercise, change, etc. They don’t yet know or understand what they don’t know or understand and are relying on the same training all fitness professions get and have gotten for years. The mental component of exercise has always been there but now it’s imperative that it’s implemented because we have a health crisis and the only way to get clients and keep clients is through this kind of change in ideology.

Coaches

The days of Bobby Knight are gone. Athletes demand respect. We now have organizations like the Positive Coaching Alliance talking to youth coaches about the new principles of coaching and parents about being a parent of an athlete and what to look for in a coach. PCA’s principles are partially founded from sports psychology.

I’ll bet you’ve had athletes who you thought could be really good so you pushed them to train more and train harder but they didn’t reach their potential. Something was getting in the way and it probably wasn’t your physical training or the athlete not wanting it enough. It was mental.

What’s the investment

It takes time to adjust to the addition of mental training to your physical training program but it’s the right thing to do for your athletes and clients. Once you have a good basis, you have it and then it becomes natural and part of the program; similar to when you started coaching or training.

You’ve invested time, energy & money into your profession and I assume you are in your profession to HELP people be the best they can be whether that means athletically or in health, wellness & fitness. There are reasons some professions require continuing education: times change. For example, 10 years ago we thought trans-fats were fine and now we’ve come to realize they are bad for us. Times change! Are you going with the change or against the change?

Book

Back to my book. Tell me what information you’d  need to know in order to implement mental training as part of your physical training program. I’d like your feedback!

If you are interested in exploring mental training as a possible addition to your program, I can help.

Have a great day!

Dr. Michelle

Below is a view of the drastic changes in obesity over the past 23 years:

Obesity in 2008

Obesity in 1985