Note: Featured image is of Jill Lollar Jacobs with credit to Ariel Perez Photography.
Last week I asked the PTDC's awesome Facebook community for their best tips on training women in 3 sentences or less. We then decided on 23 from 23 different trainers in every corner of the globe. All of these are great important tips that any training working with female clients should keep in mind.
-Jon
Michelle Koe Page Women's hormones have a huge impact on fat loss. The food you consume and the type of workout you do affect the way your hormones act. Forget long steady state cardio sessions..... lift heavy and do HIIT workouts.
Kickstart Bootcamp Top tip for training women: Remember their name. Engage every one of them and treat them like the most important person in the room. Make them love training and they will want to work their socks off. Be respectful and professional but also be available.
Tracy Weir Don't be afraid of weights, they are your friend. Ditch the scale as it only tells a small part of the story, go by how your clothes feel. The magic pill exists in real food and consistency in your workouts.
Trent Dubois I believe that we must help women build a healthy relationship with food and exercise. Don't beat a certain protocol down their throats and teach them, as we are consistently finding through research, that there are endless ways to skin a cat. If they like chocolate, eat chocolate. If they like to do cardio, do cardio. This honesty with your female clients will not only allow them to build a stronger relationship with the trainer, but also with their life.
Brandon Sandford Understand that becoming healthy is a lifestyle, it requires commitment and effort. Sure resistance training is good, as well as cardio, but it's training the mind that really matters. If I can change their perception of dieting and food, I can change their outlook, which in turn changes their wants and needs and more times than not allows them to strive further to obtain their fitness goals. You have to be in tune to your client.
Lavanya Krishnan Lifting weights, in addition to doing just cardio, provides far greater benefits for your whole body and will aid in your fat-loss goals. Show up consistently and you'll gain strength, confidence and a determination to keep going. That's something no scale can measure.
Kelly Clay Resistance training with heavy weights won't make you "manly." It will get you the results you want! Want to lose weight? Train with weights. Want to get "toned"? Same answer.
John Pownall Don't try and be like the girls in the magazines, be the best version of you. Eat well, train hard, and you'll have the results.
Christian Dix Forget the scales. They have misled you and made you feel less than amazing. Your tight pair of jeans are now your benchmark.
Katie McBody Peabody Don't worry about decreasing the number on the scale, focus on increasing the weight you lift. Cutting calories to 1,200 isn't the answer. Take progress pictures.
Katherine Whitfield You deserve more than the latest waist-whittling workout from some magazine. You deserve strength, you deserve independence, you deserve unyielding confidence.
Brittany Healthy-Bodies There is a difference between strong and skinny! Don't compare yourself to others. Not everyone is meant to be a size 2. Don't be scared of weights. They will soon be your best friend, and being strong can be a huge ego boost!
David Pavkovich Put more focus in the beginning on strength, performance, and moving better. Not only will all your other goals fall into place easier, you will gain an incredible confidence to overcome your other challenges.
Jo Cummings Calories matter, but hormones matter more, so eat for hormone balance. Stress and sleep have no caloric number, but heavy metabolic impact, and most women are over-stressed and under-restored. Address these, along with mindset about food and weights, and then it's all just about the butt. (Which means their previous "skinny" jeans may not be a good measure because a good booty is a rounded, muscular booty!)
Reece Mander Try not to localize blood flow. Supersetting upper body with lower body is better than quads and hamstrings, for example. Most women tend not to like the feeling of areas full of blood.
Matt Dickson Lift heavy, learn a skill, rest adequately. That applies to men or women.
Austin Twomey Respect them, be aware of their lives, and listen.
Ben Singh Work at their pace. They'll listen to you if you take your time and explain why you're doing what you're doing. Most want to lose fat and "tone up," so introduce them to weight training but use their language while doing so. It'll make them feel more comfortable and they'll understand you better.
Eric Giroux 1. Train with adequate resistance, no matter the source.
2. Never eat less then your BMR.
3. Listen to their wants and understand their needs.
Jessi Kneeland Know that most women have spent their entire lives being told they aren't ... enough. If you can convince your female client that she is worth it, her results will skyrocket. I believe you can do this through encouraging her to participate in her own training and body, empowering her to believe she is worth the work and attention, and supporting her self-exploration.
Jon Fryett Women especially need to stay physically active to prevent bone density loss as they age. After menopause, it becomes even more important to use some form of resistance training and gravity-loaded exercises.
Jarred English It all comes down to nutrition, exercise, and consistency. If you are eating more natural foods and lifting heavy weights, you can build an incredible body. Consistency is the key to seeing these changes happen.
Terri Thatcher Check the integrity of your pelvic floor muscles before undertaking an intense training program. Sixty percent of women will suffer with pelvic floor dysfunction (urinary incontinence) brought about by postural imbalance and lack of education combined with intense or high-impact exercise.