Posted on February 22, 2021 by Jenny Cromack
I’m a firm believer that personal trainers should be role models to their clients. After all, if we are encouraging and pushing our clients to achieve their goals, we should be prepared to push and strive to achieve ours too. But what I don’t think many of our personal training clients and gym members realise is how inspirational they are.
I was recently chatting to one of our personal training clients. During our conversation, she mentioned that we had known each other for 13 years. Wow! I met this client not long after setting-up my own personal training company (pre motive8 days), and I can still vividly remember doing her initial consultation. Many of my clients who started training with me during my Jenny Cromack Personal Training ‘era’, still train with us now at motive8 which is lovely (simply writing that line puts a smile on my face!).
As I reflected on how long I had known this lady, and therefore many of our other members and clients, it made me realise how much our PT clients and our gym members inspire me. The inspiration takes many forms from simply motivating me during one of my own training sessions to influencing me to be a stronger, better person.
Training
From a training perspective our members and clients are a constant source of inspiration. When I’m out on a run and my legs feel like lead and the easy option would be to slow down or cut my route short, I remind myself that I wouldn’t want one of my clients to cut their routes short, or that client ‘X’ pushed themselves to do their longest run ever at the weekend and that spurs me on.
I’m definitely a morning person when it comes to training, but some days my schedule only allows me to train at night. On these days I find it harder to motivate myself to train, but I do it by reminding myself that I’d expect my clients to fit their training sessions in, so why should I be any different. This motivates me to get my lazy-ass into gear!
Work & Family Life
Over the years I’ve been hugely inspired by my clients and their dedication to fitting their training around work and/or family life. Whether they own their own business, have a busy, high pressured job or work crazy long shifts or crazy long hours, they still fit their sessions in. And for some, they are also Mums and Dads too. (if you’re home schooling at the moment I take my hat off to you!)
As personal trainers, one of our jobs is to make sure our clients have realistic training plans, something which fits into their lifestyles whilst still achieving their goals. Another of our jobs is to keep our clients motivated but there has to be some degree of motivation from within so if you’re juggling training, work and/or childcare……be inspired by yourself, you’re doing a great job!
The family element resonates with me more so now I have a 2 year old. Hand on heart, before I became a Mum, I don’t think I realised how much of a juggling act having a family and/or a busy job plus fitting in training really is. On the days when I’m a bit sleep deprived from a night of ‘Mummy…..mummeeeeeee’ every hour, on the hour, the Mums and Dads out there who I know are still putting the effort into their training encourage me to do the same.
Business Influence
Aside from training, as a business owner, I’ve been massively influenced by my clients. I love hearing their stories about how they started up their businesses or have progressed their careers. I am surrounding by such strong, positive, passionate people whose stories and experience have helped me with my own business and career.
I’d also go a step further with this and say that many of my clients have also influenced me as a person. They have taught me to be strong, take on new challenges (both personal and work-related) and stay positive, whatever life throws at you.
Like many people, life is not plain sailing for our clients and members. Many of them have had to deal with serious injuries or illnesses, there may have been other things going on in their lives which could have impacted their training. Sometimes, this may have resulted in taking a break from their training, but, when the time was right, they have always picked up their training again. Their strength, determination and resilience inspires me every day, not only in my training but in everything I do.
I feel so fortunate to have met and have been inspired by so many amazing people during my time as a personal trainer and since we opened motive8. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for your inspiration. You all legends!
Jenny x