Dear Personal Trainers,
Please stop counting reps.
More specifically – stop doing so out loud, for everyone else in the gym to hear.
I know we think it’s an essential part of the job …
But you’re damaging our perceived value.
Yep – you’re making us look bad.
Personal trainers have an image issue. And we’ve created it for ourselves.
Mostly through poor standards and worse branding.
Fitness education has been so limited, and the bar has been set so low, that not only can anybody apparently qualify to be a PT – the public assumes anyone can do it.
To most people, the value of having a PT is:
- Accountability (i.e. showing up at a certain time and costing money that you can’t waste)
- A plan (because PTs like fitness and making fitness plans, of course)
- Counting reps (to make sure you do them all)
Let’s be honest – these are low value markers.
You could download a program from the Internet and outsource the rest to a well-trained monkey.
But our profession is about so much more than that.
Great personal trainers are exercise and nutrition consultants, with a little ‘behavioural scientist’ thrown in.
We’re complex problem solvers who use a blend of science, experience and objective logic to assess our clients’ needs and goals, and customise our prescription for them accordingly.
We use our words carefully, to explain to clients what, why and how they can achieve their goals and stay on track.
Standing beside them and counting to 10 over and over again doesn’t convey any of that – not to the client, and not to anybody who may be watching.
And honestly, if counting out loud is the only value we can provide during a set …
Maybe we need to reconsider our coaching capabilities.
We can use our voices for so much more. Cueing the exercise, keeping the client’s focus in the right place, on the right things – and not resorting to mindless movement.
For more complex exercises, where they have 5+ things to remember, we need to be watching attentively to identify where their focus is slipping, and bringing it back.
In the simpler movements, we’re ensuring they don’t forget the basics.
All the while, we’re managing their headspace.
Some people call this encouragement or motivation – but this is not the same as shouting YES NICE! throughout the set.
It’s about reassuring the client that they are capable of doing what is being asked of them, especially when it nears the limit of their capabilities.
Keeping them driven with your infectious belief that they will succeed.
And very importantly – keeping them calm. Because then things get tough, the monkey brain inside us starts to panic.
And when we panic, we lose focus, and form falls apart.
If you really consider everything that needs to be managed during an intense set – the number of reps being completed is the last thing we should be getting a client to think about.
This ‘countdown’ also makes them focus on how close they are to finishing the set — and not how well they can execute what they are currently doing.
So, please, I beg you – stop simply counting reps.
And if you can’t think of anything better to say during a set …
Maybe it’s time to re-evaluate whether your exercise education has properly equipped you with the tools to analyse and improve someone’s execution.