Just like training a senior client, this client taught me valuable lessons. I was a bit nervous first but I enjoyed doing personal training sessions with this client.
About this client
This trainee was tall but had over 300lb and hadn’t done any exercises for so long.
Don’t think what you think “it is easy” is easy for everyone
This is a really important concept for me especially when your clients have special conditions. Some of the stuff I have been doing can be so challenging for this type of client. I will be talking about this more below.
Single leg exercises
Any single leg exercises can be challenging for this client. We did a lunge on the first session. But I think this person had a 300lb, sedentary lifestyle, and doing lunges is like almost holding half of his weight with his one leg. This was unreasonably hard for this client. I decided to terminate lunges altogether.
We worked on stepping up but starting with small steps (it is regular stairs height). We gradually add more intensity by adding more weights and even higher.
We also tried Single leg RDL but this was too challenging for his back (think how much weight his hip and core region have to bear). We added some height again instead of performing from the ground.
Bodyweight versus Weight lifting
We tried incline push ups as well as chest press / bench press. I just wanted to try different types of exercises for him. And this is what I learned the most from this client. He definitely enjoyed doing chest press / bench press and liked it so much when he could lift heavier than 3 months ago whereas doing incline pushup was just tough for him.
Eventually, I decided not to ask him to do pushups anymore because by doing pushups, he was just more aware of how big he was and I thought he lost confidence in himself. That being said, he was confident, telling other trainers how much he could lift after bench press. This is what I want to see in him.