It was early morning and I remember telling myself, I am not a morning person, but I remember telling myself, “I am going to change these people’s lives regardless because I love what I do,” that is one of the essential mindsets of a successful fitness instructor.
In this article, I am going to cover three very important mindsets that make a group fitness instructor successful. And in fact, some of my favorite days I’ve ever had is when I trained Saturday mornings, first class at 8:30, second class was core at 9:30, then balance class at 10:30, and last class at 11:30.
Most people would say, “you train four classes?” I would always tell them “yes, and I love it”
Mindset is Number One Before You Workout
You see, this is what most people don’t think about before working out. They just think, “Oh I’m here, so let’s do it.” Then I hear people ask, “Why don’t I feel any better?”
I ask them, “did you weigh yourself before class?” Then they’d tell me, “Yes.”
“That’s what you did wrong. Look, I know you want to see the scale drop, but you have to feel good in your body in your own mind before you weigh yourself.”
Here’s what I want you to think about, how often do you weigh yourself and get disappointed? I can tell you from experience myself, read this and you’ll see my story on how I chased the idea of getting abs and it didn’t work.
The fact that you are weighing yourself tells me that you are chasing this idea of the perfect body you want, but here’s the thing, we all have certain things about our body that we don’t like.
But there comes a point where you must start accepting yourself. Because not accepting yourself is actually going to stop you from losing weight.
Why is that? It’s because your self-worth is all tied to a number on the scale. That scale is going to rule your mind.
“But I want to lose weight Adam.”
I completely understand that and I have mad respect for you. However, your mindset is top priority. Having a bad mindset won’t get you results.
Most Trainers Overlook The Classmates Mindset
It amazes me how many people overlook this. You see there is a reason why I call this the masculine mindset blog.
I know you see me training women above, but that just goes to show you how many guys nowadays have checked out of life and got lazy.
This is why I am advocating for YOU to understand this. YOU have to show that you’re more motivated than the classmates you train.
You see, this is what makes a trainer successful, is they get the classmates in a towards-driven mentality.
I have showed people my Youtube Class and they said, “I would never do that.”
And this is what makes a group trainer successful. Here’s what they do…
Successful group trainers MUST get all of the classmates out of their head and in the present moment.
Why should you do that? Because most people don’t want to workout. In fact, they watch you right?
And then they say, “You’re young, you can do that. I cannot do that.”
Bad belief. In fact, here’s my response, “You just don’t think you can do it yourself.”
It’s time that I tell you something, one of my best clients, her name is Lisa, she once said, “I cannot do burpees.”
But then I watched her do it. Then I said to her after class, “you did burpees Lisa, you should be very proud of yourself”
How Well You Work With Others is More Important Than Looking Good
Here’s what compromises a successful personal trainer. That is you put your fitness goals aside for two seconds. Look I get it, you want to lead by example and look good, however, you have to put your clients goals as top priority.
Not doing that is going to hinder you from succeeding. You see, I’m going to get to the three essential mindsets in a second, however, this is an issue I’ve noticed in MANY trainers I’ve met.
They get all tied up in their ego and act like a hot shot. Save that for when you workout. When you do that in front of classmates, it looks highly unprofessional, and you look like you’re only concerned about yourself.
Successful group fitness instructors put their clients goals first. They look out for their clients and they lead with a giving hand.
And when I say this, that doesn’t mean you lose sight of your fitness goals and stop working out. You see, there are out of shape trainers.
That is also a big thing you should think about my friends. I’ve actually heard this from many people, they say, “I want to work with a trainer that is in shape and I can tell he takes his health seriously.”
So don’t think that getting away with not working out because I said you should put your clients goals first.
It simply means take care of yourself, classmates watch how you workout.
I remember once when a classmate named Ann Marie said, “I watch you working out and it’s amazing how hard you work.”
Honestly, I appreciated the compliment but you learn throughout life, no matter how much someone builds you up, it shouldn’t be what you rely on to get in a good state. That means be independent of the good and bad opinions of others.
Mindset of a Successful Fitness Instructor – My House
I want you to think of every class as everyone is coming to your house and you are in control of the class.
Because not having this mindset will make your classmates question your authority. They want to know that you can lead them.
So it’s extremely important that you demonstrate authority simply by having a very stern, downward tone.
That doesn’t mean sound like an asshole, it means you know how to take lead by projecting your voice from your diaphragm, not your throat.
Act like they are your guests at your house and you will give them the right vibe.
There’s a lot to be said about understanding exercise physiology, kinesiology, biomechanics of lifting, and nutrition, however this is about having the right mindset to run a class successfully.
That means having the mindset of this is my house. This puts you in the right context to lead the class effectively.
In result, you’ll have better social skills. Socializing doesn’t just apply at bars and nightclubs.
It applies strongly in the gym when running classes. Check this out and you’ll see that even NASM advises you to have communication skills.
This is how I think and the mindset I put myself in to when I train high intensity interval training for example.
Mindset of a Successful Fitness Instructor – State Transference
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Here’s something you probably didn’t know. State transference is one of the most powerful ways to influence others. And that just means put yourself in a better state than your classmates.
You’ll find that being in a better state than your classmates will make them feel good. Why? Because they feel your energy. And this is what people forget about when training classes.
They just think, “be motivational and they will love you.” To an extent that’s true. However, when your self-entertained, and your in a good, playful mood, you lighten up the tension of doing hard exercises.
I actually recommend that you go through my first blog I’ve ever written here, and you’ll see how to get in a really good state of mind to lead classes. There are so many ways to train your state. Most people don’t think about this.
However, when I felt like I was at my best, and training people effectively, it was when I did Bio-energetics (bow and arc) that I really brought value to all of my classes.
That is because people want to FEEL your energy. That is how they get in state. You see women seek state outside themselves. Men often draw state from within. In case you didn’t know, your state is within your control.
You can choose to be in a bad state, and that won’t be good for you training a class. In fact, most people can tell when you’re not in state. There’s no passion when training people when you’re in a crappy state of mind.
Think of it as you train your mood to be at your highest performing self. This is what classmates want to see, that you are not thrown to and from by outside influences and you remain centered while training.
This is such a subtle difference in your performance to lead classes effectively, but I’m telling you, knowing how to train your state makes a massive difference to running a successful class. A good state translates in to demonstrating higher value which results in making a high impact in your classmates lives.
Mindset of a Successful Fitness Instructor – Never Quit Mentality
Now here’s where we have to be that motivational force in the fitness class. If you want to have a successful class, you must, (and I really mean this) you MUST demonstrate the never quit mentality and encourage your classmates do whatever it takes to work as hard as they can.
Why? As I said earlier, most people don’t really want to do the hard exercises that you incorporate in your program design. It is ESSENTIAL that you have the never quit mentality.
Because when you don’t have the never quit mentality, your classmates can tell that you don’t have that fiery passion when you make commands to do burpees for example.
Here’s my brain dump of what I’d say during a class…
“Do NOT quit, I’m right here for you, but whatever you do, keep going, don’t quit!!!”
This is just an example, so I want to take your own internal motivation and to SHOW it to your classmates.
When you become a fitness trainer, you inevitably become a public speaker, so it’s important that you raise the energy of the class.
The Bottom Line
So here’s something you probably didn’t know about fitness training, you have to learn how to communicate effectively, understand people skills, and know how to change their state.
Because let’s face it, we are living in a society full of sedentary people. Did you know that 80% of US adults and children are not working out? [R]
To me, that’s really sad, it’s because the norm of society is go to work, eat shitty fast food for lunch, then go home, eat a heavy dinner, go to bed.
That’s the mistake everyone makes. The bottom line is you have NO CHOICE but to get people out of their heads and show them you understand their situation and be relatable.
If they can’t relate to you, then you won’t influence people to work out. I’ll give you one more tip to get good with people in general. Start talking to strangers regularly and get comfortable talking to groups of people.
This is how to get comfortable with people skills. The majority of all people are demotivated by stress. If you can bring people value, then you’ll make an impact on anyone’s lives.
You see, part of my story is before I became a fitness instructor is I learned communications and social skills, that is INCREDIBLY important and knowing how to relate to others is how I got good with people.
So have some faith in yourself, take these three mindsets in to consideration when you run a fitness class. And people will remember you as someone that made a positive impact on their life.
I appreciate you reading this all the way through. So feel comfortable to leave a comment down below. And follow me on Tik-Tok.
Thanks for your time, you’re a legend coming up in the ranks 😉
