My Red Flags As A Coach

​In this episode I reflect on a few 'red flags' which I personally had at certain points in my career. 

Episode Chapters:

0:07
Introduction to Red Flags
1:59
Red Flag One: No Long-Term Plan
4:57
Red Flag Two: Lack of Additional Programming
7:02
Red Flag Three: Same Session for All Clients
10:52
Red Flag Four: Coach's Dislike for Training
10:58
Red Flag Five: Unnecessary Gadget Sales
13:10
Red Flag Six: Not Discussing Nutrition
15:54
Red Flag Seven: Inability to Explain Concepts
17:46
Red Flag Eight: Arbitrary Assessments
20:30
Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Episode Transcript:

​[0:00] All right, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. So in today's episode,

[0:03] we are talking through my red flags as a coach. And I'm going to be talking you through a few things that I have done through my career as a coach, which looking back is a bit of a red flag. And ultimately, if you sort of see people doing this as a coach, they want to give you sort of second thoughts in regards to working with them.

[0:24] Now, I've been coaching in one way, shape or form for over 15 years. And I've gone through many, many different iterations of coaching, starting all the way back as a junior athletics coach, leading to a gym trainer, leading to personal training in a bunch of different situations, a bunch of different gyms, to now exclusively working with hikers and mountaineers. And I've gone through a bunch of different things. And like anyone, as you go through a career journey, you start off not being very good. And you go through periods where you fall into bad habits and hopefully over the long term you learn and grow and you know get better um sometimes we do sometimes we don't but uh but yeah but basically today i just want to talk you through a few things that i've done at certain stages in my career which weren't particularly great you know for the most part you know through these sort of stages like looking back i was still you know giving decent sessions because you know i was making a living from this i was obviously doing something right um i was still giving decent sessions as people were happy and you know seeing results in certain one ways or another. But looking back, it was very, very clear. There are certain things where I just, certain times and in certain situations, I just wasn't serving people as well as I could have.

[1:33] I don't really think I do these things anymore. I definitely don't do these things anymore because now I'm not only in my livelihood, but many people's livelihood and careers live by that. But I want to talk about them because I think it's really, really useful. Again, like at this time of year, when we're considering trainers in the new year, and were like, hey, I'm going to kickstart my fitness and go down these certain things, these can be good things to look out for.

[1:56] And also just have a bit of a laugh about younger Rowan and some of the stuff he did. So with that being said, let's get into my red flags as a coach. Now, red flag number one is not having a plan. Now, at certain stages in my career.

[2:15] I've gone through periods where I just haven't really had a long-term plan with people. Initially, when I was personal training, this is really talking about when I was actually personal training, one-to-one clients, like this was my main source of income. This was my livelihood. I'd sort of have people who come see me for a goal. Now, at that stage of my life, I was kind of training everyone under the sun as I was still figuring out what I wanted to do. I had people coming to me to build strength, to lose weight, to improve sports performance, to get ready for other things and this and that. Super cool. Now, when I officially first started training, I was fresh out of university. Like full-time doing a job and you know this was what I was doing for every single person I started with I would sit down and put together a really nice long-term plan and I map it out like yes this is what we're going to do we're going to progress progress progress and this is what we're going to from start to finish where we're going to get you but what I found pretty quickly is this plan never went smoothly things always came up people got sick people didn't follow instructions you know people went away on holidays um things cropped up whatever may be and what I found in 95% of the time. These longer term plans, me putting this time to it, it was just a waste of time. And I was like, oh, this just isn't working. So what I found myself falling into a trap of looking back is I went through a period, and this is multiple months for a while before I actually sat down and had a good look at myself and was like, oh, this isn't great, is I just went through a period of never having a plan with people. People come to me with a goal and be like, cool, awesome. And instead of planning things out, I just sit down and just do one session at a time. And we'll just see where that takes us.

[3:41] Now, in all honesty, this approach, it can work if people are just generally wanting to get fit. And it can work for weight loss because training for weight loss isn't complicated. But generally, when people were training for strength or for sports performance, it wasn't amazing. And it was definitely not serving them as well as it could be. Now, these days, for me, the way that I approach my planning, the way I've found a way around this is when I have a new client come on, I'll sit down and do a rough plan for the duration of training. So I won't set things in stone, but I'll say, look, we've got six months of training. This is kind of the milestones we want to hit. This is kind of roughly what I want to do over the time and this and that. And then essentially I'll sit down and do a hard plan for three weeks at a time. And I'd update three weeks, three weeks, three weeks, three weeks, typically, and really do a hard plan. So that way, if things did come up, well, I haven't wasted hours and hours mapping out a really hard plan for six months, but that's how I approach it. And I think that works out pretty well. But basically, my red flag at that stage was I didn't have a plan. If people ask me, hey, what are we doing in four months' time or three months' time or two months' time, I would either not have an answer or I would talk out my ass. If you're working with a trainer or talking with a trainer, ask them about a plan. See what they say. If they can clearly, concisely give you at least the framework of what your long-term plan is, that's great. If they can't, a bit of a red flag.

[4:58] So number two, red flag, is no additional programming. Now, when I was personal training in gyms, I would typically have people come see me, you know, once or twice a week. They come in to a 30-minute, 45-minute, 60-minute session once, twice a week, occasionally three times a week, or whatever it may be. And at first, again, when I was fresh and fluffy and like wide-eyed and innocent and all of that, I would sit down, every single person that came to me, I would sit down and write out a weekly program for anyone. So if they saw me once a week, then I would write out, okay, on the two or three or four days in the week. I want you to do these other sessions or whatever it may be. And everyone, every single person would get this. But then I found pretty quickly again, that probably one person out of 10 actually followed these sessions and actually did the program. And I was like, what's the point? So I stopped doing it. And essentially what ended up happening, I fell into this trap where people were literally just paying me for the hour or two for the week. And that was it. They didn't get anything else outside of those sessions. They didn't get extra advice, whatever it may be, and this and that. And yes, if someone directly asked me, hey, can I have a program? I would do it, but I wasn't proactive about it.

[6:01] Now, this type of thing, it can be better than nothing. Obviously, you're still getting an hour or two of quality exercise per week, but in all honesty, trainers can do better. And if you're directly working with a coach, you're one-to-one working with a coach, you should be getting a program for your week. This is different if you're doing group coaching or whatever it may be, but if you're doing one-to-one coaching, you should be getting a program. And then whether you put into action or not, that's up to you. Now, for me these days, I don't actually do hourly sessions anymore. I don't work in a gym. We only do online personal training. And essentially what we do is we just program out someone's week. So we don't actually spend an hour with people, but we say, these are the four sessions we want you to do the week or the five sessions, whatever it may be. And they go out and do it. And funnily enough, like you wouldn't think this, but I've actually found this works way better than the hourly sessions I used to do, purely for the fact that people don't have this mindset where they're like, I'm just going to do an hour or two hours and then whatever, that'll be fine. But people come to the sessions and they look at the program and they equally value all the sessions in a week.

[6:58] Funnily enough, it actually works better. So there you go. So that's number two.

[7:02] Now, red flag number three is doing the same session for all my clients. This is a bad one. And I explicitly remember it wasn't just me. There was like four or five trainers at this gym I used to work at that do the same thing. And essentially what happened is at first, again, when I first started working with everyone. I had personalized plans for everyone. People come to me with their goals, with their needs. I'd have the interview, this and that, come up with a personalized plan and a different program for every single person. But then it got to a point again where I was like, oh, you know, I just got a bit lazy in all honesty. I was pretty young. I was out partying, training in my career. It wasn't really the priority of my life. It was more of a means to an end. I was just missing living my life, whatever it is. And literally what I ended up doing is I'd just roll in at the start of the day at 5 a.m. I'd write a session just before my first client came in.

[7:52] I'd do one program for weight loss clients and one program for muscle gain clients. And then basically every single person that came in during that day, if they're a weight loss client, they would do the same program. If they're a muscle gain client, they'll do the same program. So what would happen sometimes is people come training in the morning. We'd do a workout. Then they come back in the evening. I'd be still there because that's the life of a trainer. They would do their own session. Sometimes they did doubles and they'd see me working with another person and they were doing exactly the same session, even though they were different people. It was just me being lazy. This, honestly, is a red flag, and it's super common for personal trainers. As I said, in that gym, so many people were doing the same thing. It's just lazy. Now, these days, all of our program that we do is personalized. We never do this.

[8:40] Admittedly, there are a lot of similarities between people because we work with a lot of – all the people we work with have similar goals, hiking. A lot of the people we work with are in very, very similar age groups. A lot of the people we work with have similar equipment, similar time availability. So there's a lot of similarities between people. But the nuance of the program is there. And even if the general broad similarities between a lot of people, the nuance is there. Every individual will have different things. Some exercise will work for them. Some won't. People have different time commitments. People have different equipment, whatever it may be. And there's always a little bit of nuance at the very, very, very least. But it's definitely not like, hey, here's a slap shop program. Away you go. So that's definitely a red flag if you ever see a trainer doing that. Next one red flag is doing something they obviously hate now this is an obvious one but i wanted to say it anyway you know there was a period in one of the gyms i worked at actually i was in all honesty there was probably two or three of the gyms i worked at and that's a sad sad state of affairs before i started summit strength but basically i was doing sessions which i hated and i was coaching teaching sessions which i hated and these were realistically group training sessions i've always loved and enjoyed personal training one-to-one interaction.

[9:50] But i've never liked group training when i'm in there in the room with 10 20 30 people and in certain gyms that i've worked at that has been a necessity, In certain gyms I've worked at, either I've had to do a certain amount of hours of that type of stuff in the week, or that was like the gym and the model, and I had to go in and do those classes, and that was kind of what I had to do, plus have the opportunity to personal train. And there have been periods where I'm like, hey, that's okay. And there have been periods where I'm like, oh my gosh, I hate this. And I drag myself in, and I go into those sessions, and I just wouldn't want to talk to people before the sessions. I'd go through the sessions, do the bare minimum of coaching and this and that, and I'd just be like, no, I want to get out of here as quickly as possible. That is a red flag in all honesty. If your coach obviously hates what they're doing, whether it's in a one-to-one session, whether it's in a group training session or whatever it may be, that's a red flag. They are not going to be giving you the quality of service you deserve. I definitely wasn't in certain stages of my career in those situations where I was forced basically to do these things, which I really didn't enjoy, or I didn't believe the methods I was training or whatever it may be.

[10:52] If your trainer obviously hates what they're doing, it's a common sense one, but that's a red flag.

[10:58] Next one is selling you gadgets you don't need. So this has happened in two gyms I've worked at in the past. And essentially, people come to these gyms. They want to train. They want to program. They want to be this and that. And then a lot of gyms you work at or a lot of gyms you go to, the trainers there will have certain obligations they need to hit. You have to do a certain amount of sessions, have to do a certain amount of classes, whatever it may be. And sometimes there's either an obligation that they have to sell a certain amount of extra products, in this case, gadgets or whatever it may be, or they get extra money and extra incentive from selling gadgets.

[11:37] Tricky thing here is sometimes people just don't need them. And essentially, you'll be like, hey, a client will come in and they'll be doing sessions. They'll be happy. They'll be great. They'll be feeling good. And then you are obliged as a coach to be like, hey, spend this extra $100, $200 to get this heart rate monitor. It's going to explode your results and this and that and this and that.

[11:57] And then buying it. But it's just not necessary. Two gyms I've worked at, I've fallen into that trap. And maybe that was one of the reasons why I was so unhappy at certain places I worked at because we had to do these things, but it sucks. And honestly, that's a red flag. If your trainer is really, really pushing things at you, and I always try to just be almost half-arsed in that additional selling because I never really did believe in it, but I still did it, which isn't a good thing. That is a bit of a red flag. Sometimes it is an obligation of clients, of coaches, but it's something to look into. These days through Summit Strength, we do charge a significant amount of money for our training. Our coaching isn't cheap in the grand scheme of things because we offer a premium service and a specialist service. And there are many other things that I'm like, I'm pretty aware that these things could be pretty cool as an additional thing, but I'm aware a lot of people already paid a lot of money for my training. So I really try to avoid making too many pushes against additional purchases. And there's certain things I'm like, if you're interested in this, this is an option for you. You can explore this, but I never push it on people. And literally the only thing I ever tell people they 100% need when they come on our programs, it costs $10 at the most. It's just like minibands or therabands, which everyone has. Anything else is an option and it's never pushed. Very, very important.

[13:10] Next red flag is not talking about nutrition. Now, when it comes down to it, most coaches, most personal trainers are not experts in nutrition. Most coaches, most personal trainers are experts in training and exercise, and that distinction is important. And most trainers and coaches are not qualified to give you detailed and specialized nutrition coaching.

[13:33] However, nutrition should still be talked about in one way or another. Now, when I first started was doing coaching and general training, I did used to talk about nutrition with people and give them certain bits of advice or certain things they want to aim for or whatever it may be. But very, very, very quickly, I got very disheartened, just like a lot of the other things, because I realized like one out of 10, if not less, would actually do what I recommend. And I'd ask them, and I'd be like, hey, did you do this? No. Hey, did you do this? No. Hey, how'd you do on the weekend? Oh, I did this and this and this, and I drank 20 beers, ate a whole birthday cake, something like that. And it just gets disheartening. So I got to this point, again, many years ago, where I just stopped talking about it altogether, unless someone specifically asked about it. Now, this isn't a red flag in itself and a lot of coaches get by by saying this is my lane this is what i stick with and you know i'm just going to train and exercise and that's fine but if you are specifically training for weight loss and your coach isn't mentioning nutrition hmm.

[14:33] Needs a bit of thought. Same thing as if you're specifically training for muscle gain and your coach isn't mentioning nutrition. Needs a bit of thought. Now, if you're just generally training to get fit and feel good, you know, nutrition can be a great component of it, but it's not a necessity. Same thing for performance. Like, you know, you don't need nutrition. It can certainly help, but this and that. Now, these days through Summit Strength, we've got a really nice balance of things here where basically just general nutrition. We don't do weight loss so much anymore. We don't really do a huge amount of muscle gain so much more. We typically do performance, helping you on the trail. So we have educational resources around nutrition, which teach people what types of foods they should be eating, how often they should be eating, this and that, to actually help their energy, help their recovery, and this and that. That's really, really simple. And then if people do want to get a little bit deeper and actually talk about weight loss or muscle gain or more complicated nutrition things, then we can basically, as part of our online summer program, we have actually consultations included with dietitians who specialize in hikers, where people can go into that in a little bit more detail. So for us, we found a nice balance between obviously giving the general nutrition staff, the specialist nutrition staff, and obviously staying in our lane as coaches as well. So that works out pretty well. And then the final red flag I'm going to talk about, and before I need to go have a shower because it is so hot in my home office with my tour and my windows

[15:52] closed. It's like a sauna in the summer. The last one I want to cover is basically when you can't explain concepts clearly.

[16:00] Now this is a really like simple thing and it's a really really common thing um and it's like a hierarchy in learning i can't exactly remember the right terminology around this but a lot of stuff we have it explained to us we learn it and at the very very base level of understanding we understand it for ourself but we can't actually if someone likes asked us to explain it we're not very good at explaining it the next level of learning where we're a little bit more competent is we can actually eloquently say what we're doing and i think the next level is be able to really, really simplify this concept in something that everyone understands. And essentially, you know, oh no, I've got two more red flags, I should say. But yeah, back on this, is essentially if a coach is talking about a topic and they can't actually explain it clearly, that's a bit of a red flag. For example, like, you know, when people used to ask me calories, like actually ask me about calories or whatever it may be. And I used to say like, calories are important, yada, yada, yada and someone asked me and I actually tried to explain in a little bit more detail this is what a calorie is or whatever it may be and it wasn't super clear not amazing or if people ask me like hey where does pain come from or why is this causing me pain, And I'm like, well, I try to answer, but I can't explain it.

[17:16] There's a bit of a red flag. Because it's perfectly fine to say, I don't know, or maybe ask a physio, or maybe ask a dietitian, or whatever it may be. But if they're trying to promote and talk about concepts, and they can't explain it so well, yeah, a bit of a red flag. And that's something that I fell into previously. These days, I feel like for all the stuff that I talk about, I can explain it pretty well. And there's certain topics which I'm still not amazing about getting super deep. But usually that, I'm happy to pass it on to specialists. So nutrition, if there's something I don't know, I'll just get one of the dietitians to cover it. Very, very simple.

[17:47] And then finally, last one is, oh yeah, my last red flag was assessments. And I think in the previous podcast, I kind of sort of said one of the red flag of general trainers is sort of taking people through assessment processes needlessly or arbitrarily. And at a certain point in my career, I was told by a senior personal trainer who was like mentoring me at the time, that essentially one of the things that I needed to start doing We started doing assessments with new clients to stand out from the crowd. They said this was going to be a good way for me to showcase my knowledge, to get connection with the client, and ultimately be able to sell them through on my program. So essentially, I took people through these assessment processes and took them through certain things that I learned, these different movements, this and this and this and that. And ultimately, what happened is people did them. 99% of the time, and this is because the assessments are designed like this, people struggled with them.

[18:38] And there was always something I could identify and say, you know what? This is good. This is bad. This is good. This needs work. You know what? You struggled here. You need to work on this or whatever it may be. The assessments are kind of designed like that. And it wasn't me maliciously sort of saying, hey, yeah, I just want to get your money, suck you in. But I thought I was doing good. I thought I was doing the right things because like, honestly, I've been taught this and I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was ultimately just a sales tool because this is the first point of contact. This wasn't even like once someone signed up with me already, but this was the sales consultation. Someone would sit down and they'd say, I want personal training. I'd be like, cool, let's book you in for an assessment. And then I'd sort of take them through, say they need work, and then sell them something. It was a sales tool. This isn't always a red flag, but all too often, trainers use these arbitrary assessments. And some of the most common assessments that are taught to trainers in personal training school and universities, they're in all honesty arbitrary. They're useless. And now I can look back and say, oh my gosh, I can't believe I was doing those things because what was the point? But, you know, sometimes people just don't understand. I didn't at the time. A lot of people don't. So it isn't always a red flag, but it's tricky.

[19:46] For me, these days, I do use assessments still, but it's never part of a point of sale. We use it after someone's signed up. We use it to help personalise training. We use them because we don't actually stand in front of a client anymore and we can't actually see what they do. So we can use these assessments to identify, all right, these are certain areas that need a bit of work, whatever it may be. But most importantly the assessments we use it's never a case of making someone feel bad and they'll do assessments more like oh we you know this area needs a little bit of work whatever may be but we never never never say someone's broken we never never never say someone like you know is uh can't do this before they do this or whatever may be we just use it as a feeling after and also a way to judge progress.

[20:26] So, with that being said, I think that will probably wrap things up.

[20:31] Hopefully, you had a little bit of laugh at my expense going through today and hearing about some of the, you know, not amazing things I've done at certain stages of my career. When I was younger, when I was dumber, when I was just going out living life, didn't really know what I was doing.

[20:46] But also, hopefully, this just opens your eyes up to maybe some of these things. Maybe you are currently seeing. Maybe you're about to see ticking over the new year. maybe you may see in the future or whatever it may be. Because these red flags, both from this episode and last episode, I think they're important to be aware on. Because, you know, training exercise doesn't have to be complicated. And we can see results even with the worst coach in the world. But if you're putting your hard-earned money somewhere, your hard-earned time, you know, you deserve someone who's going to do your credit. So keep your eyes out for these things. I hope it helps out. Now, just with the last episode, I just want to say, if anyone does ever fall into something like this, and they're like, oh, I saw this thing. I'm not sure about it. I'm curious about this thing. I want some advice, whatever it may be. What I'd love you to do is come join a new training for hiking community group. Come in that group. Anytime something like this pops up, if you're curious, you want advice, you want some direction, whatever it may be, post up in that group. I'm always happy to give direction, give advice, and give my opinion. And potentially, you know, use some of these mistakes I've made in the past to potentially help you in the future. So if you want to check it out, I'll leave a link for that in the show notes below. You can check it out. Come join the group. It's completely free and all of that. So with that being said, thank you so much for listening today. I hope you've enjoyed this episode. I hope you got a little bit out of it and we'll talk to you very, very soon.

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