The Complete Personal Trainer Podcast: Recent Episodes
Paul Meldrum
Do you want to become the ultimate fitness professional? In this podcast, former Australian Personal Trainer of the Year Paul Meldrum helps you understand how to succeed as a personal trainer. With weekly series, guest interviews and more, this podcast will help you get results, make more money and make a mark as a personal trainer.
Let's be real for a second: all our clients want results and wanted them yesterday. In this episode I talk about how to deal with a very common problem, which is unrealistic client expectations.
Standardisation of the rep is important. Range of motion, form and posture all matter. However, what about tempo? Can we use this to improve results and lower systemic stress? When does this apply and who do I apply it to?
Check it out!
As an educator, I work with a LOT of PTs who struggle to fit in their continuing education. In this episode, I dropped some hints on how to make continuing education work for you.
What do you do when your client goes off their program and does random workouts? As usual, the answer deserves nuance and context. Here I explain what to do based on different levels of client goals.
Variety - Not ideal for results, but clients love it. In this episode I discuss how I approach variety with clients.
Client self talk is incredibly important thing to be aware of. In this episode, I talk about client red flags.
Unfocused clients can be a challenge. In this episode I give a very simple framework to work with these clients.
Walking the talk is something a lot of trainers struggle with and have trouble defining. In this episode I redefine what walking your talk should mean for trainers who work with general population clients.
Clients who travel are often a great source of frustration. In this episode, I discuss an approach that can work well for these clients.
In this episode I discuss the importance of developing client autonomy and some easy ways to start developing it with your client base.
Clients who don't follow nutritional advice are the bane of every PT's existence. Is this episode, I discuss a strategy where you never have to deal with this again.
The small wins are what lead to progress. As coaches, we should celebrate these not only with our clients, but our now business wins. In this episode, I discuss why this matters.
In this episode I discuss how to communicate pain concepts with your general population clients.
In this video I talk about the implementation of semi private training in a commercial gym
A lot of my students ask me how to successfully walk the floor. In this episode, I talk about the strategy I used with great success.
Picking the ideal training split is a constant source of stress for most trainers. In this episode, I give some very simple tips to help improve this.
When your clients set goals, we need to make sure that their goals align with their values. If we do this, it reduces the possibility of them setting unachievable goals. Check it out!
It doesn't matter how cool or complex your program is, if the client who trains at 6pm cannot get access to the equipment demanded be the program. Listen to find out more!
When we get a new client who doesn't know much about health and fitness, maybe we should validate their concerns rather than make them feel stupid for something they don't know?
Food for thought....
Achieving goals is awesome - it does however, come with a cost. Are you (and your clients) willing to pay it?
Every fitness marketing guru tells us we must know our avatar for pt success. Is this really true?
Too many trainers lose clients by not reaching out to them in the right time frame. Don't procrastinate, help the people who need your help the most.
Foot position in the squat is determined by the clients goals and their unique structure. In this episode I talk about how to determine this and what works best for what goal.
In this episode, I talk about a new way got frame corrective strategies: as a window of opportunity for faster results. Check it out!
Let's be honest - no client likes doing correctives and no coach likes coaching them. In this episode, I teach a little strategy to make your correctives more effective and reduce the amount of time you need to do them by the correct application of tempo in your main training lifts.
Tempo has some very specific applications to improve training performance. In this episode I discuss some practical tips you can implement immediately for better results.
Welcome to Season 2! In this season we will be sticking to short and actionable items you can use immediately to get results for your clients.
In our first episode this year, how to train your calves properly! This is a hugely misunderstood topic and just by implementing these tips, we can start turning calves into cows!
In this episode I address how to deal with a client with aesthetic goals in a helpful and respectful manner. This is part of the series on obesity, HAES and fat shaming.
This episode was inspired by James Walsham of Hypertrophy Hub, who gave a very thoughtful and nuanced view on obesity on his instagram story. In this episode and upcoming series, I talk about the multitude of factors contributing to this issue and in upcoming episodes we will discuss fat shaming, health at every size, aesthetic goals and much more. A must listen for personal trainers.
Exercise complexity is an interesting topic that has recently been blowing up on social media. In this episode I address my thoughts on the matter and provide some context on how we can do it better.
In this episode, I talk about the misapplication, misuse and misunderstandings of corrective exercises. This will hopefully clear a lot of things up for a lot of people.
In this episode, I talk about the extremely common mistake of letting our own biases into the program design progress. Quite often we let what we think the client needs take over what they actually want. In this episode, I talk about how to achieve the best compromise between the two.
Following arbitrary strength standards has made a comeback in the fitness industry. This is a mistake I see a lot of trainers make, where they forget about the client in front of them at the expense of the so called “standard”. In this episode I discuss the pitfalls of this and also how you can use these standards without being dictated by them.
In this episode I discuss the next most common programming mistake that many coaches aren't aware of - matching the strategy of progressive overload to the clients nutritional status and current lifestyle.
I've been writing programs for 17 years now. In that time, I have made nearly every mistake you can think of. In this series, I go over the most common mistakes I see and how you can avoid them in your own personal training practice.
The placebo effect is powerful. The nocebo effect - maybe more so. In this episode I talk about how our communication can negatively impact our clients into thinking they have things wrong with them that they certainly don't have.
One of the hardest things as a coach is admitting we don't know something and communication that to our clients. In this episode, I go over exactly how to do that!
We all have our own cognitive biases and these can often be a direct detriment to our ability to successfully communicate with our clients. In this episode I discuss the Confirmation Bias and the Selection Bias.
I see a lot of trainers trying to impress their clients with how smart they are. In this episode, I discuss the downsides of this approach and a better way to go about it.
In this episode, I discuss the "Fixer" narrative. I see this all over social media, where people claim they can fix others problems. In the podcast, I discuss why this is a disempowering approach and a better way to approach things.
Communicating to Our Clients How we speak to our clients is incredibly important. I see a lot of trainers who do great work setting themselves backwards with how they communicate with their clients. Here are the most common mistakes I see 1. It is very common to see fitness professionals shame goals The amount of times I see trainers post on social media bout the fact that you can't "tone" a muscle baffles me. You can't changer the game either (it would no longer be the same game) but that seems to be cool. Imagine being a client dealing with self esteem issues, you muster up the courage to see a coach to make a change and then get told your goal is wrong because of meaningless nomenclature. If a client has a goal and the share it with you, encourage them rather than shame them for using a word out of your context. 2. We then talk down to clients to demonstrate our intellectual superiority and create barriers I see trainers using technical terms constantly and critiquing clients for wanting to try things that fall outside of the current evidence. Surely there are better ways to address this? 3. Dont get bored answering the same questions Every trainer rolls their eyes when asked if fat can be spot reduced or if fasted cardio is better. This just makes the client feel like crap. We should try and answer the same questions better each and every time and master our communication around it so clients can ask questions and walk alway feeling empowered and enlightened. 4. Speak to the client on their level This falls to the above point. Speak to a client using their languages, especially with training and nutrition. This is not about "dumbing" anything down, it is about effective interpersonal communication. 5. Don't promote the "Fixer" narrative - they are in charge This applies more to therapists than trainers, but if your client believes you are the one person they need to "fix" them you have left that person in a worse state than before. This is something I will address later this week as it is something I used to pride myself on, and now slap myself for. Our goal should be empowerment of our clients. What other communication mistakes do you see trainers make?
Mixed modality tools are the ones we dont know where to put in a program. In this episode I go over what goals best suit kettlebells, Swiss and medicine balls, theTRX and the lauded gymnastics rings.
In this episode, I discuss how strength training can be used to achieve the following: Health, joint capacity, power, hypertrophy, nervous system stimulation, sports performance and more.
In this series, I discuss how each tool can be used to achieve multiple goals - cardio for heart health, energy expenditure, metabolic flexibility, parasympathetic recovery and more - You will learn how too apply this all depending on goal and context.
In this episode, I talk about how I now look at information and give practical takeaways on how you can improve your ability to learn and integrate new information into your personal training business.
In this episode, I discuss how I learnt about cognitive biases and the evidence hierarchy, which influenced me greatly on how I learn new information. This is extremely useful information for anyone who is trying to get better as a coach or trainer and isn't sure what information is true.
In this series, I discuss my journey in learning and integrating new information in my personal training business. This is an area where I see coaches make a LOT of mistakes so I thought I would share my lessons. In this episode, I talk about how I used to learn from gurus and the pros and cons associated with that.
Range of Motion (R.O.M) and Tempo are two of the most hotly contested and debated acute exercise variables. In this 3 part series, I offer my take on how to use these variables to get the best outcomes for your clients. In this third episode, I go over the many different applications of tempo to get better results.
Range of Motion (R.O.M) and Tempo are two of the most hotly contested and debated acute exercise variables. In this 3 part series, I offer my take on how to use these variables to get the best outcomes for your clients. In this second episode, I go over the many different applications of range of motion to get better results.
Range of Motion (R.O.M) and Tempo are two of the most hotly contested and debated acute exercise variables. In this 3 part series, I offer my take on how to use these variables to get the best outcomes for your clients.
In this first episode, I give an overview and definition of both these concepts and how they apply to each goal.
In the 3rdd episode of this 3 part series, I cover more mistakes I made running a gym. These include:
- Letting things slide
- Not stepping back
- Focusing on merchandise, food and other distractions. - leaving the core offer
Please let me know what you think and if you have enjoyed this series, please leave a review, send me a screenshot for a free gift!
In the 2nd episode of this 3 part series, I cover more mistakes I made running a gym. These include:
- Selling before building the service
- Sales before retention
- Not sticking to my values
Please let me know what you think and stay tuned for episode 3!
In this relaunch of my podcast, we will be bringing you bigger and better episodes and guests! We will keep the 10 minute episodes you love and take some deep dives into some cool topics with some cool people. In this episode, I revisit running a gym and 9 mistakes I made. With gyms opening up again worldwide, this is a must listen!