Female training (for "toning up") - issues that come up?

[md3sign]

I'm marketing my personal training towards female body transformations. While I still have work to do on creating my client avatar, for now let's say 25-35 year old (give or take a few years as exceptions), possibly overweight (though not obese, again there are exceptions) looking to lose anywhere from 10-50lbs and "tone up". Physical activity levels vary, but no serious contraindications to training (severe asthma, heart problems, injuries a la rehab, etc). Since this is the demographic I'm shooting for, what are some things I should know in terms of training, personal issues, and other things that can come up during training?

I know this sounds a bit vague, but I'd like to start broad and explore all things that come up when training said niche. Things like self-image/self-esteem, motivation, availability, commitment, physiological barriers, psychological barriers, whatever. Put another way, for those of you who have trained (either by yourself or with someone else) and who more or less fit this description, what are some things you went through or had to overcome? What are some things I should look for and look out for?

EDIT:

Before I get 50 replies on "no such thing as toning up", I know what this means. I'm using the phrase loosely because that happens to be a goal of my less-educated demographic.

In this case, "toning up" meaning: reduced body fat (may or may not be accompanied with reduced body weight), reduced measurements, and increased LBM.

Anecdotally, the difference between a "thin girl who doesn't work out and a thin girl who does work out".

While I'm at it, I should point out I'm not looking for program design, but rather caveats I may not be aware of. For example, I have noticed that women, on the whole, are more self-conscious about their weight and measurements (vs men) and some require more comfort building and confidentiality reassurance to proceed with getting this information.

I will be going through the stickies.

[illiniStrive]

what's "toning up"?

[KaraPhoto]

Oy. *sigh*

what are some things you went through or had to overcome?

Men who have no clue about training women and who don't know myth from reality when it comes to training women.

Read this: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...hp?t=117327411

[md3sign]

what's "toning up"?

Reduced body fat (may or may not be accompanied with reduced body weight), reduced measurements, increased LBM.

Anecdotally, the difference between a "thin girl who doesn't work out and a thin girl who does work out".

[freebirdmac]

What comes up with men?

[Kjerski]

what's "toning up"?

I believe there is a reason he put it in quotes himself. Its probably a word a lot of trainers hear from women.

[kfisherx]

Actually girls... OP explains what toning up is AND also explains that he knows there is technically no such thing. He is using these words for marketing as it will attract the lay person. (not a bad idea IMHO) He also said he is gonna read the stickies!! Yay. He is about 10000x times ahead of most his peers who post here.

So give him a break already.

Okay now all the silliness out of the way... After you read the stickies, please come back to ask any specific questions you may have. I think one of the most useful books you can read on how females tend to think and act about fitness is New Rules of Fitness for Women.

BIG differences between men and women....

1. Women think they are fat (even when not) and men can carry fat around just fine and think they are fine.
2. Women tend to gravitate towards cardio and are afraid of lifting weights. They worry that they may get too bulky when lifting.
3. Women are very, VERY easily screwed up about nutrition and eating. The tendency in women is towards unhealthy (too little) calories whereas men tend not to be afriad of the food as much.
4. Women tend to lose stubborn fat less easily. Their stubborn fat areas are in the thighs and butt rather than in the gut. The lower body fat is really tough.
5. SOME women really don't want to put on muscle and will rather just look like a marathon runner. Most men prefer to have some muscle.
6. Women have monthly cycles that screw with thier ability to stick to diets as well as screws with water weight gain.
7. Women tend to obsess over scale weight gain so be prepared to offer lots of education on why the scale lies.
8. Women in the demographic you are looking to train will often have pregnancies to deal with on top of the other things already mentioned. You may want to seek out advice on this or find a trainer that you can refer clients to once they decide to embark on Motherhood.


I could go on a bit but these are a few of my personal observations and generalizations. (My disclaimer) They are only as good as generlizations and personal opions ever are...

[KaraPhoto]

Actually girls... OP explains what toning up is AND also explains that he knows there is technically no such thing. He is using these words for marketing as it will attract the lay person. (not a bad idea IMHO) He also said he is gonna read the stickies!! Yay. He is about 10000x times ahead of most his peers who post here.

Well yes .. now that he's edited his post to show that. Before he explained it did look an awful lot like every other guy who posted saying "how do I train a girl"?

So with the edits, I agree that using the terminology that many women use, at least to start, is good. Hopefully he'll educate his clients that "toning" as such doesn't exist and help them to move past that mentality.

I think the thing to keep in mind is that the differences between men and women when it comes to training is far less in the physical (the few things that kfisherx noted aside) and far more in the emotional/mental. Getting most women to agree to train properly involves getting them to accept training "like a man". I would so love to get away from the idea that proper training for women is to train "like men" .. and just that proper training is proper training. (probably idealistic, but I'd love to see it)

I think a good idea for the OP would be to pick up a few copies of popular women's magazines - Shape, Self, Prevention, even ones like Glamour and Cosmo and Redbook and so forth. Hit the grocery store and pick up a copy of every magazine that advertised "toned abs in 10 days" or "lose 10 lbs in a week" or whatever. Read through them and learn what women are exposed to every day in terms of our own forms of "bro-science". I think having a good understanding of the myths that women read and have pushed on them by media will give you a better basis to combat those myths.

[freebirdmac]

BIG differences between men and women....

1. Women think they are fat (even when not) and men can carry fat around just fine and think they are fine.
2. Women tend to gravitate towards cardio and are afraid of lifting weights. They worry that they may get too bulky when lifting.
3. Women are very, VERY easily screwed up about nutrition and eating. The tendency in women is towards unhealthy (too little) calories whereas men tend not to be afriad of the food as much.
4. Women tend to lose stubborn fat less easily. Their stubborn fat areas are in the thighs and butt rather than in the gut. The lower body fat is really tough.
5. SOME women really don't want to put on muscle and will rather just look like a marathon runner. Most men prefer to have some muscle.
6. Women have monthly cycles that screw with thier ability to stick to diets as well as screws with water weight gain.
7. Women tend to obsess over scale weight gain so be prepared to offer lots of education on why the scale lies.
8. Women in the demographic you are looking to train will often have pregnancies to deal with on top of the other things already mentioned. You may want to seek out advice on this or find a trainer that you can refer clients to once they decide to embark on Motherhood.


I could go on a bit but these are a few of my personal observations and generalizations. (My disclaimer) They are only as good as generlizations and personal opions ever are...

I dunno. I see a lot of men here and at the gym with a lot of the same issues you listed. Aside from pregnancy and monthly cycles of course While men may be more inclined to lift some weights, I've encountered an unbelievable number of men who do the light weight/high rep stuff and say they do not want to get big and bulky I see lots of under eating, too much cardio, and scale obsession out of them too.

[Linds33]

I dunno. I see a lot of men here and at the gym with a lot of the same issues you listed. Aside from pregnancy and monthly cycles of course While men may be more inclined to lift some weights, I've encountered an unbelievable number of men who do the light weight/high rep stuff and say they do not want to get big and bulky I see lots of under eating, too much cardio, and scale obsession out of them too.

I have noticed some of this too with the guys that I work with. For a lot of them i also see binging not in the way that women binge (IE: we are more likley to hit the cookies, chocolate etc) but i see the men binging on things like copius amounts of beer and alchohol. And i am not talking about a drink here or there. I am talking 13 beers while sitting and watching a game on sunday. Not to mention they do higher reps because the don't want to get "bulky". Many of them have muscle but carry high amounts of body fat making them look bigger, just like women.

-As for how to train women with regards to emotional personal training, I would agree that women do have warped senses of how they look. You will probably have to deal with this quite often especially in that age group.

-You are going to encounter a lot of women who will NOT want to workout with weights. I personally don't understand why they would hire someone to show them how to walk on a tredmill if that is all they want to do, but many women are afraid of heavy weightlifting. Make sure that they KNOW the benefits of weight training and advise them that as long as they have a good diet, they will see a loss in fat and "toning up" (*shudder*). Also, let them know about the medical benefits, especially the prevention of osteoperosis and bone loss later in life. It may be hard to get them to try and lift heavy but once you do, they will be amazed at how strong they feel and they will get a weightlifters high. After that, hopefully they won't be adverse to lifting heavy.

-Make sure that you talk about diet and stress it as being the most important in weight and fat loss. But don't do the whole bland, boring diets. Check out some good healthy recipie books that you can suggest to your clients. For women especially, i find that we enjoy good tasting food and those monthly cravings can get the better of us when dieting. A lot of these recipie books have healthy alternatives to the "bad" foods that many of us crave. If you want to, you could even go online to some websites and pring off recipies to give to your clients. Also, make sure that they are EATING.

-You are going to encounter women who are cool with weightlifting, but other people in their lives aren't (spouses, significant others, parents and friends/co-workers). This can be challenging especially when it is a spouse or a parent as women tend to take their opinions to heart. Because you are their trainer they are probably going to talk to you about this. For myself, i have delt with this, but was able to ignore it because i knew the truth and others didn't. Oddly enough, later on down the line those that poo-pooed my weight training have come to love it themselves!

-Women respond well to positive reinforcement, especially when it comes to their diet and workout. Thus, to encourage them to keep up the good work, tell them that you are seeing improvements both in their actual physical abilities and their bodies (again, keeping it professional and within your boundaries). If they dropped 1% of body fat, tell them and let them know they did a good job. If you are noticing that they are leaning out, compliment her. And most importantly, if she has a good lift or her form is impecable, tell her because she will keep on doing it!

Hope that helps somewhat!

[md3sign]

This is what I'm looking for, thanks - I am more interested in the psychological nuances of training women. Like you said, things like binging, fear of weights, additional positive reinforcement, etc.

I'm going to use "toning up" as the term for basic weight/fat loss and LBM gain. It's just semantics and while I do expound on what this means to the client, if they want to call it toning up and it gets them the results, that what we're going to call it. I realize the women here are more educated than typical clientele and that's why I'm asking these questions.

There are a few points that have been brought up that I'd like more feedback on:

1) WRT the menstrual cycle, how do you handle the workouts/diet "slacking"? What's a good way for me, as a trainer, to approach this?

2) Can you elaborate on your point about women with other people in their lives who aren't keen on them weight training? I haven't really heard of this.

3) a) Outside of explaining the benefits and myths surrounding weight training, anything else (pep-talk or otherwise) you can do to convince them it's for their own good? b) This is getting a little into program design, but how much heavy training (very low reps) would you actually do on a program geared towards weight loss where caloric expenditure takes precedence over strength (primarily neural) gains - not endurance mind you? Either way this comes in at the intermediate stage of training.

WRT diet, I can definitely make some basic recommendations but I guess I'd need to actually try some of these recipes before recommending them. Just because something looks good on the net doesn't make it yummy IRL. I'll have to look more into that. I'm a pretty basic eater (mostly the same stuff day in day out) so I don't experiment much.

[hieronymous]

Many woman in this demographic (mine) have unrealistic expectations with regard to how long it will take to recomp their bodies. It is not a fast process. That will most likley be an issue for you.

Plus, I've noticed there is not a whole lot of value placed on a woman (within female peer groups that I am exposed to) being fit and strong. A lot of value is placed on the look of a 'toned' body without enough emphasis being on the fact that said toned body is strong and fit.

And 'I want to look like XXX', or 'I could never get to that point'. I hear that around me. So what? Do the work and you will still end up in a lot better version of you then if you do your training half-assed or don't train at all.

[KaraPhoto]

1) WRT the menstrual cycle, how do you handle the workouts/diet "slacking"? What's a good way for me, as a trainer, to approach this?

First of all, knowing about it and acknowledging it is a big plus already. You'll run into a lot of trainers (well, a lot of men, actually) who will say that PMS/cravings/loss of energy is "all in your mind". So simply acknowledging the fact that it does exist is a big help.

A few things that help me personally:
1 - if you're going to be helping them with nutrition and meal planning, make room in the plan for a once a month "splurge" or something like that to allow for cravings. I know that finagling my calories a little bit to allow a sweet/salty craving to be indulged helps a lot.
2 - accept - and help them accept - that they may seem to lose progress as their energy levels go down. I have to back off my lifts in the couple of days prior to and maybe the first day of my period. I used to get pretty upset about this, and now I realize it's just temporary. It's not slacking - it really is that I physically *cannot* put out the same effort that I can the rest of the month.
3 - Bloat. I can gain 8lbs of water weight in the days before my period. It goes away pretty quickly, but when you're doing everything right and counting on the scale going down and suddenly it goes UP .. that's really disheartening. And sometimes the weight will change before I get any other PMS symptoms. It took me a while to figure this out when I finally started tracking my cycle in detail.
4 - Emotions. 3 days before my period I get weepy. Without fail. (Yes, my guy is a lucky lucky guy! ). If you say something to me that on a normal day would be no big deal, on that day I'll get weepy. I actually HATE it and I get really embarrassed when it happens and I struggle with it. So specifically for you, don't necessarily take responses from your clients too personally, when they suddenly go all Ms. Hyde on you.

Every woman is a little different and I'm sure other women can give you advice on how they respond/react.

2) Can you elaborate on your point about women with other people in their lives who aren't keen on them weight training? I haven't really heard of this.

I deal with this specifically from some of the women I work with and very much from my former mother-in-law. The men in my life are all extremely supportive of my weight lifting, but the first time I told my mother-in-law that I had started lifting weights, her response was a horrified/concerned look and the advice that "Honey, you don't want to lose all your beautiful curves and get muscle-y! Be careful!" She still doesn't understand why I want to lift weights, but she doesn't say anything much about it.

The women I work with used to make comments about how they could "never" do what I do because they didn't want to get bulky. Now that they've seen me not get bulky over the years they don't say that as much .. but they still tease me about my Ms. Olympia workouts. They ask all the time what I'm doing, but when I tell them, they shake their heads and roll their eyes and say "well I could never do that". Honestly it doesn't bother me at all, but I know a lot of women who are new to weight lifting could be really put off by it.

3) a) Outside of explaining the benefits and myths surrounding weight training, anything else (pep-talk or otherwise) you can do to convince them it's for their own good? b) This is getting a little into program design, but how much heavy training (very low reps) would you actually do on a program geared towards weight loss where caloric expenditure takes precedence over strength (primarily neural) gains - not endurance mind you? Either way this comes in at the intermediate stage of training.

Obviously as you have more clients who follow this plan, you'll have people who can provide testimonials which will help. Something that really helps is to have visual guides ... pictures of various celebs at various levels of fitness and bodyfat and let your clients guide you to what they want to look like. If you can assure them that what you're doing will help them look like *this* (be it Jada Pinkett-Smith or Jennifer Anniston or whoever), that will help.

Also a lot of women see pictures of women who compete in weight lifting when they're cut down to minimal body fat. What they don't see is what these women look like the rest of the year when they're not in competition mode. Showing that the weight-lifter look is NOT what they're going to look like and explaining how those women diet waaaaay down much further than you would have them ... that might help them feel better about weight lifting.

The other thing .. there's a thread here about lifting light and some of the things people have come up with as responses to people who are all anti-strength kinda. Point out to your clients that they routinely lift a lot of weight. Grocery bags are usually 15-20 lbs each. A woman with a child picks up her 35 lb toddler a couple dozen times a day. Women with babies are carrying car seats full of baby, plus diaper bags, plus purses, plus strollers. Women who travel - don't they want to be able to lift their carry on suitcase above their heads to put them in the overhead bin. Women tend to underestimate the weight they lift/lug around every day. When you point out how much they do as a part of their lives, then lifting a 45lb olympic bar doesn't seem quite so frightening!

Those are my thoughts, obviously, and what would have helped me when first starting out.

[priceor]

Just my personal experience.....

1) WRT the menstrual cycle, how do you handle the workouts/diet "slacking"? What's a good way for me, as a trainer, to approach this?

I tend to feel much more fatigued during TOM, so I will usually take an extra day off from cardio that week. The cravings are vicious and sometimes I cave in. Since I know this about myself I try to save my "Cheat Meal" for this week to help get me through it.

More recently.....I read on here somewhere that during this time a woman can actually get better results if you stick to your workouts/diet as planned....this has given me a new outlook and my plan is to stick to my program 100% because I want to see what kind of results I can achieve from taking advantage of this time. Maybe armed with such information will help your clients to keep their motivation.

2) Can you elaborate on your point about women with other people in their lives who aren't keen on them weight training? I haven't really heard of this.

I get this pretty frequently....from the dirty/crazy looks at the gym to my Coworkers saying I'm crazy for working out like I do. The negative feedback we get from other around us does take it's toll. We begin to question if we are on the right track or if we should be following what the magazines tell us to do. I have gotten around this by reading LOTS of articles from more educated fitness experts that can actually explain the process behind weight training and how it works. Knowing more information is always key.

3) a) Outside of explaining the benefits and myths surrounding weight training, anything else (pep-talk or otherwise) you can do to convince them it's for their own good?

I think your best bet is to simply give as much information & resources as you can that explains why it is what should be done.

WRT diet, I can definitely make some basic recommendations but I guess I'd need to actually try some of these recipes before recommending them. Just because something looks good on the net doesn't make it yummy IRL. I'll have to look more into that. I'm a pretty basic eater (mostly the same stuff day in day out) so I don't experiment much.

For me....I have found that keeping things as simple as possible is what has made me stick to my diet. I don't want to be spending hours at night cooking some recipe just to eat dinner. I would much rather have it prepared in advance and all I have to do is pull it out of the freezer/fridge heat it up and eat

[KaraPhoto]

For me....I have found that keeping things as simple as possible is what has made me stick to my diet. I don't want to be spending hours at night cooking some recipe just to eat dinner. I would much rather have it prepared in advance and all I have to do is pull it out of the freezer/fridge heat it up and eat

I agree with this ... keeping it simple is important. However ... there are always threads here where someone comes on and says they don't want to diet because they don't want to have to eat chicken and steamed broccoli and brown rice for 6 weeks. Or begging for help learning to love cottage cheese. There's a middle ground between keeping it really simple and fostering that whole "dieting is miserable and you're going to be hungry and eat 100 pounds of chicken breast" mindset.

For some reason a lot of people are afraid to use spices and seasonings ... I don't know if it's the whole "if it tastes good it must be fattening" mindset ... but there you have it.

Also ... fruit is not the enemy. I'm so tired of people telling me they don't eat fruit because there's too much sugar in it. Help your clients realize that eating a piece of fruit is a GOOD thing.

[birdiefu]

Regarding menstrual cycle, be aware that not all women react the same way (I'm sure you know that, but just rehashing it). For example, I am unlike most women that I know of in that my "PMS" does not include any emotional issues or food cravings. The only signs I have of it coming is a slight lower back ache and I (TMI, sorry) poo a little more frequently than usual for about 2 days. I'm also the only woman I know of that gets bloatier the week around ovulation and has my least amount of water bloat when my period arrives. Otherwise my cycle is normal and regular and fertility is normal.

Some other issues you may want to think about are the "excuses" that women come up with. Now, someone who is approaching you for help may not have too many (you hope), but I if you read around the woman's section here you will see a ton. A lot of it seems to come from the fact that even if a woman works a full time job or is a full time student (or both), it is many times still expected that she clean house/take care of kids and she may feel like she has no free time for the demands of either working out or eating consistently. Big, big issue with nutrition.

Advise her on ways to plan meals ahead of time, and logging foods in programs (such as Fitday). Recipes can include ways to cook in bulk and portion things out ahead of time. Also have her find easy portable foods or "healthy" foods she can find while out and about. Or even just that many resturant/fast food places have foods she can fit in her plan if she visits their websites and checks the nutritional info.

Also be aware that people have different ways of eating that are best for them. Some people may do better with the small, frequent meals, some may feel crappy eating like that and do best with larger meals spaced apart. Pretty much make sure you can debunk the "sis-science" that is often prevalent in what the media pushes towards women.

You have a big job ahead of you, kudos to your approach of trying to get it figured out. Women are generally weird, insecure creatures, and will need support and *knowledge* to get through the preconceived ideas they may have been brought up with.

[illiniStrive]

2) Can you elaborate on your point about women with other people in their lives who aren't keen on them weight training? I haven't really heard of this.

You'd be surprised by how often boyfriends/husbands do not approve of their partner working with weight training. Even if they weight lift themselves (or post on this site!). It seems many hold the same reservations that women often have. They fear her getting too bulky or masculine. Dieting and cardio are of course fine, but get into barbell training and/or dumbbells above 5lbs and it becomes a sticky issue.

Again, this isn't every partner in the world. Nor is every woman so heavily influenced by outside opinions. Again, it's all about the educational part, reinforcing the benefits of weight training and how they will not wake up looking like a Jay Cutler.

[Silera]

From a marketing standpoint alone- I find that many of my friends are interested in diet and exersize to accomplish short term goals, such as losing baby weight, wedding, class reunion, or bikini season. A 12 week program to address a client like this would probably generate a lot of interest and referrals.

[sy2502]

1) WRT the menstrual cycle, how do you handle the workouts/diet "slacking"? What's a good way for me, as a trainer, to approach this?

You can always do some research (Internet is your friend) about the physical effects of hormonal fluctuations. Things like water retention, fatigue, cramps, migraines, food cravings, etc. Also the psychological effects like moodiness, depression, and negative body image.
As a trainer, I don't know how appropriate it is for you to delve into this personal aspect of your client's life. Some women may not feel comfortable with telling you about their period, while others pretty much wear a label on their foreheads about it. But if you are trying to push her and she says she's tired because of her period, or if she cancels an appointment because she has cramps, she's probably not making it up. You can suggest that day you can stretch, or do something more "gentle". Also know that many women don't have major physical and psychological changes with their period so don't automatically assume it's going to be a big deal.

2) Can you elaborate on your point about women with other people in their lives who aren't keen on them weight training? I haven't really heard of this.

Yes it does happen. The man in her life may get all insecure about her having muscle and being strong, and "looking manly". And women aren't any better. Remember the cultural stereotypes. Think of what's on the cover of magazines (anorexics) and realize that both men and women's perception has been skewed to think that's what female beauty is supposed to look like. Looks also skew the perception of a woman's personality. Fragile looking translates in the popular imagination into sweet, nice, submissive. Curvy translates into soft, sexy and nurturing. Muscular translates into hard, assertive, and aggressive.

3) a) Outside of explaining the benefits and myths surrounding weight training, anything else (pep-talk or otherwise) you can do to convince them it's for their own good? b) This is getting a little into program design, but how much heavy training (very low reps) would you actually do on a program geared towards weight loss where caloric expenditure takes precedence over strength (primarily neural) gains - not endurance mind you? Either way this comes in at the intermediate stage of training.

Depends on the woman. If she's reasonable and intelligent, she'll understand the whole thing about muscle burning more energy than fat, etc. Otherwise, show her pics of, say, bikini and figure competitors (choose the less shredded ones) and ask them what they think these women do to look like that. Then tell them what they REALLY do. Hopefully a picture is worth 1000 words.

WRT diet, I can definitely make some basic recommendations but I guess I'd need to actually try some of these recipes before recommending them. Just because something looks good on the net doesn't make it yummy IRL. I'll have to look more into that. I'm a pretty basic eater (mostly the same stuff day in day out) so I don't experiment much.

Keep in mind that many of these women will probably also cook for their families, so you want to make sure the right diet fits in their lifestyle. If they have to cook one meal for themselves and a different one for their families, it's not likely they'll stick to it. Speaking from personal experience, what worked best for me was reworking popular recipes to cut out fat and calories without sacrificing too much in terms of taste, and learning portion control.
Good luck with your training.

[morganchristie]

[QUOTE=md3sign;553558913]This is what I'm looking for, thanks - I am more interested in the psychological nuances of training women. Like you said, things like binging, fear of weights, additional positive reinforcement, etc.


Binging is like an escape for some woman. I unfortunately tend to turn to food or shopping when drama in my life arises. Using mind over matter and visualization techniques work for me (How can I look like Ava Cowan if I have chips in my hand!) Positive reinforcement or setting goals for her would be great. Using her next party or event to dress up, a vacation in a bikini, winning her work's "biggest loser" competition yadayada.... once one event or goal is done right away ask her when her next big thing is coming up to keep the motivation going.


2) Can you elaborate on your point about women with other people in their lives who aren't keen on them weight training? I haven't really heard of this.

Sabitage is SUPER DUPER common! Women can get strangely jealous of their friends personal gains (or weight loss). They don't want to be the only "fat friend" or deal with their own guilt of personal lack of control. My Mom lost 45lbs by eating clean and women at her work were whispering about how she must be sick and continually offered her treats. Its strange. And I think some men want to keep their patners the same for jealousy reasons and insecurities. That is just my observation... I fortunately have a husband who encourages me with my goals!

Cleaneating Magazine and Tosca Reno's Eat Clean series can help with ideas on recipes and cooking for the family. Someone mentioned Fitday which helps as well. When I had a PT years back she gave me a guideline of foods I should buy including the namebrands. It helped because i used it as my shopping list since I had no clue on nutrition back then. I didn't stear away from the foods and I continued to lose weight! I found I got more creative cooking within my list... some creations were better than others!

[Linds33]

I agree with this ... keeping it simple is important. However ... there are always threads here where someone comes on and says they don't want to diet because they don't want to have to eat chicken and steamed broccoli and brown rice for 6 weeks. Or begging for help learning to love cottage cheese. There's a middle ground between keeping it really simple and fostering that whole "dieting is miserable and you're going to be hungry and eat 100 pounds of chicken breast" mindset.

For some reason a lot of people are afraid to use spices and seasonings ... I don't know if it's the whole "if it tastes good it must be fattening" mindset ... but there you have it.

Also ... fruit is not the enemy. I'm so tired of people telling me they don't eat fruit because there's too much sugar in it. Help your clients realize that eating a piece of fruit is a GOOD thing.

This is some great advice I myself am a foodie and I get excited if i find a good website where i can get healthy eating ideas or if i can figure out how to re-work "cheat" foods to be healthy (grass fed beef burgers are the best!). Also, many of these women will be cooking for their family and this means that they will need to make a good healthy kid and husband friendly meal. A lot of these recipies are simple and easy but healthy and tasty at the same time.

As for that time of the month problems every woman is different but the most common problems are bloating, bad cramps, muscle aches, head aches and fatigue. I myself will be quite fatigued a few days before and during and will be very achey. I keep track of my cycle so i try to plan my workouts around my period and may take it easy those few days before. I am lucky that i usually don't get bad cramps but if i do they only last maybe an hour or so. However there are women that get cramps so bad they can hardly move. So if a woman calls you and tells you that she has real bad cramps, like others said she is probably telling the truth. Now if she does this every week...she may be lying .

Stumptuous.com is a great web resource for women and weightlifting. You can probably get some good ideas and insight by reading it too if you haven't already

[KyleAaron]

A woman with a child picks up her 35 lb toddler a couple dozen times a day.

I recently used this with a woman in the gym (not a client).
"I can't lift heavy."
"But you're a stay-at-home mum."
"Yes."
"Do you pick your children up off the floor and carry them around?"
"I carry the toddler and sometimes have to pick the eight year old one off the ground and put him somewhere else."
"How much do they weigh?"
"About 14 and 35kg."
"Okay, here is a 14kg dumbbell, and here is a 35kg dumbbell. Pick them up off the ground and to your waist the way you would your kid."
"Ooof! That's heavy."
"This is what you do every day already. At least the dumbbells aren't wriggling and screaming."

I am not sure if I persuaded her, but perhaps I planted the seed of an idea...

Some other issues you may want to think about are the "excuses" that women come up with. Now, someone who is approaching you for help may not have too many (you hope), but I if you read around the woman's section here you will see a ton.

Women are not unique in making excuses.
"I can't squat, I have bad shoulders, it hurts to put them back like that."
"But you bench press?"
"Yeah, so?"
"..."

But seriously, birdiefu has good advice about suggesting ways for clients to accomplish things despite the obstacles of life. And I second Linds33's mention of stumptuous.com.

md3dsign in aiming at slightly overweight (in their minds) women clients is not really narrowing the market much, that's a large chunk of the PT market. It's not that men aren't as often overweight, it's just that as previously mentioned, men are less likely to perceive themselves as overweight and unfit, and in any case men are less likely to seek and follow instruction and support. Seeking instruction means saying, "I don't know," and every time a man says the words, "I don't know," his penis shrinks by one-sixteenth of an inch. It adds up quick.

[md3sign]

Great points here and answered a lot of my questions. A few more things:

1) I realize I need to narrow down my target market even more. While I have the age and gender down, the rest is still up in the air. Target office professionals? Stay at home moms? Who? Still trying to figure this out (should be getting some sit-downs with a few office pros soon through my contact), but are there any specific ways of niching "harder" once you've already gone as deep as you know? (I realize this is still broad)

2) Great points about showing photos of off-season fitness competitors and then showing what kind of programs they're on. I think that will be the most powerful weightlifting myth-buster. Does anyone have a short list of specific models and their programs I can check out? I'm not very familiar with the big names (have heard of Cowan/Eason but that's about it) so a heads up here would be great.

[Linds33]

Great points here and answered a lot of my questions. A few more things:



2) Great points about showing photos of off-season fitness competitors and then showing what kind of programs they're on. I think that will be the most powerful weightlifting myth-buster. Does anyone have a short list of specific models and their programs I can check out? I'm not very familiar with the big names (have heard of Cowan/Eason but that's about it) so a heads up here would be great.

Based on what you said with regards to the type of women you are going to be training, i don't know if showing them pictures of actual compeditors would be a good idea to be honest. The reason why i say this is because unless these women want to become compeditors (and if some of them do then i would encourage you to show them pictures and talk to them about it) they may start comparing themselves to those women during the "on-season" even though that is something that is pretty hard to attain and is only maintaed for a shorter period of time. I know it sound illogical but that is how the female mind sometimes works.

I would however suggest find some inspirational "real life" women, even from here (with their permission of course) because this helps with the realism and encouragment. Again i must point to stumptuous.com as there are some amazing examples on this website of women who have made some pretty great transformations and have maintained their physiques, Krista included!! As a female, it is those kinds of websites and pictures that get me motivated because i see someone that i can relate to (stay at home mom, office worker, professional etc.).

Hope that helps somewhat! Eason is also an inspiration as she has been through a lot and correct me if i am wrong, she had dealt with a bout of cancer/pre-cancer?

[KaraPhoto]

Based on what you said with regards to the type of women you are going to be training, i don't know if showing them pictures of actual compeditors would be a good idea to be honest. The reason why i say this is because unless these women want to become compeditors (and if some of them do then i would encourage you to show them pictures and talk to them about it) they may start comparing themselves to those women during the "on-season" even though that is something that is pretty hard to attain and is only maintaed for a shorter period of time. I know it sound illogical but that is how the female mind sometimes works.

Well, I'm the one who suggested it, and I still think it's valid for the reasons I suggested ... to show women who have a fear of being "bulky" that the very muscular look is NOT one that weight lifting women maintain all year around. Most competitors maintain a much softer look in the off season ... so showing your average woman who is afraid of lifting weights that the softer look is what they'll get might help them get over the fear of lifting.

I definitely agree that showing real life women making progress is good. My point was specifically about addressing the fear of women who think weight lifting with make them look ugly/muscle-y/masculine.

[sy2502]

Well, I'm the one who suggested it, and I still think it's valid for the reasons I suggested ... to show women who have a fear of being "bulky" that the very muscular look is NOT one that weight lifting women maintain all year around. Most competitors maintain a much softer look in the off season ... so showing your average woman who is afraid of lifting weights that the softer look is what they'll get might help them get over the fear of lifting.

I definitely agree that showing real life women making progress is good. My point was specifically about addressing the fear of women who think weight lifting with make them look ugly/muscle-y/masculine.

I think that the point of showing women in competition proves the point even more strongly, that they lift like crazy to compete and STILL they don't look bulky, so how can possibly an average woman that hits the gym 3 days a week EVER get bulky.

[md3sign]

Regarding inspirational women & fitness competitors, what I'm asking/looking for are offseason photos of these women that a) don't look "bulky" and b) aren't shredded, but somewhere in-between. It doesn't even have to be a fitness competitor, just someone who looks what is considered to be "in shape" and has the resistance training workouts to support it.

A good example of what I'm going for is this: http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtm...t+girl&x=0&y=0

(if link doesn't work go to shutterstock, search "fit girl" and check out the first page)

I briefly skimmed sumptuous and although I may use it for some content, a limited portion of it seems relevant to what I'm shooting for.

[KaraPhoto]

Regarding inspirational women & fitness competitors, what I'm asking/looking for are offseason photos of these women that a) don't look "bulky" and b) aren't shredded, but somewhere in-between. It doesn't even have to be a fitness competitor, just someone who looks what is considered to be "in shape" and has the resistance training workouts to support it.

Right. An example I'd use is this one. I can't link directly to the image, but ...

This gallery shows a much softer off-season look
http://www.alissacarpiofitness.com/a...troomSHOWTIME/

But she looks like this during comp time:
http://www.alissacarpiofitness.com/contestphotos.html

[hieronymous]

2) Great points about showing photos of off-season fitness competitors and then showing what kind of programs they're on. I think that will be the most powerful weightlifting myth-buster. Does anyone have a short list of specific models and their programs I can check out? I'm not very familiar with the big names (have heard of Cowan/Eason but that's about it) so a heads up here would be great.

You could also try using images of other athletic females who incorporate weightlifting in their training for their sport (which I think is pretty much any elite olympic level athlete). They generally look more like your everyday woman (depending on sport - speed skater legs might freak 'em out) and may be less intimidating to your clientele.

Allison Stokke, Yelena Gadzhievna Isinbayeva, Joannie Rochette, Dara Torres are a few that I can think of.

[KyleAaron]

http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?search_group=&lang=en&search_source=sear ch_form&searchterm=fit+girl&x=0&y=0[/url]

(if link doesn't work go to shutterstock, search "fit girl" and check out the first page)

This reminds me of something Rippetoe said recently, describing

"Today's Fit Woman: 20 lbs underweight, no strength, almost a vegetarian, but a very good 5-mile time"

md3sign I believe is underestimating his women clients. A certain fraction of women, like men, will not respond to positive images of physique change, instead going for some more self-destructive version. However, these people do not hire PTs. People who are willing to hire PTs are in general willing to listen to instruction and new ideas. Part of this is a more positive body image for themselves as they are now, with more healthy and productive goal physiques.