10 Important Questions Many Personal Trainers Don’t Ask Clients

As my friend Alan Aragon says, “If you program around preferences – in diet and training – you get better adherence. Personal preference drives *sustained* adherence. And, adherence is everything”

In other words, adherence isn’t just important with diet, it’s also important to consider when it comes to your training. So, both your diet and your training should be founded in universal principles but fit to your individual preferences.

With this reality in mind, here’s a list of questions I’ve been asking clients since I first started as a personal trainer. These questions have helped me to improve client communication, satisfaction and retention by better understanding their training preferences.

Keep in mind, the following isn’t an exhaustive list of all the questions I ask clients I’ve worked with throughout my career as a personal trainer. We certainly discuss their goals, training history, medical history, along with other important subjects that influence the training direction I take with them. This post is specifically focusing on the questions pertaining to individual training preferences.

  1. What types of exercise styles do you tend to enjoy?

  2. What types of exercise styles do you tend to not enjoy?

  3. Do you have any favorite exercises? If so, why?

  4. Are there any particular exercises or movements you hate? If so, why?

  5. Is there any type of exercise equipment that you enjoy using? If so, why?

  6. Is there any type of exercise equipment that you hate using? If so, why?

  7. Do you enjoy faster paced workouts like circuits? If so, why?

  8. Do you enjoy slower workouts like bodybuilding/powerlifting style? If so, why?

  9. Do you get bored easily from working out? If so, what particular aspects of working out bore you?

  10. Do you enjoy consistently performing certain exercises? Or, do you prefer more exercise variety?

Learn How To Program Like A Pro

Using My Must-Have Programming Charts

Learn how I how I quickly and easily create programs that get results and keep clients coming back for more by downloading my 2 must-have programming charts and watching the included video lesson.

With these two charts, you’ll be able to combine the most important functional movements with isolation exercises for the perfect balance of strength, hypertrophy and performance.

In this video lesson you’ll discover:

And much more!

If your goal is to write better programs for your clients and save time while doing so, then you’ll want to sign up for this free lesson!