Designing beginners workouts really has more to do with psychology than with personal training. I am not saying that beginners exercises don’t require the special knowledge that only a personal trainer has. If a beginners exercise program goes to far, does not put enough emphasis on stretching or safety, or does not have enough instruction, it is worthless at best and dangerous at worst. Nonetheless, the main thing when working with beginners is figuring out what they want out of their exercise workout routine.
A lot of people first start going to the gym because they want to look good. In many ways, these are the hardest people to train responsibly. You see, with a beginners exercise program, you have to make sure to get your heart working and your body strong and limber before you begin to build muscle mass. It is not healthy for someone to be huge and bulky but have a weak cardiovascular system and a stiff body. This can increase the chance of injury and lead to long term health problems. When you are working with a body image fanatic, you have to do what you can to teach him that being healthy is at the very least as important as looking healthy. Make sure that his beginners exercise program has a lot of cardio!
Coming up with beginners exercise routines for couch potatoes can also be pretty tough. A lot of these people come into the gym after trying a lot of different quick fixes. They have tried dietary supplements, diets, and other so-called miracle cures, but they are still overweight and out of shape. They are gung-ho to get started, but they burn out too easily. With these kinds of folks, you have to provide a lot of encouragement as they do their routines, but make sure not to push them too hard. If they start with unrealistic expectations about how quickly the exercises will work, they will also burn out easily.
Basically, the thing I always tell exercise beginners is that persistence is the key. I would rather see them jogging at the gym for five or ten minutes three days a week than for an hour or two once a week. If you can make sure to exercise every other day, it won’t be long before you are losing weight and feeling better about yourself. It is a simple matter of being dedicated to putting in the time.