Personal Training 11: Communicating

This post is part of an ongoing series about my learning process as I train to become a personal trainer.  In this post, I’m going to consider the importance of communication in being an effective personal trainer and explore some of the means in which we, as human beings, communicate with each other.

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Communication, as a personal trainer

As the provider of a service, and a personal service at that, good personal training needs good communication to be effective.  That communication can be for a number of different purposes, including:

• To establish trust
• To gain knowledge of medical, exercise and dietary history
• To establish the reasons for routines
• To motivate and encourage
• To explain how to perform certain movements   

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How we communicate

At a very simple level, we communicate by sending signals to other people.  These signals can be either verbal or non-verbal.

But this isn’t where the study of communication ends.  The communication is also received by the other person and, depending on the way in which their filters work, they may receive the signal loud and clear or they may have fuzzy reception.

In fact, the single thing that I seem to appreciate more and more each year is that perfect communication is impossible.  We all have so many filters that change and distort the message that is being sent.  I would even go so far as to say that the best communication probably expends more effort in trying to see where the other person is coming from than in delivering the message…

However, there are certain things that we can do to ensure that reception is good and that therefore help produce better communication.

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#1: Actively listen

It’s easy to assume that being a good communicator is about conveying a message clearly.  We jump straight to the interesting bits about how to explain things and how to use analogies.  But the reality is that the ability to give clear explanations, while important, is only a small part of what makes an effective communicator.

Real communication begins with establishing the starting point, mental state and opinions of the listener.

Starting talking about your message before you understand where someone is coming from is analogous to speaking while they are still in another room.  It’s pointless, it wastes everyone’s time and you both just get frustrated.  It also communicates that you place more value on your knowledge than on your client.  Deciding where to begin the conversation is in and of itself a communication.  As many people are now fond of quoting:

“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care” – Theodore Roosevelt

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#2: Understand that communication is mostly non-verbal

I never realised how much of real communication is non-verbal until I understood that the verbal part is purely the vocabulary.  The non-verbal actually includes the inflections and the tone of voice.  We communicate positive and negative emotions almost entirely non-verbally. 

1. Clothing - if we choose to dress in a certain way, that communicates a message to the person who sees us.  While different people might interpret the communication in different ways, depending on their own social background and assumptions, there are social norms that we can choose to adhere to, or not.  There is no right or wrong answer.  There are just consequences. 
2. Physical appearance - similarly, if we have worked hard to achieve a certain physical appearance, that will communicate a story to others.  And different people might respond in different ways.  If we have spent a couple of years getting as big as humanly possible, this might attract other wannabee bodybuilders but it might repel women of a certain age who are afraid of getting “big and bulky”.  I note at this point that it doesn’t matter that the fear is misplaced.  The communication has been made and other communications would be necessary to address this fear at a later point.
3. Environment (territory) - the environment we choose to live and work in says something about us, whether we like it or not.  Again, we can completely personally disagree with the way things are going on around us but our presence there implicitly condones them.  We then have an uphill struggle to show people that things do not have to be this way.
4. Use of time – how we behave with respect to time is a non-verbal communication.  We can choose to be punctual or not.  We can choose to give freely and generously of our time or not.  How we timekeep communicates things about us.
5. Posture and stance – posture and stance are often referred to in terms of “open” and “closed” body language.  Folded arms and a stern expression is often referred to as “closed” body language and communicates that we don’t want to be approached or disturbed.
6. Facial expressions – we all make extensive use of facial expressions in communication.  Facial expressions can completely change the effect of verbal communications.
7. Gesture – while some cultures make more use of gesture than others, most people struggle to communicate normally when told to sit on their hands.
8. Touching – in today’s chronically suspicious times, touching is almost always regarded as containing an ulterior motive.  However, as we realise in a moment, there are certain formalised touches, like shaking hands, that are a fundamental part of the way in which we communicate.  Refusing to shake hands with someone can be an important, and damaging, feature of our behaviour.
9. Eye contact – as with touching, eye contact is one of those non-verbal cues that people associate mainly with sexual interest.  But, again, as with shaking hands, failing to make eye contact at all can make us appear shifty, untrustworthy and ill-tempered.
10. Voice qualities – voice qualities include our volume, intonation, pitch and accent.  All these things communicate statements to others, depending on their background.  If we mutter quietly, we can appear unsure of ourselves and lack gravitas.
11. Vocalisations – vocalisations are the other noises we make, including yawning, laughing, shouting and whispering.  Some of these are positive and some are not.  Different people respond to different vocalisations in different ways.  We need to be aware of how we are vocalising and the effect that it has on people.

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There are a number of features that non-verbal communication performs more effectively than verbal communication.  They include:

1. Expression of emotion – humans are social creatures and how we feel has an important role to play in how we relate to one another.  Non-verbal communication, mostly voice qualities and vocalisations, is almost solely responsible for conveying our emotions about others and about how we feel about things to others.
2. Expression of attitude – similarly, how we intend to behave is conveyed by our attitude, which is strongly communicated by our posture and stance.
3. Expression of personality  – from the above list of non-verbal communicators, it should be quite easy to see how a personality can be defined quite strongly by non-verbal cues.  Someone who dresses smartly, walks upright, stands in an open posture, shakes hands with people and makes eye contact, speaks with an even tone, smiles and laughs frequently is going to be regarded by other people as having a likeable personality.  Someone who doesn’t, isn’t.
4. Greetings  – as we noted above, human beings seem to have developed the need for non-verbal signifiers of greeting.  These range from waving to shaking hands and back slapping (in more exuberant cultures).

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#3: Use concise, memorable explanations

Dan John and Mike Boyle are justifiably at the top of their game as coaches but why is that?  They don’t waste time listening to their own voices and giving lengthy explanations.  They are famous for their short-and-to-the-point analogies and tips.  I can think of a few off the top of my head, including:

• The spine as a credit card
• The body as a car
• The body as a bow
• Training is like farming
• Are you a chef, a sous-chef or a cook?
• Stretching, foam rolling and knots
• Response to pain like a smoke detector

Analogies are particuarly good because they are memorable and easily retold.

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#4: Appreciate learning styles

There is a whole world of literature dealing with the way people learn.  However, there is some evidence to suggest that different people learn in different ways.  Wikipedia has a wealth of information.  One of the ways of categorising the ways is as follows:

1. Visual – visual learners learn most effectively by seeing pictures, videos and other visual aids;
2. Auditory – auditory learners learn most effectively by hearing explanations;
3. Reading and writing – learners with a reading and writing preference learn most effectively by processing text and summarising it in words;
4. Kinesthetic – kinesthetic learners learn best by engaging directly, touching and actively exploring the issues.

Different people need to approach learning in different ways and we need to be sensitive to this.  There is no point in spending time talking someone through something if they are not an auditory learner.  Similarly, there is no point in spending a lot of time demonstrating something if they are not a visual learner (although I suspect most people learn at least something visually). 

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Have I missed anything?  Is good communication overplayed?  I welcome your thoughts…