In today's episode, Stuart welcomes Tony Gentilcore. Tony has been a coach since 2002 and has worked in all kinds of settings including commercial gyms, large athlete focussed gyms and nowadays, his own small independent studio. He's been writing consistently excellent blogs at Tony Gentilcore.com, and today, we discuss a range of things to do with running better personal training sessions. We get into why the soft skills matter, how to assess new clients, some coaching tips you can apply straight into your next session and much more. Timestamps are below.

Timestamps:

• [01.13] - Does he classify himself as a strength coach or personal trainer?
• [03.54] - Why he's passionate about the art of session delivery?
• [07.24] - Does the fitness industry focus enough on the soft skills of coaching?
• [15.09] - Why it's important to be great at the X&O's (programming) as well as the softer skills.
• [19.04] - How he assesses his new clients nowadays vs how he used to do it?
• [22.39] - Why an assessment can feel like judgement for a new client.
• [30.39] - Having to tell a client to stop moaning and complaining about how hard lifting weights is.
• [39.14] - How and why he includes choice within his sessions?
• [43.44] - Telling clients to stop "shoulding" on themselves.
• [49.24] - Why using "of course" is a useful way to show empathy.

Find Out More About Tony:

• IG: https://www.instagram.com/tonygentilcore/
• Website: https://tonygentilcore.com/

Find Out More About LTB:

• Website: https://liftthebar.com/
• IG: https://www.instagram.com/liftthebar/ (@liftthebar)