Motivating Women: What Personal Trainers Need to Know About How Their Female Clients Tick
It may come as a surprise to you, but motivating women is about so much more than telling her “she can do it” and writing up the program. I think we can all agree, that motivating any client, isn’t always straightforward, and if we’re honest, only a handful ever get their “before and after” published on your socials…
As of 2022, 63.3% of personal trainers are men, while 36.7% are women*. 66% of their clients are women**. If men and women are different (not better or worse, just diverse), then it makes sense to try and understand some of the discrepancies and to better equip ourselves in how women tick, especially when they make up the bulk of personal training clients.
So, this month is about little tweaks you can make to your coaching style that will encourage your female clients to work harder, do their homework, and get more out of their sessions with you. There are key cognitive and behavioural differences between men and women that you can take advantage of when you’re training them.
Carrot versus sticks
Or, in other words, cheerleading versus punishing.
Women respond better to the former. They will work harder, feel more motivated, and enjoy training with you more if you’re a lifter-upper1. Positive encouragement will get you further than 100 burpees for skipping her mid-week run.
Ironically, the reverse is true for men2. Navigating training formats such as a military style bootcamp will therefore need a more complex training approach – one that motivates the men in the traditional sense, and one that motivates the women in a positive and encouraging way (careful not to be condescending!).
Find the Quiet Corner of the gym: Women Work Better When No-one is Watching..
In research performed on male versus female track athletes, they discovered men ran faster when there was an audience, and women ran faster when no-one was there.
If you’re going to apply this to the gym environment, this means finding less-public corners of your gym, setting the task or challenge, then letting her rise to it. She doesn’t need huge amounts of scrutiny, nor does she need an applause and attention-drawing behaviours to encourage her to keep trying.
This is only true, however, for simple tasks. I am assuming a gym exercise that is bilateral and in one plane is simple. The same rule for women pertains to endurance tasks such as running or skiiing. Performance in complex sports, such as shooting, for example, showed women performing better with an audience3.
As we discussed last week, punishment doesn’t work well for women, particularly public punishment (unless you want to cull your female clients). If you want to motivate your female clients to perform their best, offer them positive encouragement (ie. What did they do WELL this session, this set, or this month?) and allow them as private a session as possible in your environment (or in the very least, don’t go out of your way to draw attention to them).
There are massive gaps in research performed on women versus men in the motivation field. However, what there is clearly shows a gap in men’s versus women’s performance4. It’s exciting in a way to see what your female clients are going to be able to do once you’re modifying your training protocols to suit them better!
Assume competence, work on confidence.
Women are notorious for a lack of confidence, but do not confuse that with competence. In research in to confidence, women needed to meet 100% of a job advertisement’s requirements to consider applying, men needed to meet just 60% before they considered themselves eligible to apply5. There are dozens of studies like this one.
If you want your female clients to be inspired and motivated to do their best in your sessions, you have to assume their competent. That means giving them the heavy weight, the longer course, the more complex move if you think they’re physically ready for it, because her confidence in her body will lag behind what she’s truly capable of.
If you consistently and deliberately demonstrate her competence repeatedly, her confidence will grow alongside it – which is an intoxicating, and an incredibly motivating feeling!
Explain WHY; Women Work Better When we Understand the Rationale.
You may have noticed this already, but your female clients will probably ask a whole lot more questions than their male counterparts, and that’s because, generally speaking, they’re more conscientious about performing your program perfectly – and also because they want to understand the purpose of each exercise6.
I have seen male trainers irritated by the questions, the gist of their logic is that “I am the coach you do what I say” – This will just not work as well for some women, and for others it will be downright discouraging and unmotivating.
So my advice to anyone training women is to explain your process. When they understand, they subscribe to your logic, and they’ll be more likely to follow through. Ultimately, this is what we all want; to inspire and motivate our clients, regardless of gender, to be consistent with their training and see outcomes.
This tip ties in with previous weeks tips – if she understands why, then she can comply with your program requirements more closely. Women expect perfect from themselves before they will award themselves with confidence, and more often than not, they’re still deeply uncertain about their ability. Understanding what they’re trying to achieve and why goes a long way to restoring their confidence, increasing their intrinsic motivation, and hopefully seeing results from your program.
Visualisation is a Potent Tool: Imagining Themselves Where They Want to be – With Confidence!!
Visualisation and Imagery are tools that athletes, male and female, use regularly to enhance their performance; and it’s probable that many coaches in a gym setting are using it with both their male and female clients. However, I want to argue that it’s MORE important for female clients to use imagery or visualisation in their training environments.
Imagery, or visualisation is basically a tool to rehearse7. Athletes will visualise race day, imaging it going well; they’ll feel/taste/touch/smell/see/hear the moment they stand on the podium or cross the finish line, they’ll rehearse the perfect pass or pitch in their minds, etc. and studies not only show that this improves their performance8, it can also influence their muscle and neural networks as the body adapts to the imagined training stimulus9 10.
The reason that this is MORE important for your female clients is because of their less-than-ideal confidence state. Again, I am aware that I’m generalising, but women will generally be less confident. Their self-talk will be more critical, and more focused on what they’ve done wrong and their imperfections.
You can use visualisation and imagery to help them see/feel/hear/taste/smell themselves as confident, strong, capable, and resilient people. It’s the epitome of “fake it until you make it” – if they fake it in their heads, they’ll make it in their bodies.
Like anything, this will take practise, but allowing her a minute or two before her set to imagine how powerful she is, how well she’s going to lift the bar, and how strong she’s going to be will help her be powerful and strong right now!
I remember doing a course a few years ago with Perry Nickelson, where he demonstrated this with startling results. He basically had a volunteer visualise a injured shoulder, and then try to complete a strength task. She could hardly lift her arm. She then visualised the healing process and a fully functional, repaired and powerful shoulder. What do you think happened? You’re right, her strength was phenomenal and she lifted a PB, right there and then, within minutes of hardly being able to work at all.
Understand their specific risks and challenges
If you truly want to motivate the women in your area to come and train with you, then you need to truly understand their unique risks and challenges. For example, did you know that the number one barrier to exercise, any exercise, in Australia for women is pelvic floor dysfunction11?
That’s it. That’s the reason they’re not in the gym. They’re not lazy. They’re not too busy. They have a muscle problem that’s solvable for 80% of them that too few of us are equipped to deal with12. How are you addressing this problem? How can you help them? How can you communicate your skills to these women who are holding themselves back due to this problem?
Pelvic floor aside, do you understand that women are twice as likely to develop diseases like osteoporosis, autoimmune dysfunctions, dementia, sarcopenia, and more? Do you know how the gym can reverse this trend? What types of exercise can actually help them?
Furthermore, women are also more at risk of injury once they’re inside the gym. Do you know what “proper form” looks like for a woman who’s natural elbow and knee angles are 10 degrees further out than a man’s?
How about a woman’s risk of being bullied in the gym, filmed without permission, judged and made to feel like she shouldn’t be in specific areas? Sexual harassment and being filmed and photographed, then shamed on social media is actually happening, and is on the rise13 14. Do you even think about these things? and what do you do to protect your female clients?
I can say with absolute conviction, that there’s nothing more motivating for a female client when their trainer is properly schooled in their specific risks and challenges in the gym. Not only are these trainers better equipped at keeping their clients safe and less likely to injure them, they’re helping them feel more confident by prioritising their needs.
Reassure Them That They Belong
If pelvic floor dysfunction is the number one barrier to exercise for women in Australia, the next one is feeling like they don’t belong, specifically in the weights room15. With weights a major treatment tool for things like depression, anxiety, heart disease, and osteoporosis – all of which affect women at twice the rate of men – we have to encourage women in the weights room, and help them not only feel safe, but like they belong there.
When there are competing demands for women’s time, such as looking after children and their own parents, it’s easy to skip the gym if they don’t understand why it’s important16.
The first step is reassuring them that they belong. If you use all the tips from previous sessions this month; understanding WHY, positive encouragement, the quiet corner, visualising success, and assuming competence, then your female clients will feel a lot more confident in heading to the weights room.
I just want to emphasise here, that if you want your female clients to be motivated to train with weights when they’re not with you, then you need to make sure that they know exactly what they’re doing, they know the “proper form” with which you want them to do it, and they understand why it’s important for them. It might take a few false starts, or they’ll need you by their side for a while, but you’ll know you’ve nailed it when they’re faithfully completing their homework sessions!!
Understand Anxiety from a Female Perspective
If you’re a man, then this will take some work, and I’d encourage you not to dismiss what you don’t understand. To get you started, let’s pile together everything we’ve learned so far about motivating women; particularly that women lack confidence (not competence) and feeling like they don’t belong in the weights room. Now, add a healthy dose of society’s gendered expectations of what a “woman who exercises” should look like, and you have an anxious human.
Female athletes and sportswomen experience much higher rates of anxiety and worry than their male counterparts17. Obviously, there is variance from sport to sport and amongst individuals, but if you’re trying to motivate your female clients to get in the gym and do their weights, then it’s useful to understand that they are more likely to experience anxiety about this, and help them put their worries to rest (not by dismissing them – by understanding them!!).
In the case of female athletes, gender expectations contribute significantly to her worries, and can impact her performance. The influence of gender in sport is more often negative for female athletes, and includes: weight pressures, body dissatisfaction, disordered eating, and coach-athlete relationship and behaviours18.
While sport is not quite the same as the gym, I think we all can see the similarities between the above worries for female athletes, and our own messaging in the fitness industry. If you want to motivate your female clients, we have to understand that our messaging is driving this anxiety, and anxiety about the gym will impact her motivation as well as her performance, and usually not in a positive way.
If you’re serious about motivating women to exercise, you need to throw out that messaging, because it’s driving that anxiety, and focus instead on the real reasons we need them in the weights room – from improving their quality of life, to preventing disease, to surviving cancer.
Listen
Perhaps this is the most powerful way to motivate your female clients. Women are self censoring on a daily, if not hourly, basis, and creating a space where they’re listened to is incredible. If you’re a male trainer, this is especially important for you..
Men interrupt women at three times the rate that women interrupt men19. These are tiny microaggressions that men and women alike fail to notice 90% of the time, but contribute to the feelings of low confidence and worth in our female clients, and awareness will help us learn to listen respectfully and honour what the person is saying – male or female.
If you’re a male personal trainer, this means asking more open-ended questions, then waiting until the client or female colleague stops speaking before you reply. Like everything, there’s a spectrum – perhaps you’re not once of those men who speaks twice as many words as women20, perhaps you, personally, are indeed equal, or only speak 30% more – it doesn’t actually matter. What matters is that in this moment, with this client or female colleague, they feel heard, valued, and that you’re actively making an effort to listen.
To to finish this post, I just want to reiterate that I am not saying that ALL women must be coached this way ALL of the time and ALL men will be coached differently. My intention is to guide you, and hopefully your behaviours, towards a more eqitable understanding of the (general) differences between your male and female clients, and how little changes can make big differences in her performance and motivation.
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REFERENCES *https://www.mypthub.net/blog/personal-trainer-statistics-and-trends/ **worldmetrics.org/personal-training-statistics/ 1Roar - By Dr Stacey Simms 2Bucher Sandbakk S, Tønnessen E, Haugen T, Sandbakk Ø. Training and coaching of female vs. male endurance athletes on their road to gold. Perceptions among successful elite athlete coaches. Dtsch Z Sportmed. 2022; 73: 251-258. doi:10.5960/dzsm.2022.549 3Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg (2021) Men and women react differently to a lack of sport audience, medicalxpress.com, retrieved 11th June 2024 from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-06-men-women-react-differently-lack.html 4Lewins, Dean (2022) New study reveals gender bias in sport research. It’s yet another hurdle to progress in women’s sport , theconversation.com, Retrieved 11th June 2024 from https://theconversation.com/new-study-reveals-gender-bias-in-sport-research-its-yet-another-hurdle-to-progress-in-womens-sport-196027 5Kay, Kathy & Shipman, Clare (2016) The Confidence Code; the science and art of self-assurance – what every woman should know HarperCollins Publishers 6Bucher Sandbakk S, Tønnessen E, Haugen T, Sandbakk Ø. Training and coaching of female vs. male endurance athletes on their road to gold. Perceptions among successful elite athlete coaches. Dtsch Z Sportmed. 2022; 73: 251-258. doi:10.5960/dzsm.2022.549 7Quinn, Elizabeth (2021) How Imagery and Visualization Can Improve Athletic Performance verywellfit.com, retrieved 1st July 2024 from https://www.verywellfit.com/visualization-techniques-for-athletes-3119438 8Fadare, Stephen & Lambaco, Ermalyn & Mangorsi, Yasmin & Louise, Lorchano & Juvenmile, Tercio. (2022). A Voyage into the Visualization of Athletic Performances: A Review. American Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Innovation. 1. 105-109. 10.54536/ajmri.v1i3.479. 9Di Corrado D, Guarnera M, Vitali F, Quartiroli A, Coco M. Imagery ability of elite level athletes from individual vs. team and contact vs. no-contact sports. PeerJ. 2019 May 22;7:e6940. doi: 10.7717/peerj.6940. PMID: 31198627; PMCID: PMC6535038. 10Munroe-Chandler, K., & Guerrero, M. (2017, April 26). Psychological Imagery in Sport and Performance. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology. Retrieved 1 Jul. 2024, from https://oxfordre.com/psychology/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.001.0001/acrefore-9780190236557-e-228 11Dakic JG, Cook J, Hay-Smith J, Lin KY, Ekegren C, Frawley HC. Pelvic Floor Symptoms Are an Overlooked Barrier to Exercise Participation: A Cross-Sectional Online Survey of 4556 Women Who Are Symptomatic. Phys Ther. 2022 Mar 1;102(3):pzab284. doi: 10.1093/ptj/pzab284. PMID: 34939122. 12Pelvic floor dysfunction: prevention and non-surgical management. London: National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE); 2021 Dec 9. (NICE Guideline, No. 210.) Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK579556/ 13Women's Aid Organisation (2020) Women's Experiences and Perceptions of Sexual Harassment Demonstrate the Urgent Need for a Sexual Harassment Act wao.org.my, retrieved 26th July 2023 from https://wao.org.my/womens-experiences-and-perceptions-of-sexual-harassment-demonstrate-the-urgent-need-for-a-sexual-harassment-act/ 14See this example in 2021 in New Zealand: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/woman-shares-creepy-footage-of-man-in-gym-appearing-to-photograph-her-as-she-works-out/F5HOTZMDP5KNMG45LQAJW2TFWA/ 15Parsons, Joanne & Ripat, Jacquie. (2020). Understanding the Experiences of Girls Using a High School Weight Room. 16McArthur et al.: Factors influencing adherence to regular exercise in middle-aged women: a qualitative study to inform clinical practice. BMC Women's Health 2014 14:49. 17Correia M, Rosado A. Anxiety in Athletes: Gender and Type of Sport Differences. Int J Psychol Res (Medellin). 2019 Jan-Jun;12(1):9-17. doi: 10.21500/20112084.3552. PMID: 32612783; PMCID: PMC7110169. 18Roberts, CM., Quesnel, D.A. (2023). The Psychology of Female Sport Performance from a Gender Perspective. In: Robert-McComb, J.J., Zumwalt, M., Fernandez-del-Valle, M. (eds) The Active Female. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15485-0_3 19Men intrrupting women: Jacobi, Tonja and Schweers, Dylan, Justice, Interrupted: The Effect of Gender, Ideology and Seniority at Supreme Court Oral Arguments (October 24, 2017). 103 Virginia Law Review 1379 (2017), Northwestern Law & Econ Research Paper No. 17-03, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2933016 20Men speak twice as much as women: James, Deborah and Janice Drakich. “Understanding Gender Differences in Amount of Talk: Critical Review of Research,” In Gender and Conversational Interaction, ed. Deborah Tannen (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).