5 Expert-Backed Tips for Personal Training Clients Navigating Menopause
Navigating it can be tough, being a personal trainer to those in menopause. If you’ve been tasked with solving this problem, our tips will get you off to the best start you can possibly have!
Training clients in menopause has a large amount to do with what nutrition they have before we start.
If you want to become a nutritionist and receive qualified to give expert nutriton advice to your clients during menopause, then enrol on a nutritionist course with OriGym.
Personal Trainers Working with Menopausal Clients (Key Information)
Before we share some tips for being a menopause personal trainer, we’ll look at some of the terminology you’ll need to know.
If you’re a personal trainer going to now train through the menopause you’re in different stages. These stages are:
- Perimenopause
- Menopause
- Postmenopause
Let’s take a look at each of these stages, and their symptoms, and how they can impact exercise. And you will have a better sense of what your client is feeling as well as helping to train them safely and effectively.
What Does Perimenopause Mean?
So, if you are a personal trainer to those before, during, and after menopause you won’t be personal training older clients like what you thought you would.
Early perimenopause can begin in your 30s and late perimenopause can be as late as your 50s.
Another name for this stage is the ‘menopause transition’ as the ovaries begin to produce fewer hormones and so the menstrual cycle becomes increasingly irregular.
But even if they can still get pregnant, they may be at this stage for a few years or just a while.
But first, anywhere from one to three months before the first period of the menopause takes place, you should consult with your perimenopausal client about the symptoms she is feeling. These may include:
- Hot flashes
- Sleep problems
- Mood changes
- Changing cholesterol levels
- Bone density loss
As a Personal Trainer, you’ll adapt your programme to these symptoms if your client is going through this transitional stage of the menopause.
So for instance if your client is suffering from bone density loss you may wish to be careful about the type of strength training you use.
The good news for your heart from cardio is it will help fight off the bad effects of higher bad cholesterol but sometimes it increases hot flash risk, which vary from client to client.
What Does Menopause Mean?
When someone has had his or her last menstrual period this is called. Only if nobody has had a period for a year will this be certain. They will rarely come without something you will see symptoms for that period and beyond.
This is the last period of your periods and means that you will not be able to get pregnant anymore.
Symptoms are usually at the worst, and this is also usually the time. The time involved will vary from person to person, but on average it runs from around 4 years.
The other symptoms you should be aware of if you’re a personal trainer during menopause include:
- Weight gain and a sluggish metabolism
- Brain fog
- Heart palpitations
- Muscle aches and joint pains
Some of these symptoms can be reduced by exercise. For example, recent scientific research suggests that exercise helps with hot flashes as it:
Increases cardiopulmonary fitness
It causes a reduction in cutaneous vasodilation (blood flow to the skin which brings heat from core to the surface)
Increases cerebral blood flow (blood flow to the brain) that is decreased during a hot flash
Menopausal clients must have personal trainer who can choose exercises that alleviate symptoms, not worsen symptoms.
A delicate balance this can be so the more you know about their experience, the better you’re at communicating with them the better your programme will be.
Personal Training 5 Tips for Personal Training Clients Going Through Menopause
#1 Be a Personal Trainer for menopausal clients: Show sensitivity
But if you have a longstanding client as a personal trainer you may well be there for some of the more severe symptoms of the menopausal transition into later stage symptoms of menopause.
Come in, I remain very sensitive to a client’s individual experience at this particular time, just remember that the client is, not only mentally and emotionally, but physically as well.
If you’re sensitive and compassionate, you won’t be helping your client to feel supported, you’ll be keeping dialogue open and getting better results.
When you are a personal trainer for menopausal clients there are quite a few things you should know about.
Create Some Privacy For Your Menopausal Clients
You’ll have to know some details about their physical and mental condition as well as any symptoms they may have, but you should remember to respect people’s privacy.
You can only work on what people want to share with you! One of the major indications for a bad personal trainer is that they don’t respect clients’ boundaries.
The only thing you can do as a PT is build rapport and maintain an open dialogue so that you feel comfortable to be told anything that will affect training.
During your training you’ll be discovering more about the most immediate risks with your client, you’ll be discovering more about them and building a connection.
Be Compassionate With Your Menopausal Clients.
Another one of the best personal trainer qualities to cultivate is compassion; you want your clients to feel heard and supported.
This will provide a green light for you to pick up and continue the open discussion you’ve started, and it will also show your client that you realize some of the more emotional symptoms of menopause.
In your personal trainers sessions your clients may experience some of the following:
- Mood swings
- Directed towards physical symptoms.
- To physical symptoms.
- Insulting your lack of ability on that particular day
Being aware of this and making sure when you coach your client you have words of support, encouragement, and a feel free to stop if they feel comfortable will be the best way to have a professional relationship.
Another thing to remember is that this can affect your sessions specifically and the importance of being able to adapt. Which we mentioned in a little bit more detail now!
#2 — Be Adaptable as a Personal Trainer for Menopausal Clients
If you’re working with clients going through menopause, remember to consider the fact that their condition and symptoms can change very quickly.
They may quite simply be capable of doing what they do in one session and not in another. This will often be nothing to do with their fitness levels but due to:
- Decreased muscle strength
- Sleeping issues the night before exhausting you
- A hot flash comes on
This is how personal trainer for your menopausal clients should be adaptable. It will strength your capacity for compassion and sensitivity so that they feel supported in sessions.
Having good relationship with clients will cause them to show loyalty to your services and give you personal trainer testimonials too!
You can do this one simple way through ideas on how you can change the exercises of the session for your client to be easier.
That could mean taking stuff out to change exercises on, or doing cardio to flexibility so the session is a bit softer on the client.
So that you can add lots of breaks too and take every opportunity to be encouraging. Even so, you can still be sure that they get a good workout, without destroying their confidence in the process!
#3 Become qualified in nutrition for training women who are menopausal
Getting additional training is our second tip for personal training menopausal clients to boost your knowledge.
A sports nutrition course is one of the best Level 4 personal trainer courses you can invest in to help your sessions.
If you are a personal trainer, working with menopausal clients, it is especially important to combine diet and exercise to avoid some of the weight gain that is common to menopause and postmenopause.
This time isn’t only when client’s weight will naturally fluctuate, but when it is more easily ameliorated by broader lifestyle changes.
Part of OriGym’s course will give you knowledge of the link between disease and diet, so you can support clients who are at a higher risk of osteoporosis and heart disease.
Additionally, you will also learn about the hydration and nutritional requirements at the various life stages to enhance your knowledge of this stage of a client’s life and develop appropriate skills as a nutritionist.
Having a qualification like ours means you can give your clients more well rounded service without them making their lifestyle changes as quick wins and be able to help your clients achieve lifestyle solutions for results that last.
For example, there is now lots of healthy eating research that suggests good diet for mood and mental wellbeing, and physical wellbeing.
A good personal trainer for menopausal clients will have a range of services to offer, which means you can charge more, you’ll be helping with their lengthier results and through that, you’ll build a reputation for success!
This is exactly what Dr. Wendy Sweet does with My Menopause Transformation, combining nutritional advice with training to transform people’s symptoms and lives:
Help clients alleviate symptoms or if you’re in the menopause or post-menopause stage you can get these incredible testimonials!
Remember you’re not allowed to provide all that type of advice. As a sports nutritionist without a degree, you can only propose diets rather than give them.
Dieticians are the only ones who can prescribe diet plans. The difference is that a dietician is a term of law that protects them from added responsibilities than a nutritionist.
If you choose to get into sports the nutrition then you can advice and suggest what to be taken but be conscious of your language.
You should phrase things in the following way:
I’d suggest you eat your omega oils through plenty of oily fish. “In many cases, these can help with mood and lowering your cholesterol.”
I advise you to try eating even more broccoli. This absorbs lots of calcium and may help you build stronger bones.
That means you can make these suggestions and give out healthy eating tips without designing a bespoke dietary plan or even putting people off certain foods by pointing them in the direction of scientific research for more information.
#4: Add some Strength Training programme between menopause.
The strength exercises that you include as part of your programme for menopausal clients will be plentiful.
However, if you’re safe and thorough, you’ll do your body good by adding strength and resistance training programs to these same symptoms.
One of the best ways to do this is with a before or during menopause weight training programme. That’s when some of the symptoms start, like bone density loss that can develop into other serious health conditions.
That’s why it’s so good as a preventative measure but scientific research out of a university department has also found improvement in bone density in postmenopausal women.
Maintaining weight loss is another one of the benefits strength training. This is great for the client, and will soon allow you to use transformation photos to market your services!
Other exercises you can include in your strength training programme during menopause include:
- Resistance band exercises
- Squats or push up variations and other body weight exercises
- Calisthenics training
Before you do anything else, you should always ensure you do this once you have thoroughly discussed your client’s experience (if they have been) and what their health concerns are regarding their menopausal symptoms.
#5 Add in plenty of pelvic floor exercises.
One of the first things our tips for training menopausal clients list is to include exercises that will strengthen their pelvic floor muscles.
That’s because this is part of the menopausal stage, at which the muscles in the vagina are becoming weaker and weaker.
And it can cause incontinence problems in people, as well as dulling sensation during sex.
They are particularly important during and after menopause and post menopause so it’s a very important feature of the programme you run as a personal trainer for any menopausal clients.
Hip thrusts is one of the best exercises you can do with clients for this. Add a kettlebell or medicine ball depending on the strength of clients, and their joints or bone density, to make the exercise more challenging.
Before You Go!
And there you have it – our list of tips for any personal trainer for with those through each menopause stage!
I hope now you know how to adjust your training so that people can work through each part of the menopausal experience and just lose some symptoms and feel great!