I was just wondering what some of the trainers in here like to do with obese clients. I’ve had my first one recently and have been doing a lot of seated free motion exercises and some swiss ball work and it seems ot be paying off. just curious…
I’ve had a few obese clients. They all had other problems like joint pain to make things more interesting.
I treat them like my older clients (65+) and see how they go with Squats, Lunges, Pushups na d other basic movements.
You just have to make each exercise easy enough fo them to manage 10 - 15 reps. Like squats off a bench…make it higher if you have to. Lunges or split squats holding onto a pole or smith machine for balance. Pushups on the wall if they can get off the floor or on knees if they can.
Cable colums are great because they can do everything sanding, swiss balls offer some variety, but are limited for fatties I think.
The biggest obstacle is their eating habits. There is almost certainly an emotional attachmet to the foods they eat and that needs to be addressed. This is were I struggle with getting results. Learning NLP to work with this.
With any client that is seeking advice for the weight loss/health aspects, I would take a slightly different approach than most of my cohorts.
I’d start them on a probationary period of sorts, where I wouldn’t see them in person at all after the initial consult.
During the initial consult, I’d find out as much as I could about that person via assessments, questionnaires, one-on-one questions, etc. After we were done with the assessment, I would provide them a basic lifestyle and nutritional guidelines handout that outlines what they would need to do for the next x amount of weeks.
If after those few weeks, they have actually made strides to comply with these fundamentals of health, I would take them on as a full-time client.
In my experiences, this alleviates the number of unsuccessful clients that drag your name and reputation down into the toilet.
Since trainers/coaches only see their clients 3 to 5 hours per five to seven days, this leaves a ton of time that they need to learn to do things for themselves. If they couldn’t show that they could do this for any considerable amount of time, I wouldn’t take them on.
Other than that, if I did take them on…their nutrition and lifestyle choices would be the primary concern since this is generally where their obesity originated from.
Their sessions would be short and concentrated more on education than of any specific strength, coordination, power, etc. work. Of course, the movement patterns that were performed in these short sessions were the primary movements necessary to life and survival (i.e. squat, push, pull, lunge, etc.).
To be honest, not many had the patience or determination to follow through…so I had very few obese clients that I worked with on a regular basis.
Here is something I think you should keep in mind.
If they are overweight or obese there muscles are connective tissue are almost guarenteed not to be able to handle the strain of lifting heavy… or at least doing alot of sets.
When I first started out I was REALLY out of shape. Thankfully I educated myself enough to know to take it easy for a good while so my body could slowly adapt to the changes.
So yah… treat them like they are older. Because there connective tissue will be similar to an older person.
One thing I really wasted my time with when I was beginning was isolation movements.
If I could go back I would do almost entirely compound movements.
Also for squats remember taht if they are out of shape there hamstrings and achilies tendon will probably be really inflexable. So when they are doing the squat they will probably have to put weight plates or a wooden block under the heels to take the tension off.
Hell… I can touch my toes and I still do this.
I noticed Milos Sarchev or however you spell his name does it too.
Another thing to…
From my expereience of being out of shape. It is VERY easy to get discouraged with yourself, be angry at yourself, or hate yourself when you have a hard time doing something. Be supportive, and dont give them anything that will be way to hard, as it probably wont help them mentally.
For instance, somebody who is obese is obviously not going ot be able to do a push up, so dont even try to get them to do it. Instead show them how to do it from the knee’s, once they have lost a half decent amount of fat and gained muscle then mention to them how to do a full push up. Also since their upper body is carrying quite a bit of weight, they wont need to do it from the toe’s to create a stimulus anyways.
Actually, depending on the person they might not want to do it from the knees either as they might find it embarrasing to doing it form the knee’s while others around them are doing it from the toe’s. I never did push ups from the knee’s infront of people when I was out of shape as I was to ashamed. Though not all are as self conscious as I.
Also dont try to get them to change their diet to much, to fast.
It is almost impossible for a person to do this. Instead of saying “cut all the donuts and cake and cookies”, just mention cutting out all the juice and pop, and drinking only water, and coffee if they are a coffee drinker. After they are able to mananage this level of self control you can move to the next level.
Hell, cutting out juice and pop gave me exellent weight loss results without even doing exercise, so you will probably know if they are lying or not 
.
Wow. both of the above seem to be sound advice on most levels. I actually advertise to obese clients because my degree in social/psych helps me get them to learn. And the key is, as said before, to get them to learn by themselves. I now actually no longer see them unless they want to learn new movements from me.
But to get them going in the beginning I usually start of walking around the track and just talking to them about what they should do and all the educational stuff. this way they are like “wow that was quick” after an hour of walking and walking lunges.
The low intensity stuff works great in the beginning. once they have their diet in shape ah la PN or AD (depends on person) I start to get them into other fun stuff like catch with the light med balls or squats. the key is making it interesting, for all clients really, because obese clients are rarely into doing things they don’t enjoy unless they have the “anorexic fire” in them. the anorexic fire is when they have so much self hate it translates into hard discipline. these types are easy to get going.
My new idea is the Nintendo Wii. Wii boxing may be the key to end obesity. It has all the psychological factors necessary to keep clients engrossed.
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acheivement motivation
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great workout (subjectively)
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challenge
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gradual learning curve
Right now I use thai pads to get them doing “fun” carido. I do the focus mitt/thaipads because often their shins can’t take a jog or shit like that. So I get their weight down using boxing training and they love it. then they can learn more moves when they don’t weigh a million pounds.
But the bottom line is diet compliance. If they eat better they drop like 3# per day.
oh and only let them weigh in every 2 weeks. this way they don’t expect a constantcy of results.
-chris
In that case, I think that you should build an aerobic base first. I would advocate daily power walks(20-25minutes).
Great thoughts all around. One thing I’ll throw into the mix here is that, due to the stress of having to move an extra 100+ lbs. of body mass all the time, many obese clients actually can build strength and power pretty well. I did power work with a couple of my heavier clients (after a few months of break in, naturally!) and they found it very enjoyable.
Obviously I’m not talking plyometrics here (way too hard on the joints for heavier types), but Olympic-style lifting moves: clean and jerk, high pulls, push press, snatch. Seeing themselves build strength and power in that way was encouraging, and highly effective in fat burning.
Another advantage is these are advanced lifts so the heavier folks can feel cool and accomplished and not like they are always doing “remedial” exercises.
Good luck to everyone working with heavier people–and to anyone with that much weight to lost who keeps plugging away! It sure ain’t easy.
With obese clients I try not to get ahead of myself. I will not push them hard on leg exercises and will not do lunges or other 1 legged variations with them. They are not a normal client because they have usually over 60 pounds of dead weight on them that a normal person does not have. I will use bodyweight squats and loaded squats if they are capable but I try not to get ahead of myself and do push them anywhere near failure because they will often get strong quick and there is a good chance of an overloading injury because of their excess weight, which often can interfere with their ability to use correct form. Its really just a numbers game, If they are doing what they should be doing, they will lose weight quickly and then we can do more advanced exercises, but as for the beginning, I just work on the basics to get them stronger. I know of several people that have been injured because their trainer treated them like a normal client and progressed them too quickly, even though they had the strength to apparently do the exercises fine.
The fact of the matter is this. For these clients the workouts will be very basic at the beginning. And I really dont care if they are sick of doing the same exercises over and over, they are going to do them.
Another notable point is muscle mass. When you take bodyfat measurements on an obese client, it is hard to tell where they are. They could be 39% they could even be 50% or 60% it gets blurry at those levels. But one indicator can be at the functional level. If a client, even an obese client has trouble doing body weight squats on a bench that brings their thigh to parallel, they are probably very low on muscle mass even considering they are obese. A good indicator is the control and willingness to enter knee flexion. If a client sticks their butt out as far as they can then leans forward as far as they can to sit on the bench this could be a sign their knee extensors are so atrophied they cannot support their own bodyweight doing a squat. Since the glutes are a mechanically stronger muscle group they will rely on them to do the work. (of course their are exceptions and it does depend on how overweight someone is and flexibility can play a part but this can be a good indicator of muscle mass).
i’m not a trainer but if i think that an obese person should start out by walking a lot. not cycling or elliptical training, but walking. I know that sounds unimpressive but walking is a significant step above sedentism and there is a lot of room for improvement there. the mild cyclic impact loading is good for their joints and bone mass too.
that of course in conjunction with strength training
I’d buy them a nutritional book and give them a quiz the following week. If they didn’t get 80% of so I’d drop them as a client. I’d also require them to keep a food and exercise journal outside of the gym.
[quote]slickid wrote:
I’d buy them a nutritional book and give them a quiz the following week. If they didn’t get 80% of so I’d drop them as a client. I’d also require them to keep a food and exercise journal outside of the gym.
[/quote]
Your opinion of how to do things is extremely logical. It would definetly produce some awsome results. The people are just to soft mentally, that is how they got their bodies like that. (I know from experience).
Changing how somebody thinks cant be done. You must educate them,and it will be themselves that slowly change their habits. The quiz part is a cool idea. Since somebody who wants to change so badly will obviously want to educate themselves on how to do it. If they dont then they are clearly not serious.
Have client adopt other changes in lifestyle and tie these changes directly to exercise and weight loss:
- My new weight loss hairstyle
- My new weight loss body spray
- My new weight loss music
The new lifestyle changes need to be significantly different to reinforce the feelings and mind set that the client is a new person with a healthy lifestyle.