Personal Fitness Professional - March/April 2015 - 16

BY FAREL B. HRUSKA

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OBTAIN, TRAIN AND RETAIN

THE MOM MARKET

f you work with women between the
ages of 20-45 you more than likely have an incredible opportunity to
create a specialized experience for
moms in your community and build
your training business. When a woman enters into motherhood, she experiences
a life-changing transition. Her world changes
drastically, both physically and emotionally.
As a trainer to this special population, you
can make a tremendous impact to your client
base and her life.

What does a mom want/need from
a trainer?
A mom wants someone who "get her." Her life,
her body and daily experiences are unique.
Taking the time to understand her - physically
and emotionally - makes all the difference in
the world. Through pregnancy and into motherhood, her body has changed more than a
man's will in his entire lifetime. From the the
exaggerated spinal curves as her pregnancy
progresses to the physical demands of caring

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for another human being, her body has very
unique challenges. Her day-to-day experiences are likely also different. She probably went
from a full-time job to staying at home with her
newborn (at least for six weeks, maybe longer)
and she can feel profoundly isolated. Her time
is limited and "mommy guilt" has settled in.
She may feel like she needs to take the back
seat to the well-being of her child. All this understanding will position you as a trainer who
"gets her" and you can then train her with that
knowledge and compassion. Moms speciﬁcally adhere to, and are loyal to, experiences and
services that speak to their uniqueness. When
a business or service speaks to her and her
challenges, she will likely stay.
Here are some of the ways you can be the
trainer she needs:

Be knowledgeable
Truly understand her physiological changes
and needs by being an expert on training the
pre- and postnatal woman. Consider a certiﬁcation and on-going continuing education to

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be armed with the most updated research and
recommendations. Study the musculoskeletal
imbalances which occurred during the nine
months of pregnancy. Further, understand the
physical challenges she is faced with everyday,
with an increasing and non-compliant load
(aka, her sweet baby). Her child will be rowing her body off balance all the time. Training
with that knowledge in mind can help you to
design exercises which offer instability with
dispersed load. For example, using uneven
resistance applied to movement-based exercises, anchor a resistance tube in front of her
and have her hold both handles in one hand
as she does a butt-kicker run.

Be ﬂexible (with her physically and logistically)
Physically: As much as her physical state is
ever-changing, so is her day-to-day schedule.
From a training standpoint, understand that
she is still recovering, and what works one
day may not work another. She is also dealing
with an erratic sleep schedule (that's putting
it mildly), so she could have ﬂuctuating en-

Personal Fitness Professional - March/April 2015

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