Become a Personal Trainer
Clients Keep Coming Back For How Training Feels, And Level 3 Teaches The Two Kinds Of Motivation Behind That
From the FASTER syllabus: this article is taught in full in The honest route from scratch to qualified →
In short: The Level 2 and 3 personal training course teaches two kinds of motivation. Intrinsic motivation is doing something because you enjoy it and like how it makes you feel. Extrinsic motivation is chasing an outside reward such as money, status or recognition. Criterion 1.8 of the client-communication unit (D/617/8592) asks a new trainer to explain the role of both in exercise adherence, meaning whether a client keeps turning up. It is taught in plain words, so a career changer with no psychology background can follow it, and it gives a new trainer something real to say about why clients stay.
The worry behind most course decisions
Plenty of people thinking about a career change picture the day after qualifying. The certificate is on the wall, a first client has signed up, and then comes the thought about whether that client will still be there in two months.
That is a reasonable thing to think about, and the course has an answer for it. One of the things you learn on our CIMSPA-recognised personal training course is why people keep exercising, and it takes one page to explain.
Two kinds of motivation, in plain words
The course describes motivation as "the psychological drive to engage in a behaviour". It then splits it in two.
Intrinsic motivation is taking part because you enjoy it and like the way it makes you feel. The course quotes Ryan and Deci (2000): the doing of an activity for its inherent satisfaction. A person moved this way acts for the fun or the challenge.
Extrinsic motivation is chasing an outside reward, such as money, status or recognition.
A client who books because a wedding is in June has an extrinsic reason. A client who books because the session is the best hour of their week has an intrinsic one. Both are fine. They behave differently once June has passed.
Why it matters for the job
The course puts it directly: a fitness instructor's role is more than teaching exercise. A trainer plays a significant part in motivating clients to exercise and in sticking to the programme prescribed.
For a new trainer that is good news. The feeling of a session is something you shape. The warm-up, the first exercise a client succeeds at, the way the hour ends and the music in the room all feed the intrinsic side, and none of it needs a clever programme.
Play it at the right size
Motivation can sound like a big topic. At Level 3 it is a short, clear idea with a name, and knowing the name makes it easy to spot. Later FASTER courses take it further, into how a client wants to feel and what they secretly measure themselves against. Level 3 gives you the vocabulary to start that conversation.
How the course teaches it
FASTER courses are visual and interactive. You can read a lesson, listen to it, write your answers or dictate them, whichever suits the way you learn. Nobody needs to be academic to finish.
PT Manager opens the moment you sign up with FASTER, and adding real clients unlocks when you pass a course. It is free, and nobody takes a cut of your sessions. Today's third post shows a PT Manager tool for looking at movement, which is where the feeling of a session meets something you can see.
Where to go next
The honest route from scratch to qualified sets out each step in order, and the Level 3 Personal Trainer course shows where this criterion sits.
The FASTER Journal shares the next teaching point first. Sign up at /newsletter and it arrives the moment it is ready.
You just read one answer. The course is all of them.
The honest route from scratch to qualified — taught by the people who wrote it, with free return access for life. The price is on the page, payment plans at checkout, no sales calls.
Also worth a look: Level 3 Personal Trainer, where the motivation criterion lives.
See what the course covers →Frequently asked
What is intrinsic motivation?
Taking part in something because you find it enjoyable and like how it makes you feel. The course describes it as doing an activity for its own satisfaction.
What is extrinsic motivation?
Being driven by an outside reward such as money, status or recognition.
Do I need a psychology background for this part of Level 3?
No. The course explains both types in plain words, and you can read it, listen to it, write your answers or dictate them.
Where is it in the course?
It is criterion 1.8 of unit D/617/8592 in the Level 2 and 3 personal training course.
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