why do clients choose group classes?

As a group exercise instructor, our goal is to motivate clients to continue to exercise for a long term healthy life.  Training in a group creates wonderful energy and encourages members to return day after day. I believe that if we don't enjoy the exercise session and feel a sense of accomplishment, the chances of people continuing is very slim.

In a class, there is a sense of team work, even if our clients do not know each person in the class, because of their common goal. 

At the end of a long day at the office and hours in the traffic, the thought of having to take that extra trip to a busy gym must be difficult. Knowing that there is a group of people in the same position waiting to join you for an hour of de stressing, a little chatting and a good amount of endorphins makes all the difference.

As instructors, we do not only want our regular members to attend but also to entice those folk that would not normally join in classes but are curious to what happens within the studios.

Asking clients what draws them to class, the common response includes, not being able to motivate themselves if they were to train on the fitness floor themselves.  Having a confident instructor who leads a class with a prepared, well rounded, fun and challenging workout and making use of commercial music that they can recognize and motivates them. 

Over the years, I have noticed that if clients feel safe around an exercise specialist in a way that they feel they are reliable, consistent and won't use exercises that would hurt them or make them perform exercises that make them feel uncomfortable, they will follow them.  There is more chance that these members will try other class styles that they would not normally because of their sense of comfort with this instructor.

The ‘new’ or recently qualified exercise leaders are made to believe that the instructors with the fullest classes are those with the newest moves, the cones that seem so confident and which have a reputation that precedes them.  This is not always necessary the case.

Some interesting truths;

• Almost all instructors (even those that have been teaching for years) feel a little anxious minutes before they start a class.
• Not all instructors are extroverts, often they are the opposite and feel a sense of accomplishment moving out of comfort zones
• Members enjoy classes they can follow, it does not need to have ‘new’ moves but rather an instructor that is consistent, happy to be there, well prepared, and that genuinely enjoy what they doing