Health Coach vs. Personal Trainer: Key Differences and Similarities

Health Coach vs. Personal Trainer: Key Differences and Similarities

Consumers no longer see “wellness” as just “improved fitness and nutrition” but as much broader and holistic path – one that includes better long-term health management, mental health (particularly mindfulness) and sleep.

Enter, health coach.

Wait. “Health coach”? Well, in case you were wondering, yes. Health coaches are not quite the same as personal trainers. But how exactly do these two professions differ? And is there any overlap between the two at all? Find answers below to help you determine the best career path in the health and wellness industry for yourself.

What does a health coach do?

A Health coach helps clients improve their overall well-being and health by providing them with the necessary knowledge about healthy eating principles and lifestyle habits.

Health coaches guide clients through building self-care skills, habits, and healthy behaviors that are critical for optimal well-being. As a result, they can help with a variety of health issues - from managing chronic illness to smoking cessation, from improving diet and exercise to adapting to a life-changing health event (e.g.a diabetes diagnosis).

In other words, health coaches act as “cheerleaders” for the client’s personal health; They help a client find the tools they need to make better lifestyle choices and achieve their health goals.

What does a personal trainer do?

A Personal trainers Works with clients to achieve fitness-related goals (e.g., weight loss, improved body composition, and improved athletic performance).

They design fitness programs, demonstrate proper exercise execution, evaluate progress, and adjust training plans as needed. Depending on a personal trainer's specific certification, they may also create meal plans and nutritional guidelines with reference to MyPlate, a government-recommended revision of the food pyramid.

Key Differences Between a Health Coach and a Personal Trainer

scope

The essential difference between a health coach and a personal trainer immediately becomes clear.

That of a personal trainerscopeis more limited and better defined than that of a health coach. Personal training is primarily about fitness – creating well-thought-out training plans, guiding clients on how to exercise, and training clients in a way that optimizes their athletic performance.

On the contrary, a health coach has a much broader range of issues to address, such as stress management, sleep hygiene and various lifestyle habits (e.g. alcohol and nicotine consumption).

However, there is an important disclaimer: There are limits to a health coach's scope of practice.

Ultimately, health coaches do not have the same training and certification as medical professionals – such as doctors, psychiatrists or nutritionists.

This means they cannot diagnose or attempt to treat a medical condition (e.g. generalized anxiety disorder). Note: These restrictions also apply to personal trainers.

Knowledge specialization

While personal trainers' limited exercise range may seem like a scam, this is not necessarily the case. What they lack in reach, personal trainers make up for with their in-depth knowledge as fitness specialists. What does that mean?

To illustrate: Imagine a customer wants to build muscle mass.

While a health coach could guide the client to remain consistent with their workouts, they wouldn't necessarily know what is required for maximum hypertrophy.

Notably, a health coaching certification does not cover concepts such as muscle anatomy, muscular adaptations in response to training, andprogressive overload– Basics for a well-thought-out “hypertrophy training program”.

The same goes for all fitness goals, be it improved strength, cardiovascular fitness or even power.

Work environment

Another difference between health coaches and personal trainers would be their work environment. Generally, health coaches conduct their sessions remotely (by phone or through web conferencing tools).

This is in contrast to personal trainers, who typically work physically with clients in a gym or other type of fitness facility.

Of course, it is worth noting that personal trainers can also conduct their sessions online, as the pandemic has shown.

But while the effectiveness of remote personal training highly contested (especially for fitness newbies) health coaching has proven itself. Research shows that remote health coaching is just as effective as in-person coaching.

Why? One of the main reasons for this is that it is often challenging for a personal trainer to ensure the correct form of training remotely.

This may be due to a limited viewing angle (e.g., the camera only captures a client's side profile) or a misunderstanding of the verbal coaching cues (some clients may "get" muscle activation better by lightly tapping this region).

Bottom line? While a health coach can work with anyone remotely, a personal trainer will likely need to meet with a client in person at a fitness facility - especially if they have no prior training experience.

Similarities Between a Health Coach and a Personal Trainer

At this point, you can think of health coaches and personal trainers as chalk and cheese, so fundamentally different that similarities are impossible. You may be surprised to learn that the two professions have many similarities.

Level of regulation

Neither personal trainers nor health coaches require any certification, license, or special training to legally use these titles. This means anyone can claim to be a personal trainer and/or health coach – and charge clients for their services.

However, it is unlikely that people without recognized certification will be able to have a successful career. Many gyms require their trainers to be certified by a reputable training provider.

Additionally, clients would also be wary of being coached by someone – be it a health coach or personal trainer – without providing supporting documentation.

And fortunately, while the legal regulations are not strict, both professions are now known for adhering to a uniform code of ethics, education, research and reference that aims to standardize the training and certification for health coaches and personal trainers:

Health coach:In 2016, the National Board of Health and Wellness Coaches (NBHWC) partnered with the National Board of Medical Examiners (the certifying body that licenses physicians) and approved more than eighty health and wellness coach training programs in the United States. FYI: AFPA's health coach programs are recognized by the NBHWC.
Personal trainer:A key feature of quality personal training courses is accreditation by the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM), a recognized independent agency that accredits certification programs that meet and meet its standards. AFPA's personal training programs are allNASM accredited.

Neither are doctors

Here's a point that's been made before but needs to be reiterated (and elaborated upon): neither health coaches nor personal trainers are medical professionals.

This in turn means that they cannot diagnose or treat illnesses, interpret medical test results, recommend nutritional supplements, or even prescribe meal plans (i.e. prescribe a particular diet for a client).

If necessary, both professions mustInstead, they refer their customers to the appropriate medical professionals. Here are examples of situations that require “outside” help:

Processing Traumatic Experiences: A situation that a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) psychiatrist can best handle. Diagnosis and/or treatment of nutrient deficiencies: Best addressed by physicians and nutritionists who can order blood tests and develop an appropriate treatment plan. Here, too, health trainers and personal trainers cannot diagnose or treat illnesses.
Improving sleep quality with nutritional supplements:Only healthcare providers can prescribe “sleep-promoting” supplements to patients, such as: Melatonin or L-Theanine. The most distant health coaches and personal trainers recommend tips for better sleep hygiene (e.g. avoid screen time before bed and keep the bedroom cool) – nothing more.

A partner relationship focused on behavior change

Another critical similarity between health coaches and personal trainers lies in the nature of the coach-client relationship. It is a type of partnership that aims to guide the client through a step-by-step process to change their life for the better.

Neither profession uses a one-size-fits-all approach to clients.

Instead, all clients typically go through an “onboarding” session where they must fill out a medical history and give the coach an idea of ​​where they currently stand (personal trainer fitness level, current health lifestyle habits). Coach) and what exactly they want to achieve through coaching.

Health coaches and personal trainers then take all of these factors (i.e. lifestyle, needs and preferences of the client) into account when designing coaching sessions.

As a result, both professions need to be familiar with the knowledge of behavior change (and understand how to apply it):

Motivational interviewing:A key technique that coaches use when theyask open questionsis intended to help clients discover their own reasons for change. Effective motivational interviewing helps clients verbalize barriers and other factors that are beyond their control but that impact their health. This, in turn, sparks a discussion about how to address these barriers and potentially paves the way for the adoption of various health-promoting behaviors (that make sense to them).
Health Behavior Change Framework:Health behavior of a customer results from a complex process of choices, habits, psychological state, social support, historical experiences of discrimination, access to healthcare, trauma, culture, economic access, among otherstwo popular behavior change theories– the Health Belief Model (HBM) and the Transtheoretical Model (TTM) – provides a coach with valuable insight into a client's attitudes and beliefs toward health behaviors and how clients might be better guided toward change.
Increasing the client's self-efficacy:Self-efficacy refers to a person's confidence in their ability to achieve a goal (i.e., desired outcome). Research shows that people with high self-efficacy set higher goals and make more effort to change their behavior. Therefore, both health coaches and personal trainers should focus their efforts on increasing client self-efficacy (e.g., using goal setting and positive psychology).

Result of the coaching

And what is the final common thread between the work of health coaches and personal trainers? Your goal for a customer.

At the end of the day, both professions want their clients to feel empowered – and able to make sense of the deluge of health and wellness information.

A client should leave coaching sessions with a clearer idea of ​​the next step. Simply put, they should feel like you have just helped them find the balance they need for better health.

Take away

As different as they may seem, personal trainers and health coaches play complementary roles.

For example, a health coach dealing with a client who wants to get in better shape may refer them to a personal trainer. On the other hand, a personal trainer with a client who complains of feeling overwhelmed by daily stressors may refer them to a health coach.

However, it's worth noting that a personal trainer can also be a health coach - and vice versa.

Finally, many of the skills you have learned as a personal trainer are transferable and relevant to the role of a health coach. In addition to an expanded customer base, certification in both also gives you the opportunity to support your customers' well-being in a variety of ways.

Personal trainers who earn a health coaching certification gain the broader knowledge needed for day-to-day management of chronic illnesses, for example.

In contrast, a health coach armed with personal training knowledge could provide actionable tips on exactly how a client could become more active (rather than general recommendations like “exercise three times a week”).

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