What Is Wellness Coaching, and How Is It Related To Fitness?

 If you're familiar with the changing trends in the health and fitness industry, you've probably heard of wellness coaches too. This is a fairly recent branch of health and fitness and takes a more holistic approach to overall wellness via holistic coaching.

But what exactly does being a wellness coach entail, and how does it tie into fitness training on the whole? Let's go over a few key details:

Wellness coaches work to identify barriers to health

One of the biggest tasks a wellness coach is faced with is identifying the true barriers to health and fitness that exist for their client(s). Sometimes, it could be psychological, emotional, or physical barriers such as a lack of access to gyms or health conditions and diseases that may disrupt their wellness journey.

What's crucial to identify as a coach is where these issues arise and how they can strategize and plan to overcome them more effectively. It's not always straightforward or an easy fix, especially when dealing with more mental roadblocks and physical restrictions, but that is the type of work you do with your training.

They help clients set objective and subjective goals

After identifying the reasons and possible factors why your clients cannot reach their goals and meet their health and wellness requirements, you work to set objective and subjective goals for them.

This includes setting small goals and building up to major ones, including lifestyle changes, adding more exercise, cutting back on junk or fast food, and others. You will be tailoring those goals based on the client's needs or the intention and shared purpose of the collective if you're working with a group.

Wellness coaches focus on behavioral changes as well

However, what sets the tone for wellness coaching is that it focuses heavily on behavioral changes and factors more than anything else. This means you'll be working to address clients' behavior and decision-making based on your training, goals, and needs. You work to change their behavior and set up a system of rewards, create a sense of accountability, and hold them responsible for their decisions rather than deflecting the blame. It's a tough job to hold the mirror up to someone and tell them that their actions will have consequences while also managing to keep them on track and motivated.

As a coach, this is an incredibly tough balance to strike and may not be possible without many tools and special training to prepare and equip you for these scenarios.

Their services go beyond physical health and fitness

While a certified fitness or personal trainer's job is primarily to create a plan of action focused on working out and physical wellness, unless specifically qualified to address other areas and weak spots such as nutrition, a wellness coach does a lot more. What's crucial to understand is that as a wellness coach, you will be working with clients on much more than physical wellness and fitness—a lot of the work expands to other areas of their overall well being, including nutrition and dietary changes, behavioral coaching, counseling, sleep, rest and recovery, and much more.

The job of a wellness coach is typically more elaborate and focused on different facets of well-being and safety, guaranteeing that your clients are not just addressing their health on a superficial level.

Diet and nutrition are an integral part of your work as a wellness coach, helping clients make smarter, more informed choices and decisions about the food they eat and the way they fuel their bodies.

It takes a varied, often complex understanding of different elements of general health and wellness, blending them together to create a more cohesive approach to it.

 

Coaches do not, however, have clinical expertise

What is important to distinguish, however, is that coaches, while wellness and health experts are not clinicians. This means they cannot therapize, treat, or cure diseases, mental and physical health conditions, or take any such measures that would affect their clients. What they can do, however, is work closely with healthcare providers such as specialists and consultants to devise customized plans for their clients, ensuring that they are on track with their medical goals via wellness coaching. For instance, a wellness coach may adhere to goals set by a client's therapist, finding ways to incorporate habits that are beneficial to them mentally and emotionally.

Similarly, they might work with doctors and other clinicians to help clients reach certain health metrics, including particular bodyweight, adhering to diets, and more.

Wellness coaches aren't restricted to gyms alone

A key difference between wellness coaches and fitness trainers is that wellness coaches often aren't working in gyms and fitness centers alone. They can be found in spas, clinics, school and college campuses, offices and corporate settings, rehabilitation centers, and various other locations where they work with people in different capacities. The nature of their work ensures that they have access to incredibly diverse workspaces. Fitness trainers may also work in similar locations, but they heavily focus on the actual training, which cannot be removed from the equation.

All in all, wellness coaches are an integral part of the health and wellness industry and crucial to many fitness clients' success.

Learn more about the possibilities and scope of being a wellness coach and developing your skills as a certified fitness trainer. Training as a coach helps you develop valuable people skills and equips you with a toolbox to motivate, empower, and educate the people around you. If you're interested in becoming a wellness or fitness professional, take a look at WITS Education's lifestyle and wellness coaching certification, as well as their personal health trainer programs.