A month ago, we wrote about a story that looked into emotional trauma caused when personal trainers and their clients “break up”.

The Daily Telegraph writes a short piece on the emotional toll caused by this breakup and cites a story by the American Council on Exercise that says that the emotional toll caused is similar to that of divorce.  The study seems a little overblown due to the fact that it ignores the financial implications of divorce as well as the fact that more people are hurt and involved emotional than in a personal training relationship. Nevertheless, the break up of a personal training relationship can be emotionally stressful.

Interestingly enough, a number of client rejections are caused by the trainer wanting to move on due to their increasing success or lack of progress on the part of the client.

The author, Elizabeth Day, discusses the concept of “personal trainer promiscuity” that occurs after someone has been rejected by their existing personal trainer. After the rejection, there is a period of moving from trainer to trainer to find “the one”.

This article leads us back to the topic of the original post: is there a better way to end a client relationship than by simply not returning phone calls? Areyou potentially damaging your business if you fail to implement a “better” breakup method.

In one of the interviews cited in the article, the individual explained that her personal trainer simply stopped returning her phone calls or e-mails. While it may seem like a hassle to return all client phone calls, especially if you no longer have room in your schedule for that client – it may be worthwhile to do.

The method you might use for ending the relationship with the client might differ, depending upon the nature of your relationship. One thing you might want to keep in mind is to actually refer the client to someone else, even a competitor. Doing so allows you, the trainer, to more quickly end the relationship and feel better knowing that the client is now being helped by someone else.