How to give effective and helpful cues to our clients. We talked about this last time, but we are diving in a little deeper to continue fine tuning our cues!

Why it’s important:  The ultimate goal of good cuing is to ensure that members are in the correct posture to avoid injury, and so they don’t feel lost in class. Inadequate instruction increases the chance that someone will get hurt and will leave the members feeling frustrated not knowing what to do.  That’s why our True-Cueing is so important to get them in the correct posture before they get moving!

Remember to hit all 5 phases of True-Cueing!

When to use Cues:

• Cues are important to let our members what muscles they should be working
• Re-cueing after time has passed and people start to tire.  Remind them to keep squeezing, keep pulling in, press shoulders down, engage their core, etc.
• Re-cueing modifications for people who didn’t need them at the start of the exercise, but need them later and don’t remember what they were
• Cueing what’s coming next, whether is a change in range of motion (ROM), an add-on, or grand finale hold so they can prepare for it. 
• Encouragement let them know they can do it, push a little harder, be true to you!

What makes a good cue:

• Concise, short and to the point. Too much talking can be distracting from the key words our clients need to hear.  “Tailbone points Down” is more effective than “Now make sure your tailbone is pointing down towards the ground”
• Not counting down every beat:  Counting down is important when you are about to change the ROM, etc. but you don’t have to count down from 10 or 8 everytime.  You can cue that you have 8 more and then just count down the last 4.  The only time you should count down from 10 is for a Grand Finale Hold.  
• They are Specific – talk about what muscles they are working and what direction they should be moving. “connecting to your quads”  “Arms moving across the body”
• Don’t be afraid of silence – sometimes Less is more! It can be more dynamic if you stay silent while they work.  It allows you to collect your thoughts and then when you talk again they’ll be listening and ready for your next cue!