My Online Personal Training Coaching Process

Phase 1: Forensic / Diagnostic Stage

My online personal training service is aimed at offering you a bespoke and maintainable framework from which you get to walk around at confident, healthy, and in the shape you want to be in year-round. 

In conducting surveys among my clients I discovered that some 90% have worked with other trainers in some capacity before finding me, unfortunately, these experiences typically yielded disappointing or short-lived results. 

Some of the reasons for making the shift to my service included: 

• “Previous trainers were slow to respond or unresponsive”
• “Previous training programs seemed generic or cookie cutter’”
• “Previous trainers failed to take into account changing circumstances like travel, family matters, and work challenges”
• “The Trainer they worked with would make them feel bad about missing a workout or meal”
• “Previous regimes were restrictive, fixed, and dogmatic”
• “The lead trainer of the business was unavailable for contact”
• “Coaches assigned to the client changed frequently and without warning”
• “Meal planning advice was basic and ill thought out”
• “Previous trainers seemed to lack the depth of knowledge”

I have been fortunate enough to work with thousands of people over the course of my 12 years of experience as a personal trainer both in person and online, understanding not just the methodology that gets results, but also how to deliver it in a way that educates, supports and exceeds expectations is extremely important to me, and one of the reasons my personal training service is so regularly reviewed amongst the leaders in the class. 

Harnessing my comprehensive onboarding procedure my coaching process starts by seeking to understand your exercise and health history, where you have seen results in the past, where efforts have felt fruitless, and what challenges, impediments, or frustrations I might easily be able to help you identify and overcome.

Some of the most frequent challenges I help my clients overcome are:

Removal Of Guesswork

Often not knowing what type of exercise to do, how frequently, how hard, etc completely holds people back from starting or keeps them stagnant and out of ideas for too long. Likewise believing the methodology you are using is optimal when it isn’t can be equally as frustrating, I’ll help you get to the bottom of this and remove doubt very quickly. 

Overcoming Conflicting Information

Of course, there is some methodology and advice out there that is just plain ineffective, but the main reason there is so much conflicting information is that there are many paths to the same goal, many approaches would work in theory, knowing the path that will work for you in practice and at the right time is nuanced and making those distinctions can be incredibly important.

End The ‘all or nothing Cycle

‘All’ cannot be maintained for long, and inevitably leads to burnout, often long before any real progress is made. ‘nothing’ is where major losses are incurred (loss of muscle, loss of fitness, even encroaching health issues), I help clients create a framework not just to get results but keep them too.

Encourage Self Prioratisation

Many of my clients have worked so hard on their careers, business, and family lives that their own health & fitness hasn’t been treated as a priority for a long time. I help many of my clients re-establish regular exercise practices, find time to lower stress, and gain back energy and pain-free movement. Ultimately I help you restore the best version of yourself, which also benefits everyone that you’re close to. 

Provide Accountability & Motivation

I teach that motivation is intrinsic and that we all have it, part of my coaching process is showing you how to utilise what you already have. During the early stages of coaching, I’ll help you gain your initial momentum, which helps build confidence and self-esteem. I’ll also be on hand daily via instant messaging to help you through any challenges, doubts, or questions you may have. 

The Goal

However, working in personal coaching is a very individual process. We need to discover the following: 

What is the goal? Are there multiple? If so, do they conflict? How much of a priority is the goal in contrast to other life goals or responsibilities in play? 

Is this a new goal? Have there been many repeated failures at the goal? Has the goal ever been achieved in the short term? Is the proposed time frame for the goal realistic? What happens once the goal is achieved? 

The Current Problem

What are the current challenges, frustrations, or limiting beliefs/habit patterns surrounding health & fitness?

What is the impediment to the goal? I.e. Knowledge, motivation, Time-constraints, injury? 

Are there multiple impediments to the goal? I.e chronically under-slept & too much guesswork

Are the ramifications of not solving the problem understood, can this be harnessed as motivation? I.e what will achieving the goal or not mean for personal relationships, career, health, free time, etc. This is powerful because emotional anchors trump willpower. 

Phase 2: Optimise & Contrast (For The Early Wins)

Methodology matters. The solution to the problem is the solution that can deliver AND be maintained, or it’s not worth starting, this is the MOST common problem with the majority of health & fitness programs, restrictive and extreme measures cannot be maintained, which means you create two scenarios, neither of which support your intentions to change.

In Scenario 1(Pre-attempt) – The lifestyle that gets more and more uncomfortable over time until the point that resisting extreme measures seem like your only solution. This is the point where your current internal dialogue, external appearance, or account of daily choices reaches the point where change must occur as the discomfort has grown intolerable, i.e. generally the point of reaching out to a new trainer or starting a new program.  

In Scenario 2 (Restrictive Attempt) – Restrictive short-term thinking leads to dieting, desperate supplement use, and over-exercise/under recovery which cannot be maintained. This quickly leads to low energy, poor mood, loss of libido, muscle loss, hunger pangs and the inevitable burnout and bounce back, where much more weight is gained, that weight being gained on a frame that’s lost lean muscle meaning a higher % of bodyfat than before. 

Often this cycle repeats multiple times over the years, ushered in each time ‘Scenario 1’ becomes uncomfortable enough to make ‘Scenario 2’ seem like a good idea again. Each repeated attempt unintentionally leads to a loss of lean muscle thus slowing resting metabolic rate (i.e. you now burn fewer calories at rest) and provides yet another frustrating reference for failure, despite trying really hard to make a change.

Sadly the longer this cycle remains, the more desperate for change one becomes and fresh attempts become more and more extreme and the strategy employed gets more and more restrictive, over time this leads to feelings of hopelessness and dismay which for many leads to becoming more susceptible to the next new fad diet plan, 6-week abs workout program or magic bullet supplement promising to be a quick and easy solution. None of these present any realistic long-term strategy for change, so maintainable healthy habits are never truly established. 

My Solution

Methodology MUST be able to both deliver and sustain results. I.e Get Results, Keep Them

How is this achieved?

1. Optimise – Understanding where there is low-hanging fruit and how to make simple adjustments that cost the same units of energy and effort i.e. Are the current efforts being taken as efficient and relevant as they could be given the goals, current conditioning, and lifestyle constraints? When no, optimise for a number of variables including Age, gender, goal, previous experience, psychological preference, preferred coaching style, current schedule, recent stresses, movement constraints, nutritional preferences, etc
2. Contrast – New vs Old – What are the new behaviors, workouts, and nutritional tweaks that can be implemented at the beginning of a course of coaching to provide contrast to what went before?  Where there is contrast, there is adaptation and the adaptive response is how you get fitter, stronger, etc (providing you allow adequate recovery)

This combination of optimise & contrast implemented at once allows you to yield excellent results without having to do anything restrictive. Efforts are streamlined and improvements are implemented which yields ‘early wins’.

Early wins build faith in the new methodology and the transition into a non-restrictive and consistent approach to health & fitness is solidified.

The nuance here is choosing the right amount and type of contrast because being able to do it is one thing (current conditioning) and being able to recover from it is another (current lifestyle constraints and level of health) 

At no point in the program is anything suggested or implemented that could not be maintained or recovered from adequately.

This means that a great baseline of energy can be maintained, which makes it easier to make good food choices, which gives more energy to exercise, which promotes better sleep, which improves mood and so the virtuous cycle continues.

The intention is that a framework is established such that the day after the program ends is exactly the same as any one of the days on the program.

Phase 3: Course Correction

One thing that few consider when purchasing a preset program is that any and all programs will suffer from diminishing returns when the body (and mind) are conditioned to them. This is the reason, no one program is ever going to be a stand-alone solution, just like one diet plan cannot be either. 

The solution is a sustainable framework, with a controlled set of variables. Controlled variables i.e. macronutrient distribution, exercise protocols, eating windows, etc.

Controlled variables are useful because they are what allow re-access to an adaptive response. Without this, ALL training programs will run aground soon enough and stop seeing results. Again, it’s the framework that allows sustained success, not the workout program.

Once you get to your ideal level of health and conditioning (by your own standard) you may wish to loosen the control on your framework, moving into more of an ‘expression’ of being in shape, rather than a program to get from A to B. In the early stages, I suggest a linear approach as it will be the most direct route to change.

Working through a plateau is one of the most rewarding parts of coaching and enlightening parts of being coached, as re-establishing a vein of progression and results without the common solutions of simply eating less or training more allows you to keep energy levels where you want them and feel in control of your health & fitness. 

Often these course corrections and plateau breakthroughs need comprehensive coaching and support to avoid knee-jerk or emotional regressions to what I call “weight loss mathematics” or the “more must be better” fallacy. 

Phase 4: Handover + Longevity (Achieving Results You Can Keep)

The ultimate goal of my coaching is to render myself redundant to the individual.

At the point where you feel fully equipped and confident to move forward on your own, my work is done, of course, it’s often good to touch base at a later date for fresh inspiration and support, but for the most part though fully equipping my clients to be in control of their weight, body composition, activity level, and dietary intake is the most effective way to know I’ve served my purpose and can help with as many people as possible over the course of my career.

Of course, a number of my clients choose to work with me year round, but I make sure that decision is based on preference, enjoying accountability and the outsourcing of decision making, rather than the necessity of not knowing how to move forward alone.

At the end of a course of coaching, I deliver a handover or “off-boarding” call to discuss what has been achieved, and what variables and protocols need to continue to be varied in the future in order to yield ongoing results.

Once you’ve worked with me you have an open line to get in touch via my training app, though usually this is to keep me informed as to how well you’re doing following your own lead.