Progress
For most trainers, things like weight, measurements, body-fat percentage, and progress photos fall into this category. My program goals are centered around the objective criteria of decreasing body-fat percentage, with the subjective criteria of physique improvement, and increased energy and athletic performance. The only areas I measure are the objective criteria, and for that, I have specified 9 different progress matters that I keep track of on a periodic basis – these are weight, body- fat %, and measurements at 7 physical points.
Workout Sheet
This is your main sheet where you keep track of what’s happening within the training session. Here you’ll map out what you want to do that day with your cli- ent, and take notes during the session on how they performed. The design of this sheet will depend on your particular program goals. For me and most trainers, having a section to record weight training, a section for cardio training, and a blank space for general notes is enough.
How to Prepare and Record Progress
As you’ve started to understand already, progress tracking isn’t just about what goes on during the session; it’s also about the preparation process before the client arrives. This is the phase where you take about 5-10 minutes before you meet to jot down what the plan is for that particular session.
As we mentioned in the previous chapter, there are two things to keep mind when planning a client’s workout. These are in the forms of question we can imagine the client is looking for in each session. To review:
1. “Show me something new!” - Each session, I want the client to feel that something new was accomplished, whether it was a new effective exercise, a new training milestone, or a new level of intensity. The as- pect of “newness” is one of the key things that people are paying for in a training session, and for that reason it’s important in my mind to keep that as part of the session.
2. “Focus on my goals!” - But the other part of the psychic value and of course the tangible value is the achievement of results. For that reason, that’s also one of the vital criteria I pay attention to when I’m designing the client’s session. I try to never have the workout be something self- serving to me or just another session for them. I want it to be something that will have a major impact and cover some ground in helping them toward their goals.
First I consider the overall goals for the workout and list those at the top of the page in a small area I have labeled “plan”. Since my workouts have both a car- diovascular and resistance training aspect to them, I’ll set goals for both of these areas. I then make a list of the specific exercises and the specific order I want to do them in. Lastly, I may jot down what the client did last time, for example with a bodybuilding client, I may write down that they last benched 200 pounds for 10 reps, or with a fat loss client, write down what their max speeds on intervals was. This will then give me some milestones that I can look to beat this session.
During the Session
Now that I have the exercises and order planned out, my hard work is done. The rest is really a breeze and a pleasure; I can pay attention to the most important part of the session – my client. We’re free to talk about things like how they’re eating, how much they’re doing on their own, and anything else we want. As any Per- sonal Trainer will tell you, we are also trusted friends to our clients and sounding
boards for a lot of other things going on in their lives. At times this has an impor- tant purpose: keeping their minds off of the pain of the brutal workout!
During the session I’ll then periodically take notes on exactly what they’re doing. This may be how much they lifted, how many reps they performed, or how fast they ran. You have to be present for a training session anyway, so you may as well make sure you work while you’re there.
And finally, after the session is over, you can write a summary of how your client did and also a few notes on what you want to do or change next session. You can review these notes during the planning phase of the next session, to make that process even easier for you.
Sheet design
For your sheets you can be a little creative; create a tool that’s really going to work for you and be easy to use. I’ve never used anything more complex than Microsoft Word to design my sheets and it was always simple for me. Just play around with the design functions in that program, typing the information you want into text boxes and moving them around to the right places until you have the de- sired look that you’re going for. Then create a grid to put in the information, and in addition you can play around with color and the look to make it attractive. Af- ter that insert your logo (discussed more in Marketing). Remember, how this page looks reflects on you and your business because your client is likely to see it and may even want to view it themselves.
Once you have the tracking page complete, here comes the hardest part – you’ve actually got to use it! No tracking process is useful if you’re not holding yourself too it.
The purpose of the tracking process is to improve the happiness and satis- faction of the client, but I think the main benefits are selfish, working to the bene- fit of the trainer even more. They contribute peace of mind, better organization, save time, and create returning, raving fan clients. They also allow you to charge top dollar for your sessions because they are of such a consistent, high quality. It’s something that works out to your benefit and becomes very much a habit and second nature the more you do it. But to your client, it’s viewed as something ex- traordinary and prevents them from thinking of ever going anywhere else for their training - as far as they’re concerned, they'll be a client for life.
T
he purpose of this manual has been to make your life simpler and also more ef- fective at the same time. Although you now probably have a long list of new things you want or need to do in your practice, you also realize that you won’t have to be keep doing a lot of the things that have been wasting your time any- more.We deal with a one and only one very simple concept here: creating a Per- sonal Training Practice. The process of opening a studio or a gym, and hiring and managing a large staff of people isn’t what this book is about. For those of you that have that as a goal, there’s nothing wrong with it. But that’s only a decision you’re fit to make after you’ve achieved mastery on your own. After exploring Personal Training as a profession for a while, and as a result being involved in many different aspects of the fitness industry as a whole, will you have a good idea of your true purpose.
But a problem (if you want to call it that) you’ll encounter soon is that you’ll actually have too many clients. To those of you just starting out in the field right now, this might sound like a fantasy. But I hope from reading the chapters
on Marketing and creating a Training Practice you’ll starting to understand how this can happen. Even after you go through all the steps of refining your practice; you’ve created a specific specialty, raised your rates, and carefully chosen your clients, you still may encounter a situation where you have more clients than you can handle. This is especially true if you’re intent on keeping your schedule to less than 30 hours per week, which I feel is essential to stay refreshed and moti- vated about this job.
In the minds of many trainers in this situation, the next logical step, and their ultimate dream, is to open their own training studio. Finding and outfitting a location to house your training practice, creating systems for the business to run smoothly, negotiating rates for leases, and launching a marketing campaign is what running a training studio is about. And that doesn’t even begin to take into account the monumental headache that managing other people can turn into. But just like anything else, you do learn to get better at it, and your business and man- agement skills start to grow. At that point, this can be an excellent way to set your business up for future growth.
Other trainers think that the best way to handle an overflowing client roster is to train them in small groups. The way they say it makes it sound very simple: that you should just see two clients an hour and you can instantly double your rates. It’s true that in certain situations this can work; for example, if you have a lot of credibility you can get away with it. I’ve been able to do this on occasion and still maintain the complete satisfaction of my clients.
On a side note, I must remind you that we are not talking about bootcamps or discounted group sessions, where a drop in attention is part of the lower price. I am talking about high-priced personal training sessions, which is what this pro- gram is about.
In these situations, the problem with small groups wasn’t the satisfaction of the clients, but my own. I felt that I wasn’t doing as good a job as I could possi- bly do. You see, the sustainability of my practice depends on my ability to create an absolute WOW! experience for my clients every single time. And when seeing two clients at a time, even though I knew I was doing my utmost best, I felt the sessions weren’t as good as my one-on-one sessions. I couldn’t stand the fact that I knew my training could be better. Letting things like your session quality slip will eventually hurt your training rates and client retention. After going through
all the effort to attracting the type of high-level clients I’m looking for, I don’t want anything at all to stand in the way of me keeping them indefinitely; espe- cially something that’s directly under my control.
But after some time I came up with a better solution. It was a way for me to train more than one client at a time and simultaneously contribute even more to the client experience. It allowed me to use the help of an employee, but not leave me at the mercy of this person’s skill or ability (or possible lack thereof). It’s what I call the Super-Trainer System; what this system does is give you a way to extend your skill and ability to more people without diluting it.
This system involves the use of an assistant to help you train multiple cli- ents at once. It puts you in the position of ringmaster, orchestrating multiple peo- ple and activities at once. What you do is create separate workout plans as if you were training these clients separately, and then have your assistant (s) administer the plan along with you. When your attention is directed to any particular client, it’s up to your assistant to continue to implement your practices on the client that you’re away from. It’s like having two trainers, but with one mind.
For every client you train in this system, your set-up process is the same as when you were training clients one at a time. You still need to prepare your ses- sions in exactly the same way, keeping the goals and purpose of the workout clearly in mind. You need to look at them as two separate clients, not two people sharing the same training session. Usually in small group training, trainers have every client perform the same group of exercises. This makes absolutely no sense and that’s not what we’ll be doing here. With this system you can have both cli- ents doing totally different exercise, and through the use of your assistant each cli- ent will be receiving individualized attention.
Before this point, it’s understood that you’ve done your homework. Through your marketing and branding, you’ve differentiated yourself and your training; you’ve made it clear that your brand of Personal Training is something completely unique. The client understands your specialty, realizes that it’s for them, and understands that they can’t get it anywhere else. At this point they real- ize you are the one and only one trainer for them.
You’ve also created a mix of exercises, techniques and a philosophy that is unique to you. It’s the responsibility of your assistant trainer to help you adminis- ter these workouts and this philosophy to your clients. When they’re helping you
train your clients, they won’t be doing exercises that they like to do, or employing techniques that they want; they’ll be implementing yours. This makes their job very easy and clear. They know what exercises to do with your clients, what to look out for, and exactly what needs to be done every session. All they have to do