How to Build a Workout Routine (28-Step Method for Personalisation )

Introduction

Below I am going to outline the method I use when designing a custom workout program. It’s the same process I use whether I am working with an Oscar-winning actor in person, or for each of my online personal training clients. 

Whilst there are some governing principles around health & fitness that would apply to all programs. The modern fitness industry is dominated by highly scaled and unpersonalised training apps and workouts. But there is still the art of a 1-2-1 fitness coach. When done properly workout program design is about more than exercise selection, sets and reps. It’s about anticipating the individual journey through a workout program taking into account the obvious considerations of age, gender and what we’re trying to achieve as well as the unseen factors that influence a workout program, which are all too often factors of individual psychology.

Surface-level or highly scaled workout programs can’t take into account this kind of individual nuance, it takes several hours to create workout programs this detailed and that’s just not a proposition that could work in a mass-market setting. Don’t get me wrong there isn’t anything inherently wrong with that, I myself have developed some signature workout programs to solve specific problems. But if it’s the best possible custom workout experience you’re looking for, I am confident throwing my hat into the arena with this process.

Below is the exact 28-step method I use to create a training program for my online personal training clients. It covers everything from basic personal biometrics to the goals at play, lifestyle constraints, psychological motivations and individual preferences for exercise. This process has been refined over the last decade of my personal training career and has consistently delivered excellent results for my clients

Let’s walk through the process:

Basic Biometrics

1. Age

Age is one of the first things to be considered when building a custom training program. Not because reaching a certain age wipes options and potential off the board so to speak. Rather so that specific age-related challenges can be anticipated and accounted for.

It’s important to be clear that progress can be made at any age, and in my experience for many people, it’s actually easier to achieve peak physical conditioning in your 40s and 50s because you know yourself better, and have a greater sense of balance that we tend to in our 20s for example. We’ll discuss this when we arrive at the psychological aspects that impact a personal training program.

There is a lot said about the declining metabolism and muscle loss that come with age. But, again in my experience, this is massively exaggerated and threted about, mostly by people who’ve just turned thirty. Studies have suggested that the decline represents somewhere between a 3-8% decline in muscle mass decade on decade. The process actually has a name, which is Sarcopenia.

But what’s not often considered is how this actually plays out. This is why it’s so crucial to interpret statistics accurately. First of all, the decline is relative to where you are at the moment and your current lifestyle choices and that’s got to be factored against the sheer decline in potential.

For example, let’s say you’ve spent the last twenty years maximising your genetic potential for muscularity and athletic performance. When you reach age 40, a 3-8% decline on the absolute pinnacle that your body could ever be over ten years, isn’t going to be catastrophic. Especially if you’re able to live well, stay consistent with exercise and take care of your lifestyle. At this rate you might be able to negotiate yourself a 5% decline every decade, this means, you are 90% of your peak, at age 50 and 85% at age 60, I really wouldn’t consider that much to worry about, it’s just how life works.

Let’s look at the other side of the coin, which is going to be the more likely scenario for the majority of people. Let’s say you haven’t done all you could have fitness-wise over the last ten, twenty or even thirty years. Well, if you introduce all of the right things like resistance training, good nutrition and a healthy lifestyle then you stand to be much stronger, fitter and more muscular after making this switch than you ever were before. 

This effectively means that if you start taking fitness seriously in your 40’s you could be in far better shape at 50 than you ever were in your 20s & 30s. Yes, your potential may have a 5-10% lower ceiling, but that’s only relative to how active and healthy your lifestyle is. 

I say all of that to urge that you really must not let age become a mental barrier to your future success. But here is where it gets tricky, if you now accept that age is not the impediment you thought it was, by the same logic you must accept that it no longer holds up as an excuse either. To be clear then, the only people who need to worry about the decline in fitness potential associated with age, are those that do nothing about it.

Of course, there are some legitimate age-based considerations to make. As a general proposition, the older you get the more you should be creating a dual orientation between achieving short-term results and investing in what we would term your ‘healthspan’ which is the period of time in your life, where you enjoy good health & fitness without being inhibited by poor health. 

Practical considerations also need to be made as far as training frequency, recovery time, exercise selection and risk mitigation. For example, as you get older, you’ll generally benefit from spacing your very intensive workouts out a little further. You may have a slightly higher barrier to recovery and longer injury rehabilitation times. Which by the way, can be improved with exercise.

Exercise selection can also be influenced firstly to help achieve multi-factorial goals. For example where we could do a squat or a deadlift, perhaps we start to work with lunges or single-legged deadlifts, so that we still get the functional and strength benefits, but we now get additional coordination and proprioception benefits. Likewise, let’s say we have express goals to get our health & fitness in a great place, then we might want to avoid some higher impact or higher risk exercises like jumping, sprinting or operating with very heavy weights, simply because they aren’t necessary to make the immediate change and an injury could derail progress. Basically you’ve got to weigh up what the real goals are at a particular age, and not expose ones’s self to unnecessary risk. 

A good fitness coach understands that everything in life is related, nothing operates in isolation, especially not exercise. Age tends to inform life stage influences, of course everyone has their own journey. But as a general trend or observation, in our twenties we tend to be a little more susceptible to comparison, social media influences and sometimes a little too comfortable with risking our health in the pursuit of aesthetic gains. Which means often there is an element of stewardship in helping younger clients avoid common pitfalls associated with the expediency of youth. 

Staying fit in your 30s can be a challenge. These are the years where a lot of sleep, healthy eating and rest is typically sacrificed in favour of forging on in a career and trying to balance other areas of life like a personal relationship, or a young family at the same time. 

As you get to your 40’s and 50’s you start to encounter different challenges. Without sounding too esoteric we come to know and accept ourselves a little more through our more mature years, at least that’s the plan. This brings a greater comfort in our own skin, meaning that whilst we still have a firm grip on our aesthetic goals, they are less likely to define us. At this point we’re generally maintaining a focus on our health, energy levels and our ability to do the kinds of activities we enjoy doing. So if the aesthetic results come at a slightly steadier pace, I consider that a welcome trade-off. 

As we then approach fitness in our 60s and 70s generally the focus is going to be heavily invested in our healthspan and looking forward in order to protect our future physical independence.

So all that said, it’s not necessarily going to be that the workout programs you encounter over the decades are going to be completely different, but our mindset and priorities probably should be. 

2. Gender

Whilst there are universal fitness principles that will apply to everyone, gender should be considered when creating a tailored training program. There are some technical elements to consider for example, some studies suggest that female athletes can generally train more frequently than men, at a higher work rate, and enjoy a faster recovery rate. Whereas men typically have a higher absolute threshold for strength and power training.

Recent studies have also indicated that from a health and longevity standpoint, women stand to benefit more from less exercise than men, actually, they get the same positive life-protecting effects from half the time spent exercising.

However this could be a double-edged sword. Because we could interpret this as a comparative lack of neuromotor efficiency that necessitates a higher percentage of one’s maximal capacity to make progress, in more of a sporting and athletic setting. Whereas in the equivalent well-trained male athlete, due to a higher neuromuscular efficiency, would require less reps to make progress. As such less volume is required because of a greater ability to operate at a higher percentage of max strength. Which in turn comes with a higher barrier to recovery. So it’s the absence of muscle damage that allows greater health benefits for women with less exercise, but creates a higher threshold for adaptive change in more conditioned female athletes. All of that is getting into the weeds a little bit and is really only going to be relevant once one has reached a certain amount of conditioning and experience regardless of gender.

Whenever we discuss gender-based rulesets or heuristics it’s also important to consider what’s known in statistics as the bell curve. For example, let’s focus on the sport of powerlifting. We’ve said above that men have a greater capability for absolute strength and power, than women. For the hormonal and anatomical reasons implicit in the comparison. A bell curve would therefore show us that the strongest athlete in the world will tend to be male. However, this does not mean that many female powerlifters cannot be stronger than male powerlifters, nor does it mean that a female powerlifter cannot be stronger than the average non-powerlifting male. Another way of explaining it is that even if a male and female athlete were of exactly equal strength capacity theoretically, the male athlete would be able to lift a heavier weight for one rep, but the female athlete would be able to lift a weight closer to their one rep max for 5 reps, for example. 

Of course whilst assumptions should never be made, exceptions don’t override experience and part of good coaching is being able to manage the interplay between individual nuance and pattern recognition. So looking out for a desired shape or potential historic challenge more likely to be present with one gender than the other is important as anticipation of a problem is always a problem half solved.

A great training program will have contingencies in place. For example, during the luteal phase of a monthly cycle, a female candidate may not be expected to carry out exercise at the same intensity as is laid out on a scheduled program. This will be an individual scenario, but without the contingency in place and the empathy to understand, this could create a reference for perceived failure that could easily have been avoided. As an interesting aside there is evidence to say that various cognitive elements of performance actually improve during menstruation. This is one indication that how an athlete feels does not always dictate how they perform, but this may be more applicable to a high-level sporting setting than making fitness orietned candidates exercise through discomfort.

Cross-referencing age and gender is also important as both menopause and andropause can affect recovery levels, and also helps get forensic about why intended results aren’t presenting. For example, if a man is following a well-tailored muscle-building program and eating well but not seeing muscle growth, testosterone levels may be one line of inquiry. Which could then be taken up with a health professional. Without the otherwise well-calibrated program as a reference point, this may have remained undiagnosed.

Another example would be Perimenopause and menopause. A decline in estrogen and progesterone in women can have a significant impact on energy, mood and motivation, all of which need to be anticipated in a fitness coaching program.

Other symptoms can influence energy levels in other ways as well, notably hot flashes or night sweats can disrupt sleep which has a knock-on effect on recovery and can influence training load. 

Pregnancy and postpartum training is its own speciality in fitness training. The degree to which one can remain in active training whilst pregnant depends on the level of fitness coming into the program. I generally suggest doing pregnancy fitness training in person rather than online. Because elements like temperature and hydration become more crucial to monitor and that’s better gauged in real-time and in person. Following childbirth, a good online personal trainer should be able to get you back in a good situation as long as you have a green light from a doctor, and even then you’ll need to be brought back to pace incrementally. 

As we touched on above, there is a lesser-known phenomenon of age-based hormonal change that affects men, it is the progressive decline of testosterone levels, commonly referred to as andropause. It can raise risk factors for, and exacerbate several medical conditions including cardiovascular and metabolic disease. On a practical level, it can lead to decreased strength and muscle mass and present a change in fat content and distribution, changes in bone density, cardiovascular health and energy levels, not to mention a decreased capacity for exercise. Importantly for a coach building a workout program, much of this could have the knock-on effect of increasing the risk of overtraining.

The interesting thing is that due to poor lifestyle choices, the wrong type of exercise, and arguably even the wrong mindset around fitness, many people live what could be considered a ‘low testosterone’ lifestyle. So if you’re experiencing slow results or poor energy, one of the first things I encourage my male clients to look at is how their current lifestyle choices could be influencing their testosterone levels. For example, an online personal training client of mine Jack, saw a 60% increase in his testosterone levels after a few months of our working together.

Gender can play a role in troubleshooting a lack of progress on an exercise plan. For example, all things being equal, a man in his early 50s who lacks energy might want to check his testosterone levels. Whereas a woman in her 20s experiencing the same problem, might do well to rule out low iron levels as a result of heavy menstruation as the cause. So whilst a personal trainer shouldn’t be crossing over into the realm of medical advice, age and gender do help determine lines of enquiry that can subsequently be followed up under medical supervision.

3. Activity level

When designing a custom workout program, an individual’s current activity level outside of exercise is going to have to be taken into account. Effectively as a coach, you’ll be asking your clients to add your suggested workouts and activities to any current level of activity. So that’s got to be calibrated correctly. Especially if you are also providing a nutritional solution to match the training program. For example, someone on military duty, or someone who works heavy manual labour is going to need to eat more calories to achieve the same goals. Even if they are the same height, age and weight as someone who is mostly sat at a desk as their profession. To be clear the two people could be identical twins but their activity level outside of exercise could invite or force a different workout program, and almost certainly a different caloric intake, even for the same goal.

Again, this is why as a coach you must match your fitness solution with your nutritional solution. If it’s mismatched you could have a great program and an ostensibly healthy meal plan but still not see results, it all has to be in sync.

Sometimes, in the delivery of a training program, current activity levels will need to be re-negotiated if the program is going to be successful. Either because the exercise is going to be similar but it’s just being done in an out-of-context and ineffective manner. A common example would be lifting weights 6 times per week when it’s not necessary to achieve the goal of building muscle. I.e you’re already working out 6 days a week and not seeing results, but you could work out three times per week and exceed your expectations.

A renegotiation may also be necessary if an existing exercise habit is not conducive to the new goal a coach is being commissioned to assist with. For example, doing long moderate-intensity runs multiple times per week when the real goal (and pain point) is a desire to gain muscle or lose fat.

Of course, when it comes to things like manual labour for work, or enjoying sporting hobbies this simply needs to be accounted for rather than renegotiated. I raise the subject because it’s often necessary to completely overhaul an existing exercise habit that has been in place for years if its consistency proved ineffective. For example, jogging multiple times per week in the pursuit of a leaner physique, yet it never works as such the new suggested habit may well be HIIT or LISS training in its place.

At the other end of the spectrum, if one has a very inactive lifestyle, the amount of exercise that is appropriate to introduce needs to be considered, you’ll stand a better chance of making it a habit if it’s introduced incrementally due to both the barrier to recovery and the sheer overwhelm of going from not exercising to exercising 5-6 times per week as is often attempted. Overdoing things in the early stages is a big reason many attempts at fitness fail.

4. Exercise experience

Understanding an individual’s experience with exercise helps a coach gauge what their likely baseline fitness levels are. It also helps have some predictive capacity for likely plateaus and sticking points.

Not just that, it offers a potential read on likely exercise-based skill levels and understanding of technique, which can help with exercise and equipment selection. Talking through personal exercise history helps one understand what preferences have been, and where success has been achieved. It also allows for an assessment of imbalances, sometimes after years of training an imbalance or gap can be more pronounced than it would be even in an untrained individual, the old trope about skipping leg day highlights this rather well.

You also have to consider that not all exercise history will be positive. Let’s say someone has been training for ten years, but never really achieved their fundamental goals, which happens all the time by the way, particularly with weight loss which for many goes through years of cycles of yoyo dieting.

In this case, as a coach, you’ll be able to anticipate that to some extent, some ‘unlearning’ will have to take place, because clearly to not have seen results for a decade, something must be wrong and long-held habits will have to change. There might be some resistance to a discussion about that, and that’s ok.

It also helps inform an understanding of someone’s psychological relationship with exercise. Including how they handle setbacks, and how consistent they are. We can be on the lookout for any beliefs that may be disempowering. 

The big banana skin to be aware of here is that there are multiple forms of fitness. Physical conditioning can be very specific. This means a surface-level enquiry of experience may lead to a mis-calibrated program if the context of that experience is not taken into account. For example, let’s say two people join my program to help them gain muscle. The first is an experienced marathon runner, who ‘does 10ks for fun’ and hasn’t gone a week without clocking up at least 15 miles in years. 

The second is into her Yoga. She’s not just a participant, she was even a teacher for a while, with an impressive record of thousands of coaching hours and international experience leading yoga retreats all over the world. 

Both would consider themselves experts and experienced in fitness. But if neither had any experience with resistance training whatsoever, they would be a rank beginner in the context of their muscle-building goal. This can be tough to accept, but it’s important if you seek a well-calibrated training program regardless of how much experience you have in other disciplines of exercise.

5. Any history of sport

Understanding whether there is any significant sporting history with an individual is also important. We’ll make the distinction here between exercise and sport in that exercise is usually engaged in to see some kind of desired physical outcome, whereas sport is participated in for reasons of achievement, notoriety, opportunity and camaraderie. There will certainly be crossover benefits but I’ll explain why understanding a sporting history is important in its own context.

Firstly as we touched on with the specificity of fitness, sporting specialities can work that way too. For example, a professional boxer will struggle with a 90-minute high-level football match and a footballer will struggle with 12×3 minute boxing rounds. Of course, they are both going to be highly conditioned, just not specifically conditioned to the task at hand.

Another great example would be to take your average bodybuilder and drop them into a 90-minute yoga class, they may have the strength to push multiples of their bodyweight on a leg press machine, but they won’t be used to the types of muscular endurance that come with yoga. I remember my own first yoga session, it was a pretty rude awakening.

Of course, this can all be rectified, and arguably you could train to handle all of these things at once, and anyone who has worked to specialise in any field already has a physical advantage over someone who hasn’t, I’m simply highlighting the concept of specificity.

But when it comes to fitness, especially fitness intended to manage burnout or change body composition a sporting background isn’t all upside. Actually it can get quite complicated. The psychological, even philosophical approach of many sports is very different to that of fitness.

Although there are obvious health benefits to being a conditioned athlete, sometimes in the pursuit of a win or achievement an athlete pushes past what might be considered ‘healthy’ or appropriate in the context of fitness.

For example, pushing through discomfort even injury on a marathon attempt is pretty commonplace, we might also consider fighters pushing their body through water manipulation to make weight, let alone get through the bout itself. How often in sports is overtraining presented as an explanation for poor performance, even under the supervision of elite coaches?

Look at how Pain is managed in tennis, for example, it’s numbed and pushed through to finish the game. Think of the strain on joints and muscles powerlifters experience in pursuit of personal bests, all the way to the additional strain some bodybuilders take on their heart, kidneys and liver in pursuit of maximising and pushing beyond their genetic potential to gain muscle. Think of the inherent injury risk of gymnastics or rugby.

Whereas in fitness, we’re looking to push to the threshold of what we’re capable of, and then pull back before damage or fatigue is unnecessarily accumulated. In fitness training there is no ‘event’ or ‘crescendo’ to risk everything for, fitness is a game of aggregates and consistency. It’s a completely different proposition to sport even if some of the movements are the same.

There is nothing wrong with taking risks to achieve greatness in sports. We just can’t apply that mindset to health & fitness, in fact, most athletes don’t when training outside of an event itself.

The challenge from a fitness coaching perspective is that this mindset bleeds into fitness very often with former athletes. As they’re more likely to fall into the ‘more is better’ fallacy. It’s wired up to be positive, but in fitness, it lacks nuance and invites training at a rate that accumulates too much fatigue. The pursuit of more also incentivises unsolicited changes to a training program, like adding reps and sets and extra workout days. Often these changes serve no purpose other than to make someone ‘feel’ like they are working harder, which in a sporting context might be a good thing.

It’s often presented jovially, almost as a guilty pleasure, sort of in the vein of “oops, sorry I pushed too hard again”  It’s a big blindspot and ultimately doesn’t serve the individual, at least not in day-to-day fitness pursuits like weight loss and a change in body composition.

The second big challenge is managing the gap between previous capability and current conditioning. Often former athletes have built a considerable part of their identity on their athletic prowess. So if there has been a considerable gap between one’s sporting life and where one finds oneself today, it can be difficult to accept and recalibrate. This can be difficult emotionally so as a coach it’s something to watch out for and anticipate.

6. Last 30-day snapshot

The immediate run-up to starting a new fitness program is going to be just as important as a historic experience. Because current conditioning or lack thereof is going to influence optimal exercise capacity and recovery rates. 

This is also perhaps the biggest opportunity for contrast. This is a good thing, because whenever we present a contrast to what went before, we create an opportunity for adaptation, and that is how we get better and see results. So in a way, coming into a program relatively out of condition is actually going to work for you and lead to faster results. The caveat there is that if you are completely unconditioned, you can expect a few forced rest days in the early weeks as your body adapts, but that’s normal and all part of the process.

Going 30 days without exercise would be unthinkable for some. Whilst for others, it’ll have been years since they last worked out. Indeed I’ve worked with people who have never worked out before. This makes a difference when we consider someone’s mindset when beginning a fitness program.

What’s happening over the last 20 days is also relative to one’s previous experience of having exercise as a habit. Someone who has never really had exercise as a stable part of their lifestyle is going to feel relatively normal in not exercising for a month so joining a workout program is going to be very novel.

Whereas, for a former regular exerciser, a 30-day run of inactivity might be a clue as to a wider problem and already feel rather uncomfortable. Because this level of inactivity is so out of character its duration itself is a sign that something isn’t quite right at the moment, which could be injury, motivation, or a high level of stress. All of these are best discussed before a custom workout program is created.

7. Body type

Body type is a controversial and much-debated aspect of fitness. As a coach, the goal is to get results for the client, so when it comes to contentious topics, often it’s most productive to remain agnostic and stay focused on simply getting results. So in this context, it would be remiss not to acknowledge that there are patterns when it comes to how bodies are built and the challenges different people are likely to face because of them.

Let’s explore why this has become a controversial topic. You’ve probably heard the concept of there being three main body types or ‘somatotypes’, those being ectomorph, endomorph or mesomorph. Most people don’t realise that these distinctions are actually rooted in psychology. Psychologist William Sheldon theorises that one’s body shape would dictate temperamental traits and personality characteristics. 

This element was heavily criticised and discredited, however, the theory stuck for years because of its use in fitness and athletics where it gained a lot of traction. The theory supposed that by knowing which somatotype an individual was, you would be able to predict their athletic potential, challenges and the type of nutrition that would work for them. 

Of course today we tend not to put people in such confined boxes. We now consider lifestyle, genetics and epigenetics greater factors at work than simple body typing. This is a good thing because it might be limiting or disempowering to be told that you cannot achieve something because of your body type at birth actually on a personal note I was told at a young age that I would never be able to gain a muscular physique, and it both motivated and haunted me until I proved it wrong. Well-meaning advice though it was at the time. 

However, as a coach, one of your major skill sets is to recognise patterns and pre-empt challenges. So you could say that someone with a lot of slow twitch muscle fibre is going to have a greater challenge in gaining muscle than someone who has a musculature that is visibly type two fibres. Likewise, someone who tends to be broader but has historically had a harder time staying lean should approach training and nutrition in a specific way.

Interestingly in my observation someone who responds very well to exercise, the natural athlete if you will, is probably going to have more of a psychological challenge with consistency than the other ‘types’ but we’ll discuss that later when we get into the psychological aspects of exercise.

Again, this is something that an experienced coach is going to be able to pick up on, though it doesn’t really need to be named, or put in a box. Because any external limitation on potential or comparison with anyone but yourself isn’t likely to be helpful.

Logistics around exercise

8. Home vs gym training

There is nothing uniquely possible in a gym that isn’t possible at working out at home. The choice of where you choose to exercise mostly comes down to logistics. I.e. having the right equipment space to train. Which can be done with very basic equipment. After all your body doesn’t care if you are lifting a rock or using fancy gym equipment, it’s all about the stimulus the body needs to make an adaptive response. Achieve that and you’ll get results no matter where you train. You have seen Rocky 4 right?

The advantage of training at home is that it can save you a heavy logistic burden, not having to travel to and from a gym and all of the changes and everything you might have to do there. So that’s got to be factored in, especially if you’ve requested or have been suggested a fairly frequent training program.

From a behavioural standpoint, it’s one thing to simply switch up what you’re doing in the gym and a completely different thing to go from not habitually using a gym to getting there multiple days per week. It might sound silly but you’ve even got to factor changes to how you do laundry into that. It’s all relative to your existing schedule. 

For many people I’ve worked with, due to childcare constraints, training at home is the only feasible way to carve out time for exercise, so it’s important to know that achieving great results at home is just as possible as it is in a gym. 

The major constraint at home is going to be equipment, but again it’s a very individual consideration. For example, if you just want to get a little fitter and stronger you could achieve that with little more than your own bodyweight, and perhaps some resistance bands. 

Whereas if you’re really looking at a long-term muscle-building program, you are going to want to know that you have a setup that can scale with you, i.e. equipment you won’t ‘outstrength’ it anytime soon. There are inventive ways around this other than just having heavier weights. For example, you can slow the tempo of an exercise to increase the time under tension you put your muscles through. You could also reduce the duration of your rest periods, but ideally, you don’t want to be forced into that position. Perhaps the most elegant way to have a scalable home setup will be to purchase adjustable dumbbells up to 40kg/ 90lbs and a bench. There is very little you can’t achieve with that.

You also want to have a good idea of the type of gyms you will have access to. Different types of gyms feel different and are oriented around different styles of training. For example, there is going to be a big difference between a national chain gym, a bespoke personal training studio and a hardcore bodybuilding gym. It’s all about finding an environment you’re comfortable with. Some people like to feel that they are in a very inclusive, supportive environment, almost like cheers, ‘where everybody knows your name’ and others will enjoy the anonymity of a larger chain gym with thousands of members.

You’ve then got to factor in what your chosen gym is like at the actual time you want to exercise, as the same gym can be completely different at various times of the day. So have a little look around before you commit to a particular gym.

As with almost everything health & fitness-related, it would be a mistake to ignore the psychological implications of your choices. If you’re going to get results in fitness you’re going to have to be consistent. So it makes no sense to choose a gym that’s going to add friction to carrying out a workout. We’ve touched on how logistics can do that. 

Many people have some trepidation or anxiety around training in the gym environment, if you experience this and it’s strong enough to stop you from getting there, it might not be wise to avoid fighting a battle on two fronts. Get your exercise consistency established and then consider getting comfortable in the gym environment. 

An adjacent consideration is the idea of establishing the gym as a ‘third space’ i.e. a place that is free of the demands and responsibilities of both home and work. You might find that a gym provides you with an environment that is very much yours to own. This is a very effective stress management technique often suggested as part of corporate wellness initiatives. A personal recommendation of mine would be to take this concept and go looking for a gym that has sauna and steam facilities so that every gym session feels a bit like a mini spa break. The benefits of sauna alone are huge, in fact, one study suggests that getting in the sauna 4-7 times per week has been associated with a 40% reduction in risk factors for all-cause mortality. 

9. Equipment availability & choice

The choice of fitness equipment available plays a role in designing a training program, but it’s not something to get too hung up on, and certainly not enough to delay you starting out in pursuit of your goal. There are times when machines help someone with an injury achieve partial, de-risked and stable movement patterns. Cables and suspension training systems present excellent options too, but simple free weights like dumbbells, barbells and kettlebells are generally all you need to make excellent progress.

It’s also worth considering that doing your training alone could have slightly different implications than training with a partner. For example, never take certain exercises like barbell squats or bench presses to a point where they can’t safely be exited, which is where you might accept step down to the Smith machine for example to de-risk the exercise. 

Remember that no one training program is ever going to be a long-term solution because eventually, your body will adapt to it. So equipment changes represent a nice way to switch things up and present a new reason for the body to adapt. 

10. Travel frequency

The next thing you want to consider is the likelihood and frequency of travel. Of course, travel in and of itself is not necessarily a problem. But this is where we start getting strategic with the way things are planned. 

For example, let’s say someone has the need to travel nationally between major cities, well the smart move would be to join a national gym chain that offers 24/7 gym access. This way the same program can simply be transported from gym to gym in various regions.

It gets a little more complex when you have to switch out gym settings. For example, moving from a commercial gym to a typical hotel setting. Fortunately, a hotelier client of mine let me in on a little secret when it comes to hotel gyms, which is that there are actually rules in place to keep hotel gym spaces universally recognisable. This means there are actually standards for the recognisability of gym equipment in hotel chains, so you are unlikely to encounter much you aren’t familiar with, even on different continents.

In this scenario we would create a program based on the probability of least disruption, for example, you’ll be hard-pushed to get access to a barbell in most hotels, but dumbbells and some kind of space-saving cable machine will be pretty commonplace. 

We might also concede that for one reason or another accessing neither gym nor fitness equipment is going to be possible, in which case we’ll have bodyweight or resistance band contingencies in place so that exercise can still take place regardless of location.

As we’re building a custom training program, and this is a comprehensive service, it isn’t uncommon for online personal training clients to have two or more residencies, in which case it can be useful to have multiple programs built out as part of the course of coaching that can be used interchangeably.

11. Time constraints

The amount of time it actually takes to have a good workout is massively overestimated. These estimates can simply be the result of having been wrongly informed, but they can also be due to the all-or-nothing mindset, which we alluded to above. It’s an easy mistake to make because it seems logically reasonable that the more time you spend exercising, the better results you’ll get, but that only works to a point. Past that point, you’ll start to see diminishing returns and eventually burn out. The mistake being made is that the impact on the muscles, and central nervous system aren’t being taken into account. Or to put it another way, a workout is only as good as your ability to recover from it.

Workouts over an hour are the realm of endurance sports and are of very little utility in most fitness contexts. In fact, on a physiological level, our bodies reach a point of diminishing returns because of the accumulation of cortisol, glycogen depletion and the risk of temporarily moving into a catabolic state. This is basically the opposite of what we would be looking to achieve in a fitness setting where must goals ultimately come down to improved body composition.

A workout only needs to be as long as it takes to achieve its goal, which basically is to do enough to send a signal for change. This can be achieved in far less than an hour. For example, strength sessions really only need to be 40 minutes, and HIIT sessions can be very effective at the 10-20-minute mark. A 60-minute workout is not inherently better than a 40-minute one, it’s worth saying that again, duration is no indicator of effectiveness. A workout either achieves its purpose (to send signals for adaptation) or it doesn’t, and that isn’t going to come down to duration

If you want an example of just how much you could get done in a short space of time, try this circuit:

All exercises are to be performed for 60 seconds continuously. Move from exercise to exercise without a break.

plank > mountain climbers > bodyweight squats > burpees > press-ups

That’s just 5 minutes of training. Try it and tell me it was easy. If it was double or triple it, and the most it will have been will be 15 minutes.

I’ll state it several times in this article, and I’ll state it again now. The key to getting results is consistency. So often an alternative shorter workout is beneficial when you can’t make the full session, just to avoid breaking a good chain of workouts. Protect your consistency, momentum is very powerful.

You may also face times when you have challenges of frequency. This means you might only be able to exercise once or twice per week. In this case, I typically like to program total body workouts, that way muscle groups are getting worked more frequently and you would know that every time you do get the opportunity to workout you would be targeting all muscle groups.

When it comes to logistical constraints, the name of the game is going to be having a contingency in place for every eventuality. It’s known in psychology as ‘if-then planning’ and is used everywhere from sports to boardrooms. In fitness, forward planning means fewer training sessions missed and that’s what both habits and results are going to be built on. 

Now that we’re clear on the constraints and how we’re going to mitigate them, we’re now able to start narrowing in on what we’re actually setting out to achieve.

Goals & objectives

12. Primary goal

I tend to recommend over the course of training that one major goal be named as the clear primary goal. I.e by the end of your online personal training program, what would you need to have achieved to reflect on the experience as a success? That’s your primary goal.

These are generally one of the following: 

• Weight Loss / Fat Loss 
• Muscle Gain
• Recomposition 
• Increase in general fitness
• Improved performance in a particular activity
• A better energy baseline

13. Secondary goals

Secondary goals can either be helpful or a distraction. For example, people often pair a health turn-around with being able to do a press-up, a pull-up or running a distance race. These are great goals to set, but often if there is a lot of weight to lose, then these goals would both be better compartmentalised. Or indeed if you’re looking to gain muscle, and it’s a goal that alluded you for years, trying to run your first marathon at the same time is going to make both goals less likely to be successfully achieved.

My advice is always to fix the most pressing problem first, I.E the challenge that is causing you the most emotional or physical discomfort. This is for both physical and psychological reasons. Let’s say someone is suffering because they feel they are at an unhealthy weight, it is making them feel unhealthy and is affecting their self-esteem which has a knock-on effect on their relationship with those around them. Is now going to be the right time to try to do your first press-up? Realistically that just wouldn’t move the needle in a meaningful way. So at the end of an 8-week workout program, if you were the same weight but could now do a press-up, would you consider that successful? All of the emotional discomfort would still be there.

In this example, It’ll be easier to do press-ups after weight loss, because your strength-to-weight ratio would be improved. So losing weight first as your primary goal is both emotionally and logically the right move if you eventually want to be in a position where you are at your intended weight and capable of doing a press-up. Focusing on them both from day one could derail progress on both.

Likewise, let’s take the example of trying to get lean and toned, and wanting to pair that with a distance running goal. Firstly, running in the form of jogging is a calorie burner but not a particularly effective tool for fat loss. So the amount of running practice it would take to prepare for let’s say a half-marathon would in my experience do more to detract from the fat loss goal than contribute to it. This is very jarring for many people, who have spent years jogging in an attempt to get lean. But the truth is many people are using running as a way to get lean and finding that it’s not working. It’s not working because it’s the wrong intensity for fat loss, at the wrong heart rate, and using the wrong energy system, yes it burns calories, but you’ll need to replenish those or you’ll burn out, jogging is like going round and round in circles. Literally and metaphorically. I have nothing against it from a fitness or mindfulness perspective, you just shouldn’t expect it to make you lean.

From my perspective, the better goal would be to have a healthy weight and body fat percentage that you could maintain year-round without restriction. Which then becomes your baseline, your new ‘normal’ and you can take a sojourn into calisthenics or distance running, knowing that you have a proven framework to return to once you’ve achieved a more specific goal like a press-up or a half-marathon.

Whereas if you try to cram it all into a single program, it can technically be done, but it’s not efficient and you’re lowering your chances of success. There will also be a lot of reference for failure early on, and it depends on individual psychology whether that is motivating or discouraging because it can go either way.

This is why it’s key to understand someone’s starting position and current conditioning. For example, if you’re de-conditioned or new to exercise and your major goal is a change in body composition, we could reasonably expect that as part of the process of following a comprehensive exercise program, you’ll see strength gains, better fitness, better muscular endurance and a host of other performance increases so they don’t really need to be stated as specific outcomes, as they are implied second-order consequences.

14. Adjacent & auxiliary goals

Sometimes it’s a great idea to bring in adjacent goals that can be tracked and focused on that don’t require any deviations from the primary goal nor for undue fatigue to be accumulated. For example, let’s say someone works with me because they want to lose fat and gain muscle. 

An auxiliary goal I always encourage is to seek an increase in baseline energy levels. It not only makes everything easier to implement, but it also creates a level of implicit checks and balances that protect against logical fallacies associated with undereating or over-working as both would undermine the energy goal. 

Other adjacent goals would also be things like increasing mobility, and flexibility which are helpful to most primary goals and indeed life in general. Which can be worked toward in a way that is conducive to the achievement of the primary goal.

15. Performance consolidation

At the other end of the spectrum, there might be some performance capabilities that one doesn’t want to lose when you embark on a new training program. For example, let’s say you want to gain muscle but have worked very hard to be able to run a 10k, and don’t want to lose that ability. In this scenario, we need to factor in some running fitness maintenance. Which in turn needs to be accounted for in regards to training load, recovery and nutritional intake. 

This allows for the new goal to be pursued without the loss of ability coming into the program. Again as we’ve touched on fitness is very specific and conditioning in various spheres needs to be maintained. It’s interesting because let’s say you can do 50 pushups coming into the same program. Because we’re prioritising muscle gain, and that is going to cross over with strength benefits, you’ll likely be able to do more pushups after several weeks of strength training without actually doing any pushups as part of your exercise. On the other hand, let’s say we work together for 8 weeks, and we spend the first 4 weeks in lower rep range strength training, then move into a higher rep range to finish the program. You will be lifting lighter weights to match the higher rep range, so you might feel as if you are getting weaker, but in really you are just getting conditioned to a different protocol, and sheer strength was not the goal, muscle building was. It’s nuanced, but all needs to be taken into account. 

16. Injuries or immobility

If there are any medical or health restrictions in play these need to be taken into consideration. This could be as simple as maintaining a level of comfort during exercise. An example would be a considerable weight loss goal. Although sprinting is an effective way to burn body fat, contextually it would be inappropriate. Because it’s likely to be uncomfortable and demotivating. So we would look to make progress first and potentially introduce sprinting further down the line. In the beginning, we would make more progress with low-impact exercises.

It’s actually one of the biggest skills in fitness coaching, the ability to cast aside some of the most effective workouts. A good analogy would be in the world of screenwriting, where it’s commonplace to cast aside your favourite dialogue or scenes if they don’t authentically represent the character or the overall cohesion of the screenplay, the concept has the unfortunate name of ‘killing your darling’s’. It’s a little like that with coaching, for example, I love sprinting, personally, I find it the single most effective fat-burning workout. But for many, it would be completely inappropriate, demotivating, and carry a high risk of injury. I mention it to make the point that very often getting results for a client isn’t a case of just delivering either my or their favourite workouts but rather a combination of exercises and workouts that will contextually work for them. It’s really the main difference between coaching and social media influencing.

Other times it’ll be injuries or movement restrictions localised to a certain muscle, joint or movement. For example, let’s say you had a sprained ankle, well it would make no sense to let that take you out of exercise altogether. Although painful, it’s quite a localised problem, there is nothing stopping you exercise your upper body and your core. So it wouldn’t make sense to let it stop your training which could easily have knock-on effects on your nutrition and mental health. All the more crucial if you are vulnerable to that all-or-nothing mindset, where things tend to spiral out of control following a setback.

Another example might be a more permanent but localised restriction, after an accident, surgery or a particular disability in which case a program and all future iterations of programs would avoid certain things. 

Another category would be specific medical concerns, so not necessarily structural or anatomical problems but rather systemic issues. Perhaps permanent as with a condition like Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) where all future exercise plans would take this into account. Or what might be more of a snapshot of the current state of health but subject to change for example or pacing a workout well in chronic fatigue syndrome. 

Psychology & individual preferences

17. Achievement vs avoidance 

Motivation is a huge factor in whether or not someone is going to achieve a health & fitness goal. Therefore it’s crucial for a fitness coach to understand how motivation works in fitness. Motivation can certainly be bolstered by accountability but it’s best not to mistake motivation with accountability as the same thing. At a very high level, accountability is someone telling you to get up and exercise in the morning and motivation is getting up and wanting to exercise in the morning.

Accountability can offer a wonderful bridge to self-efficacy, but it’s important that it is treated as a bridge, rather than a crutch if one is going to reach a point of self-reliance in the long-term. 

The fascinating thing about motivation is that a lot of people don’t believe they have it. You may even have heard your internal voice say “I’m not very motivated” from time to time. But that isn’t true, I assure you that motivation is always there, it’s just underutilised. A bit like the way we harness electricity. Electricity always surrounded us, but it wasn’t until we figured out how to harness it that we could make use of it.

The extent to which you will use motivation to your advantage can be gauged by observing your behaviour. If you aren’t exercising frequently, on some unconscious level it’s probably true that you have associated more pain with attempting the process of starting to exercise than maintaining the status quo. Because of the perceived challenge of starting and everything you’ll have to go through to make it work, perhaps more insidiously through fear of failure.

The moment you consider it more uncomfortable to stay the same than to go through everything it will require to make change happen is the moment you take action. You are probably at the precipice of this crossroads right now, This is why you’ve found this guide.

Even so, motivation alone will only get you so far. The end goal is to become disciplined, driven even. To the point that you will continue to take action whether you feel like it or not. Once you’ve achieved this, you’ll be operating at a level above comfort and motivation and nothing will deter you from achieving your goals. 

The most effective way to do this is to perform a mental exercise in which you think about exactly what achieving your goal is going to mean for you. Things like “If I achieve my goal I will feel more confident, more attractive, and I’ll know I followed through on a goal that a lot of people thought I couldn’t achieve”.

Then do the opposite, and think about everything it could mean for your life to never successfully follow through on your goals.

For example, you might say to yourself, “If I don’t establish a consistent exercise practice my mobility is going to get worse. Sooner or later I won’t be able to do many of the enjoyable things I want to do in my retirement”. Or you might consider “I know I have a family history of diseases that get worse with inactivity and if I don’t turn things around that could be my future too, I don’t want that for myself or my own family”. 

Really take time to feel not just think through these scenarios. This will be uncomfortable at first but you can use these emotions as what’s known as a psychological anchor. Enabling you to re-access them mentally whenever you need to drive action. These powerful associations will serve you on those dark rainy evenings when you don’t feel like taking action literally and metaphorically. 

Understanding whether a client is more intrinsically or extrinsically motivated is immensely valuable for a coach like myself in crafting an effective and personalised coaching strategy. 

Clients who are intrinsically motivated are driven by internal factors such as personal satisfaction, joy, or alignment with their values. For these clients, a coach should focus on tapping into their personal goals and interests. This ensures that the activities and goals set are inherently rewarding and fulfilling. For example, let’s say there is a latent desire to build an aesthetic body, which is going to mean gaining muscle and or losing body fat. Well if this person’s passion lies in hiking, for example, let’s build the body with functional exercises that will translate over to an increase in performance and stability when hiking.

Rather than using fixed plain-of-motion resistance machines with limited functional utility and trying to get them to buy into the lifestyle of a bodybuilder, we can build the body whilst explaining the functional application to hiking. This way we’re still achieving the primary goal but framing it as a contributory factor to another area of life that brings a lot of enjoyment. So you can see how much easier this would be to maintain than trying to live like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his heyday because it naturally reinforces what the individual already likes doing.

On the other hand, clients who are extrinsically motivated typically respond better to external rewards or recognition. They may be driven by goals such as improving their appearance, and gaining social approval, so this could be doing a photoshoot, or getting in shape for a holiday or wedding. Perhaps they just want to look their best for dating.

Generally, intrinsic motivation is more powerful and will last longer as it’s like a dynamo, simply the act of exercising boosts motivation, whereas with extrinsic motivation a consistent flow of motivators, recognition or reward needs to match the efforts.

Understanding this aspect of a client’s motivation allows the coach to tailor their approach, making coaching more effective and the client’s journey more engaging. It helps in maintaining the client’s motivation over the long term, leading to more consistent and sustainable progress. Additionally, recognising the type of motivation that drives a client can aid a coach in effectively navigating periods of low motivation, ensuring that the client remains committed to their fitness goals no matter the scenario.

18. Major pain point

Addressing an individual’s major pain point at the outset of a fresh fitness initiative is crucial when designing a training program. Reducing the primary pain point should be addressed as a priority.

The intensity of the primary pain point should be taken into account when creating a program as it can inform the degree to which the program needs to take a linear route to the main goal. This needs to be cross-referenced with personality factors.

It’s similar to intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, but more specific. For example, an individual might say they want to get fit, healthy, and improve BMI and feel fitter. But if the real motivation is to get lean to take a picture for a dating profile for example, then the coach should know this, because it allows them to create a more direct path to that outcome.

The same goes for a performance goal, one could say they want to lose fat, gain muscle, work on flexibility etc, but if the real keystone goal is to run a 10k faster than someone at their local running club, then to make that happen, we should make that the primary focus.

Another more practical example might be that someone wants to feel stronger, what are the vectors for that? One could be progressive overload in resistance workouts, though perhaps more emotively working toward and then taking opportunities to showcase shows of strength like press-ups and pull-ups could feel a lot more like a forward step.

This in itself is interesting, let’s say you start with a bench press or a shoulder press, theoretically, everyone can do it, so going from say 5kg to 10kg is double, and should be celebrated, but is not necessarily interpreted with the same magnitude as going from not being able to do a press up, to doing your first one ever. Certain showcases of strength have an emotional weight to them and as a coach, it’s important to understand that from your client’s perspective. 

The same goes for cardio goals, in particular running. So for me personally, I sprint and hike, both for fun and how they contribute to fat loss. However, I don’t spend a lot of time running in the form of jogging. But I do keep my hand in some running fitness because I think it’s a foundational skill. So I want to be able to run a mile a the drop of a hat and be able to turn up to a 10k without training specifically for it, but I’m not overly concerned with how fast I do either, it’s never been my focus, I’m just focused on maintaining my ability to do them. Whereas I have many friends and clients who orient their whole lifestyle around shaving seconds off of their runs, as that is their primary focus, so it’s all relative.

Part of the process of coaching is understanding when a productive step back needs to be taken to arrive at a desired outcome down the line. The best example of this would be having ambitions on a muscle-building goal, but arriving at the start of a workout program with poor energy levels. Technically building muscle is a destructive process, in that we need to tear muscle fibre down to give the body a reason to grow it back bigger and stronger. This takes energy, and it can be a drain on the central nervous system. This means in this particular scenario it might be best to correct the energy problem first or at the very least use an effective low-volume program to gain muscle, like the HST protocol for example.

This takes a level of rapport between client and coach, and self-reflection from the person setting the goals, there is no use in standing on ceremony or being politically correct if you aren’t describing your real motivation. 

19. The ‘why now?’ factor

I would consider the creation of a new training program uninformed if the personal trainer building it didn’t understand what I call the ‘why now’ factor.

Motivation is one thing, but often there is a key moment in a person’s life in which they know something has to change. This could be a conversion, an event, a cathartic moment, or even a ‘dark knight of the soul’ experience which makes taking action inevitable. 

Understanding this may help provide priceless context which will help a coach guide a client to success. For example, in my own training journey, I was a young personal trainer, always hovering on the outskirts of what I thought I needed to look like at the time, so I said I was going to get to 10% body fat or leave the fitness industry. 

I’ve seen it in my clients too, sometimes it’s getting back to your peak after a divorce, and sometimes it’s doubling down on your health after a scare which you’ve rightly interpreted as a warning shot across the bow. For others it’s an epiphany that connects the dots, for example understanding the relationship between regular movement and mental health, or another from my own personal experience, I feel that I’m most at peace, and I have my best ideas when I’m out hiking or cycling deep in a rural environment, so I better protect my ability to feel confident and strong alone out there.

Again, it’s one thing to know what someone wants to achieve, it’s another to understand why they have to achieve that now. This is how crucial context is.

Preferences

Preferences can be a bugbear for fitness coaches. Because much of the results in fitness come from working outside of your comfort zone. Both from a personal development standpoint and a physical standpoint. So operating only within the realms of preference can massively de-rail progress. But having said that, there are times in your fitness journey when it helps to form positive habits when you are enjoying the activity.

Both coach and client need to keep an eye on preferences and must not allow them to become a crutch, because it’s human nature to pull toward what is easy, what is comfortable and what is familiar and then convince ourselves that it’s effective. And that’s just not going to deliver in the realm of working out, preferences are where you should stack your activity, but not necessarily what you should build your workouts on and that’s why we make the distinction between the two.

20. Preferred coaching style 

When guiding an individual through a training program, it is imperative to understand the coaching style that is going to be motivating for them as an individual. 

For example, some people are more motivated by an empathy-led, understanding approach whereas others are more motivated by strict accountability, some even like a drill sergeant, military style of instruction. Hence the popularity of boot camp-style training

Of course, no trainer should operate too far outside of the sphere of their authentic personality. We humans are good at detecting a disconnect in these matters. It’s more a question of being able to read a room and have a level of flexibility and emotional intelligence that’s going to allow you to adapt to a client whilst remaining authentic.

This can be done wrong, of course, very wrong. I’ve heard many stories of coaches reprimanding clients. In some cases to the point where a client is essentially paying to be in an abusive dynamic. To help avoid this I’ve written a guide on how to find the best online personal trainer for you.

21. Preference for intensity 

Whilst intensity is relative, there is a notable differential in preference for intensity. Some individuals prefer to ‘feel’ intensity more than others. In some scenarios, an individual could be given a very effective program that is not intensive, i.e. long rest periods, low heart rate and will actually feel that the program is ineffective despite evidence to the contrary, including composition change, such as the influence of long-held beliefs and preferences for intensity.

This is more likely when switching disciplines or with significant sporting experience. For example, going from high-intensity fitness classes to strength training to pursue a muscle-building goal will be a big juxtaposition because it inherently feels completely different and the tell-tale signs of a great workout like exhaustion, sweat and a high heart rate just won’t be there.

Likewise, some individuals especially in the early stages of getting consistent with exercise, do not feel comfortable with high heart rates, sweating or being out of breath, so again, it is best accounted for at the point of program creation.

Where preference is down to comfort that’s one thing, and perhaps part of a more medium-term journey into personal development at the end of which the individual is increasingly comfortable with being uncomfortable. Whereas where there have been long-held beliefs that the only way to progress is intensity, this is best challenged early on simply because it’s incorrect. Failing to do so on the part of the coach would be akin to tacit endorsement of the wrong methodology. 

Again there is some give and take here, it’s not easy to challenge long-held beliefs ironically even in the face of them never actually producing any tangible results so some sensitivity needs to be present in conversations, and not everyone wants to set out to pursue the least comfortable path to a goal, purely to know they can endure it. So a balance that fits the individual needs to be negotiated.

22. Preference for diversity

Just as with intensity, exercise diversity is a psychological preference not directly correlated with program efficacy, i.e. the program could be extremely effective, but if under-stimulation due to repetition leads to low compliance it renders a very effective workout program redundant.

Likewise, a program can on the surface seem boring and understimulating, due to repetition, but that repetition is what allows for accurate workout tracking and progressive overload, methodical and mundane at times, yes. But exactly what makes a workout program effective, and is the basis of the whole segment of fitness that we would consider ‘bodybuilding’.

There are theories that seek to explain this for example by way of the Braverman test which looks to establish predominant neurotransmitters, which signal personality types, which then inform workout preferences. 

Difficult to back this one up with evidence, and as we’ve discussed many people look at typing as problematic. But whilst taking that into consideration a good coach would be remiss not to look for patterns and clues, but we often don’t need a blood test to reveal them.

For example, let’s say you sign up with me and say, “I really loved Crossfit, but I just can’t go anymore because of my schedule” I am going to have to be conscious that either a community or intensity element appeals to you. And that you could find the juxtaposition of more traditional strength and conditioning or bodybuilding protocols repetitive or boring especially when training alone.

The same could be true in reverse, for example, if your early fitness influences were more bodybuilding-oriented, you might look at CrossFit or fitness classes as a little too random or intense. If you are used to progressive strength training and workout tracking you might even consider them chaotic in nature in comparison and that could be uncomfortable and demotivating.

As a final example, let’s take someone who leans heavily toward yoga, stretching or pilates, we could consider this a more relaxing, intuitive approach to fitness, though of course highly effective. The idea of measuring percentages of one rep max, structured rest periods and periodisation could feel restrictive, and a departure from intuition, which would be totally understandable. 

But if the bodybuilder wants to get fit, if the Crossfit athlete wants to become flexible and the yogi seeks to gain muscle, some concessions on preferences are going to have to be made. Understanding how soon and to what extent takes judgment and communication between coach and client. If it’s done right you’ll be able to make the new habits stick and integrate the new training styles into your workout regime permanently.

For this reason, diversity of exercise and protocol should be considered. A minimal amount of diversity should be included for those who show a preference for it, there is a threshold here of progressive overload & workout tracking vs diversity that borders disorder/chaos. This is a nuanced consideration and should be taken into account. It’s actually why I created a list of who online personal training might work for, and who it may not as a way of finding those that as the best fit for my service.

Mental & emotional health

23. Mental health & emotional regulation considerations

Recent years have been tough globally. People have been stressed. People have been kept in their homes, people have lacked social interaction and finances have been tough for many, we’re also progressively lowering the stigma associated with the challenges of mental health. 

This means that many people are far more comfortable disclosing mental health challenges and diagnoses or simply talking about darker times that may have brought on feelings of depression or anxiety.  

It’s not the role of a fitness coach to diagnose or treat a mental health condition. But there are times when a client knows how they could be best supported by a dedicated coach. For example, let’s take as a case in point an ADHD diagnosis. I have worked with clients given this diagnosis who have conveyed that routines and structure are a challenge and may feel suffocating, and others who have shared that breaking routine for them would be just as uncomfortable. So there is no one size fits all, even within the same diagnosis.

It’s also a very individual proposition, for example, let’s consider feelings of anxiety, one person might want to avoid very intensive cardio because it brings on similar feelings one feels in a panic attack. Whereas another might see going out for a walk or an easy jog as a way of dealing with the early onset of anxiety as it allows you to sync the body with how you are feeling. When you feel anxiety at rest it feels worse because you’re aware the physical sensation is out of context which can make it spiral. So again, two completely different strategies for the same challenge.

We could also look at second-order consequences. Not necessarily to give advice, but to raise productive lines of enquiry. For example, let’s say a client of mine has disclosed that they are on anti-depressants, or any kind of heavy oral medication but are seeking a fat loss goal. Then it’s worth at least raising the question of a link between the demands on the liver, and how that could influence fat metabolism. This might then lead to questions such as are there steps that could be taken to protect the liver? Is there a plan for this during and after the course of medication? So in this scenario, because we’re looking at a program through a very wide-angled lens, seemingly unrelated things could still present as a challenge and at least be worth a conversation. Again to be clear, this isn’t for the personal trainer to solve as such, but it is an invitation for the client to bridge the conversation with their health providers. 

More broadly, recent challenges in mental and emotional health can inform training intensity. If you’ve just come through a particularly dark time in your life, you can probably deduce that it’s come with less than ideal lifestyle habits, as far as sleep, stress, activity and nutrition. Which would need to be well-calibrated for a new training program.

Which again is true on the inverse, I’m not talking about clinical treatment here, but if we’re talking about feelings of anxiety and depression then it stands to reason and has played out in my experience with clients that despite the actual cause of the mental health challenges that we should at the very least seek to do everything we can on a physiological level to establish equilibrium and benefit from the many mental health improvements that come from regular well-calibrated exercise. 

Furthermore, exercise is a wonderful vehicle for personal development, and building self-esteem because it helps develop the right mindset. So for those experiencing a tough time with their internal narrative because of how life is playing out for them, exercise can offer a very effective catalyst for change. With no gatekeepers in the way of your starting and no barrier to entry. For this reason, I think exercise can offer this phoenix-like comeback effect if you stay consistent with it.

24. Negative associations 

Adjacent to the mental health considerations of a training program, is taking steps to understand and pre-empt emotional challenges and triggers that could make things uncomfortable for the client. Should they go unanticipated, they very frequently lead to unfortunate knee-jerk reactions that could de-rail the entire training program. 

Again, it isn’t going to matter how good a training program is if something linked to mindset, lifestyle or a previous negative experience is going to be a major barrier to its implementation.

We’ve touched on gym anxiety, that’s very common, and can easily keep people out of the gym. Perhaps even more incidiously it can stop people wanting to look as if they are trying whilst they are there. It’s not always going to be the most pressing challenge, so sometimes it’s better to just start getting results at home. This allows you to get comfortable with training techniques and start building confidence before hitting the gym. Whereas others are going to look at going into the most uncomfortable environment they can as part of the process of challenging their comfort zone.

Other areas that need to be treated with sensitivity: 

25. Personal preferences & enjoyment

As I mentioned this can be a bugbear for coaches. But it comes from a good place, it’s not about forcing someone to do exercise they don’t enjoy as a power play, it’s because more often than you might think there is a considerable disconnect between a person’s preferences and what its actually going to take to get them results. 

The balance here is that preferences can keep you in what you might consider the ‘comfort zone’. In fitness that’s not always a good thing. if your body is too comfortable with your workouts, then the workout isn’t really giving your body any reason to change. Don’t get me wrong, it’s always great for your health that you are staying active, but if you want your workouts to change your body composition and muscularity, the pre-requisite is that it is a challenging enough stimulus that it forces adaptation.

But it’s nuanced because you could easily lose body fat, get more mobile and get fitter without overly exerting yourself and sometimes that’s the most appropriate thing to do. It’s really when you’re going through the gears where you are going to start rubbing up against discomfort. It’s really muscle building, increases in strength, power or agility where you need to push the boundaries as that’s the only way your body knows you want to advance.

For someone who has come from a background of fitness and sports, this won’t be a problem, but many people initially have aversions to feeling out of breath, sweating and or simply feeling hot, especially in public and that is part and parcel with intensive exercise, so sooner or later in the vast majority of cases this is going to have to be faced.

26. Associations with failure or perfection

This brings us to the concept of an individual’s relationship with failure. This is a huge impediment to success in fitness, which is why it warrants its own place in the personalisation process. Many people have a very unproductive relationship with failure. This is very unfortunate because it derails progress for a lot of people. Ironically those who suffer from this most are usually those who have seen success in other areas like academics and the professions. Because in these scenarios, any failure or perceived failure can be a ‘do not pass go’ moment, where progression is taken off the table. It’s not uncommon for this to go on to impact a person’s identity and internal narrative. 

This is particularly problematic in fitness. Firstly because this way of thinking is just never going to serve you. Put bluntly, until you’re able to see failure as feedback you’re going to have a very low-resolution map of who you are as a person. Because you’re never going to know how much resistance or adversity you can endure. Secondly, in fitness, failure is part of the process. If you never fail at a workout, you don’t know the upper limits of your strength or fitness. So again, you will develop a faulty map of your abilities. Imagine you had approached riding a bike this way. 

You must overcome this. If you don’t, something that is an inherent and necessary part of the path to success is going to give you a false positive reference for failure. Which is going to undermine your whole relationship with exercise. 

Chasing perfection is a race you cannot win. You have to find a way to build your self-esteem on something else. Like showing up, staying consistent and responding well to setbacks, because those are games you can actually win. 

27. Previous success & identity

Another interesting factor that can play a role in pursuing a fitness goal, particularly over age 40 is that often, nostalgic memories from an earlier period of your life can cloud your judgment. For example, let’s say you had the summer of your life at age 20 and weighed 62kg. You’re now 40 years old and want to feel good about yourself again, so you throw everything you can at a restrictive diet trying to weigh 62kg once more. In the hope that if you weigh that again, you will feel like you did that summer.

The problem is it’s just not a fair comparison. Maybe your digestion has changed, perhaps there are health situations that make you retain water differently, or there may have been hormonal changes, what if you’ve simply gained muscle?

Regardless of any of that, what is almost certainly the case is that you’re looking back on a more carefree period of your life with a lot more free time and fewer responsibilities. So orienting toward a previous weight is setting yourself up for problems, basically, you’re measuring the wrong thing and aren’t being fair to yourself. 

Nostalgia is a real thing, and you can certainly harness it for motivation. But you would be better served anchoring the feelings you had back then trying to put yourself back in that position with stress management, and pursuing activities simply because you enjoy them. It’s great to pursue feeling that way in your body and how you want to look in your clothes, but always remember that the weight is arbitrary.

I’m aware that it can sound pedantic, but I see it very often. I say that because it’s more than possible to feel the way you felt at what you considered your peak but at a higher weight. Our bodies change, which means that if you reach the point of equilibrium where you feel great again, but then move on and diet down for the scale, there is absolutely no utility in that, it’s just rigid thinking. 

The same nostalgic effect can be true of previous sporting prowess, clouding one’s current abilities. This disconnect can be challenging to bridge and it can take some time to ensure your body is ready to reprise a similar level of training. This juxtaposition can be jarring, and you really have to resist the temptation to push too hard too soon before your body is ready, as that is a recipe for injury and overtraining.

Body Image

Body image is an especially sensitive subject. So a coach should equip themselves with an understanding of what is likely to be encouraging and what isn’t. In a coaching dynamic, who sets that standard is nuanced. Because a client is looking for a coach to guide them, but in my view, it’s for the client to decide what their ideal outcome should be, and how far they feel like they are away from it at the point of starting. What I’m basically saying, is that it isn’t for the coach to decide what the client should do with their body, or what ideal to pursue.

However I do think if the dynamic is going to crossover into a type of mentorship situation then it would be remiss not to point out the pitfalls of comparison as far as social media and creating a very artificial standard of physiques and beauty, and of course, take considerable care never to give tacit approval to anything that wasn’t in the long-term interest of the individual.

It’s a difficult line to walk, because fitness should be inspirational, and body transformations are certainly possible, and part of the plan. You only have to look at the results of some of the top trainers, including ours to see that. But in the same breath, one of the hardest truths to take in fitness, is that genetically not everyone starts out evenly. Some people simply have a higher capacity for muscularity and maintain a low level of body fat with less work than others.

So you’ve got to drop the comparison game and focus on your own race, for many people unfollowing and avoiding all the physique ideology for a while is healthy. Again it can be a fine line between inspiration and comparison and the real goal can only ever really be to maximise your own potential. 

Previous traumatic experiences 

It’s not uncommon for someone to have some negative previous experiences to process which relate to trying to get fit. Especially if they have made the mistakes of overtraining, and restrictive dieting.

Ideally, any experiences like these will be communicated to a coach in the hope of pre-empting them when they come up. These may even be a callback to being reprimanded in school or in some kind of learning setting, or worse still perhaps even a previous fitness coach, which I have encountered numerous times. This would certainly raise concerns about being treated that way again, which is another reason why due diligence needs to be done before hiring a fitness coach.

Other areas where past trauma might present can have to do with measuring weight, often compelling someone to weigh themselves compulsively. This is just never a kind thing to do to yourself because of the many reasons weight can fluctuate daily i.e. water retention, hormonal changes, digestive motility and carbohydrate intake.

Understanding these elements helps foster a sense of trust and psychological safety between coach and client. It helps a coach to avoid certain triggers and anticipate where conversations or adaptations need to be made. Of course, if the trauma is proving prohibitive beyond the remit of a personal trainer additional expertise can be sought by way of referral.

28. Lifestyle (Including contraindications & challenges)

This brings us to lifestyle challenges. These play a huge role in whether or not an individual is in a position to get results because exercise doesn’t operate in isolation, and as such can be won and lost via the lifestyle choices that surround it.

Sleep

Sleep duration and quality play a huge role in both exercise performance and recovery. Not to mention a knock-on effect on the way our bodies experience hunger and food cravings.

This all combines to position Sleep quality as a key factor in any well-measured health & fitness program. There are definitely steps that can be taken to improve sleep. However, what’s crucial for the trainer to understand as part of the program creation is the amount of sleep someone is getting at the start of the program. Rather than what the ideal would be, and that’s a crucial distinction. It would be no use to calibrate for a well-rested person when in reality they are walking around sleep-deprived. 

This is a big mistake that a lot of well-intentioned training programs make. Sleep therefore is going to inform training volume and frequency. For example, in a muscle-building goal, German volume training (10 sets of 10 reps) is hard to compete with for sheer effectiveness. It has the second-order effect of being a significant burden on the central nervous system. Which is owed to its sheer volume. Meaning for a sleep-deprived individual it wouldn’t be the most appropriate choice of protocol. A higher frequency, lower volume choice may be a better fit. This is a great example of when a very effective training protocol, is rendered contextually inappropriate. 

As part of the further coaching process, In sleep-deprived individuals, discussions should be had at attempting to recover the debt of sleep which could include taking various measures which might include sleep hygiene, non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) all the way to simply reprioritising life so that sleep is given higher importance.

Stress

Stress can be very deleterious to both efforts to lose body fat and gain muscle. Largely due to the effects of chronically high cortisol levels. As with improving sleep, steps to reduce stress can be discussed between coach and client. Likewise, the level of stress being tolerated at the beginning of the program should be considered. Of course, exercise can be fantastic for mitigating stress, but only on the basis that the exercise is calibrated well enough that it can be recovered from. Otherwise, it’s simply another, albeit well-disguised form of stress itself. 

A lack of sleep can make it harder to deal with stress. Stress can also impair sleep quality, even your ability to fall asleep. So stress and poor sleep quality often go hand in hand, they are in a bit of a vicious cycle kind of relationship. 

To understand the effects of stress it can be useful to think about it through the lens of the fight or flight response. It’s an evolutionary mechanism that we evolved to flood the system with hormones that make us alert. They might make us able to fight that little bit harder or run that little bit faster, and the reason we have that response is because it’s intended to help us get out of a life-or-death situation. Like being attacked by a mountain lion or a prehistoric short-faced bear. 

The problem is that the hormones that allow for this response are aimed at very short-term solutions. It’s all well and good when we need to get away from a bear. But the problem is we humans have also evolved the ability to think about the past, think about the future, and even think about the quality of our thoughts themselves. This means there is a litany of things that can cause us stress, from worrying about the regrets of the past, to current work stresses all the way to worrying about the future. Wasn’t it Mark Twain that said, “I’m an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened” 

So what this means is that our modern everyday stresses can promote a constant drip of these hormones into our bloodstream. That’s a problem because the process that gives you this extra boost in a life-and-death scenario, does so at the cost of your long-term health. 

For example, recovery and repair functions are inhibited by cortisol, and so too are long-term survival mechanisms. Have you ever wondered why people get sick more frequently when stressed? or why stress impacts our libido? It’s because those are long-term concerns, besides if you don’t get away from the bear it won’t matter how well you can defend against colds and flu the following winter or about the proposition of future procreation.

You will get a short-term immune boost, but not in the way you think. It’ll be in the form of inflammation. Again, if you fall running away from the bear would be great, it might protect and isolate the wound. But in the modern world, it’s going to mean unnecessary aches and pains, slower workout recovery and even a disruption of your digestive system. 

Not only that but we were never designed to have this kind of stress long-term, which means mental fatigue and overwhelm accumulate at an alarming rate that we just haven’t evolved for. Disrupting sleep cycles and compounding fatigue, making you less resilient to you guessed it, stress. 

It’s a negative cycle. All of that before we even touch on the fact that these same hormones lead to fat accumulation, make it harder to burn stored fat and can tear down your existing muscle mass. Not a great combination for most fitness goals.

Additional factors to consider

Intangibles & contingencies

There are often intangibles in an individual’s life that should be factored into the creation of a training program, for example, either a young family or busy professional life should be kept in mind, in regard to backup measures, alternate workouts etc.

Consider a man or woman with three young children who is also running a business, the likelihood that as a typical day unfolds, something might come up that would preclude a workout from taking place, is fairly likely we ought to have a backup plan in place for such scenarios. This is why, sometimes there should be Plan B, even Plan C contingencies in place when a training program is delivered. 

Nutritional considerations

It’s always a good idea to ensure that nutritional considerations are made when delivering an exercise program, as just like lifestyle results can be won and lost in the way we eat. So it’s crucial that a client enters the program very well informed on the relationship between exercise and eating well.

Your training could be perfect, but if the nutrition doesn’t match your goals, you may not only achieve sub-par results, but you might actually make it mathematically impossible for you to achieve your goal. 

Let’s look at some of the factors that influence how we would go about how the nutrition element of a training program is best delivered.

Previous relationship to food

Understanding a person’s previous relationship with food is very important. Many find calorie tracking and counting or measuring food to be a behaviour that can trigger disordered eating or be the cause of anxiety. In this scenario, it’s best to take a more intuitive approach to nutrition. Which may involve casting aside numbers altogether. 

For those who are happy to look at the numbers, there are three main ways to approach the healthy eating element of a fitness program.

Practical preference/likelihood of compliance

It’s important to determine what the most likely route to success is going to be with nutrition. A variety of factors influence one’s ability and inclination to prepare and track food, so I have created three ways to manage it, which can be used interchangeably in my online personal training program.

Set meal plan

The first is to Follow a set nutritionist-designed meal plan. This means having a meal plan built for you to your preferences perfectly matching your goals. Which offers the peace of mind of knowing exactly what to eat each day. To make it easier logistically, you’ll also have a shopping list and have every recipe planned out for you. The major benefit of this approach is that you won’t have to think about anything other than implementation because all of the decisions have already been outsourced and made for you. The secondary benefit is that you also won’t have to track anything on apps like MyFitnessPal, because by definition the meal plan was built for you specifically, so you can be sure it’s on point for what you want to achieve.

Macronutrient profile

The second way to set about the nutrition side of the program is to follow a calorie target and macronutrient profile. This way you have a clear goal for what you need to eat on a given day. In terms of an overall calorie number and the amount of protein, carbs and fats you need to hit to achieve your fitness goal. This adds a little more flexibility as to how you get to those numbers. Ostensibly as long as the food is healthy and could otherwise have been a part of a meal plan then you can work with an infinite number of combinations to get to your goals. 

Interestingly one of the questions that often comes up with this approach is whether it’s better to hit the calorie goal or the macronutrient goal. The answer is not to look at it like that, as an either-or proposition. Because neither has to be perfect. What you do want to aim for is the best combination of both you can reach at any given time. I say that because you could have a perfect caloric intake but if the macros are off you could face unintended composition changes, and likewise, if the macros are perfect, but you are simply eating too many or too few calories, then you may be making it impossible to achieve your goal despite eating very well. 

Food logging

The third way to approach nutrition is to simply keep eating as you are at the beginning of the program, but record everything you eat to be sent over for review. This way you can have our nutritionist look through your food logs and look for easy switches you could make incrementally. Forcing no immediate wholesale overhaul, just gradual habit change which for many can be a far more approachable way to create change, particularly if time is hard to come by.

Assuming a meal plan is to be built as part of the overall program, there are some other elements to consider that a nutritionist would take into account: 

History of cooking & meal planning

When building a meal plan from scratch, it’s important to know whether someone actually enjoys cooking or indeed has the time and experience with meal planning to be able to approach nutrition this way. It looks easy when you see someone on social media with all their meals neatly planned out, but this is a skill set to learn and it takes time.

Some people love cooking and look at it as a form of mindfulness. For others, the thought of having to cook is a cause of stress and overwhelm. When a meal plan is built from scratch a nutritionist has the ability to make a plan simpler and more repetitive in the hope of making it easier to implement. Conversely, you can have a different meal for every meal throughout the whole meal plan if there is a strong preference for diversity, it depends on what is going to be most enjoyable and effective for a particular client.

Dietary restrictions

Some food may have been recommended for you to stay away from. For allergy, intolerance or other health reasons. Or perhaps you just want to deliberately omit a certain type of food that might be challenging or expensive to get hold of in your location.

Food preferences

There would be little utility in including food you don’t actually like, so even in the absence of an actual intolerance there are some things you just don’t like that need to be omitted from a meal plan. Because our meal plans are made on a bespoke basis there is no reason that there should be food you don’t enjoy in them, we’ll always be able to find another route. 

Food budget

Not everyone can or wants to spend a lot of money on their weekly food shop. This can be somewhat controlled by avoiding some of the more expensive food types, certain cuts of meat and fish etc. It can also be controlled with a combination of repetition and leaning into foods that tend to benefit from economy of scale when bought outside of a traditional supermarket, nuts, seeds and frozen fruits are a good example of this.

Medication / medical advice

Sometimes there are medical reasons to avoid or limit certain foods, even when they are ostensibly healthy foods. For example, if you’re susceptible to gout, you may be advised to limit foods containing uric acid. Likewise, if you’re struggling with IBS, you might want to avoid certain trigger foods like chocolate, onions, and even cruciferous vegetables. Some ailments are even influenced by meal timing or food combinations, for example, let’s say you lack iron, well it may be strategically advantageous for you to consume your highest iron-containing meals with foods that contain vitamin C as it aids absorption. Likewise, you might benefit from avoiding calcium or the tannins in teas and coffee alongside these meals as they would do the opposite and block iron absorption.

Digestive health

Even in the absence of actual medical problems many people will have foods that cause some discomfort. From subtle bloating to problems with motility. Again, often this is due to ostensibly healthy foods, we all have unique digestive systems so if something doesn’t agree with you it’s good to both try to work out why and remove it if need be. A good example of this is garlic for some people it’ll basically be a superfood, whilst for others it’ll trigger immediate digestive problems. Stress can also play a factor with certain foods being tolerated differently depending on recent stress levels.

Hydration habits

Staying well hydrated is a fundamental aspect of health. It’ll also impact exercise performance and the frequency with which you experience muscle tension and spasms. So although only adjacently related to the meal plan itself, if we can flag that there is a history of poor hydration we can set a habit of tracking water intake independently. Incidentally, insufficient water intake is extremely common and just too much of a low-hanging fruit not to get corrected immediately.

Knowledge & education

It’s always a good idea not just to implement a training program or meal plan, but to actually understand the reason it works. In the context of a meal plan, this equips a client to find suitable replacements for ingredients and meals when things don’t line up perfectly logistically. Essentially the more you know about food and its impacts on your fitness goals, the easier it’ll be to manage your intake and make good decisions on the fly. Which brings with it freedom and peace of mind. 

Home logistics

The context that a meal plan is delivered within is also important because it helps stack the odds in favour of compliance. For example, is there a partner in the household that also wants to take care of the way they eat? Perhaps we can provide a conversion key so that both partners can use the same meal plan in different quantities.

Factors not included in a meal plan

Alcohol

You won’t find alcohol in your meal plan. But that’s not because it can’t be present, we work on realistic flexibility. The only thing I would suggest you don’t do is remove calories from food to be replaced with calories from alcohol. That practice looks good on paper, but the absent calories from food were intended to facilitate your recovery. Without it, you’re going to be eating fewer calories from real food and impede your workout recovery.

Tea & coffee

In my view, it’s better to just accept a caloric surplus on the days you choose to have a few drinks. Again you don’t have to be T-total to see results in fitness. However, If you feel like you’ve tried everything and you’re still carrying stomach fat that you can’t shift and you feel that you probably drink a little more than would be optimal for your health, again you might want to have a look at the extent to which maintaining healthy liver function influences metabolic health. 

You also won’t find teas and coffees on your meal plan. I enjoy my own daily coffee ritual too much to impose on yours. There are a few nuances though, you pretty much have free reign on black coffee, teas and herbal drinks, of course, you should always be aware of your relationship to caffeine as it can get out of hand, but that is a different conversation. The way teas and coffee can influence a meal plan is mainly if you add sugar and milk to your drinks as this can influence caloric intake, and blood sugar and could technically break an intermittent fasting practice if that is part of your overall health & fitness strategy.

Implementation (post-delivery considerations)

Basic mechanics

It is important to deliver at least a cursory explanation of the basic mechanics of a workout, i.e. reps, rest period, cadence, exercise selection, and order and technique. The main reason for this is that whilst a workout will work for an individual without them understanding why, if they do it, what actually tends to happen in practice is that ‘Chesterton’s fence’ style problems tend to arise. I.e because an individual does not know why certain things in the program are the way they are or the significance they have, they do not know why they shouldn’t be changed. Consider the difference between a 30-second and a 3-minute rest period or a 5-rep range vs a 15-rep range. These differences seem trivial but can completely alter the trajectory of a training program even when the exercises remain exactly the ame. These problems are avoidable if you know their implications.

Workout logging

A program is delivered and intended to be the best-laid plan for achieving a given goal. Taking into account everything that we’ve discussed that could influence it. For a trainer to be able to have oversight, workouts and nutrition need to be tracked. Without this, a coach can no longer vouch for your results, as the feedback mechanisms aren’t in place.

Re-alignment & and re-tooling

It’s to be expected that you’ll face challenges, setbacks and plateaus over the course of a training program of any substantial length. Over time a workout program can be re-tooled part way through a course of coaching to adapt to a change of schedule or give the body a new reason to adapt.

Accountability plan

Often a custom coaching program requires a custom accountability plan, meaning that the coach and client need to be aligned on what being held accountable means. Remember the aim of accountability is not to outsource motivation or abdicate responsibility, it’s about having a plan of oversight and contingency plans for what happens if the plan isn’t being carried out as intended. Affording assistance to get right back on track. Accountability coaching when delivered in the correct way, can offer an encouraging sense of oversight which in turn can make or break one’s ability to achieve their health & fitness goals. It’s the perfect solution for helping a client gather momentum before achieving their cruising momentum.

Summary

In summary, we’ve explored a wide array of factors that play a role in shaping an effective workout program. From understanding individual physical capabilities and health conditions to acknowledging the profound impact of mental health, sleep, nutrition, and past experiences, we see that fitness is not just a journey of the body, but also of the mind, even the spirit.

Let’s embrace the complexity of this journey, acknowledging that each challenge we face is an opportunity to learn and grow. The path to health and fitness is not linear. It’s a mosaic of experiences, learning, and adaptation. And as complex as it can appear a focus on the fundamentals will take you a long way.

I hope this explanation of my personalisation process has pulled the curtain back a little on what goes into creating a custom training program. If you would like to discuss having me build a custom fitness program for you, let’s arrange a consultation call and talk through your goals