Personal Training Business: How Often Should You Re-evaluate Your Clients’ Progress?

Continuous assessment of your clients’ progress is just one part of being a personal trainer and running a professional operation. The question is, ‘How often should you reevaluate your clients’ progress?’

In our experience, we have found that an 8-week period is best. The reason for this is that it gives the client enough time to see significant results. Reassessing more frequently than this can lead to a situation where results are marginal and the client’s sense of accomplishment is minimal.

We found that unless a client requests to have more regular evaluations, the 8 week period works well as it allows us to train hard during that period with the reevaluation session still in sight. More than 8 weeks can lead to a situation where clients may lose track of their progress and the intensity may decrease. We need to keep the client energized towards their goal.

If the results over an 8 week period have come back negative and the client does not respond to training, this raises questions.

These questions are:

• Is the client doing his “homework” set by his coach outside of his sessions?
• Is the client concentrating on their nutrition and needs more education?
• Does the trainer prescribe the correct exercises and training format?
• Is the trainer being “motivating” enough and getting the client to focus on their goal?
• Is the client doing enough personal training sessions?

As you can see, if a client is NOT achieving a positive progression in their results, both the coach and the client are put under the microscope.

As a PT business owner, the number one focus for your business success is customer results. The results carry loyalty, retention, referrals, and credibility. Therefore, with regular evaluations, you can ensure that all of your clients are achieving their goals.

Schedule it!

It helps if all of your clients are scheduled for a reevaluation at the same time. That way you can promote it, for example: 3 weeks until Evaluation Week!

A countdown promotion can create excitement within the company with customers talking to each other about it. It also reminds everyone (trainers and clients) that the reevaluation is coming and to be ready!

Make it worth doing?

Not all of your company’s clients have the same goal. Some have weight loss, some fitness, some strength, and other size. Therefore, it does not make sense to give all clients the same reassessment exercises.

We ask clients to choose 3 challenges that interest them from a list of assessable exercises. Then clients complete these exercises during our Assessment Week and then 8 weeks later they complete them again to hopefully see improvement.

The beauty of this is that clients are not asked to take cardiovascular evaluations and vice versa.

For instance:

A client with a goal of strength = Bench press test

A client with a fitness goal = Beep test

Some tests are standard tests that all customers must complete, but it is advisable to customize some components specifically for the customer’s overall goal.

To add more value, it’s great if you can provide the customer with some take-home evidence of your achievement. For example, a printed summary of your progress and results.