By: Christin Everson, MS

The most important session you’ll have with your Personal Training client is the first session. The initial consultation, or client onboarding, sets the tone for the work you’ll do together. Be that virtually or in person, it creates the foundation for a successful, respectful, and effective personal training experience.

This session’s primary focus is to gather vital information about the client's health and exercise history, preferences, and goals, which is essential to the Personal Trainer creating a valuable and unique exercise program. It also creates rapport, forming trust that allows the client to feel safe in sharing important details about their health. Lastly, it also establishes boundaries for client conduct.

A side note: I do not believe in doing traditional physiological assessments (find out why here) for most clients, so I will not be including any of that information here.

Elements that Make it Great

Have a Plan

Having a structured plan for your sessions is super important. Not only does it ensure you get the most out of your scheduled time with your client, but it also ensures you get all the necessary information you need to create a comprehensive exercise program. Your plan should include all the documents you need (both for collecting information and for liability purposes) and the order of operations (rapport, forms, questions, etc,). Here is a sample plan:

1. Welcome and Overview of what the session will entail

2. Review of forms previously filled out, or have the client fill them out in this moment (Including but not limited to: Waiver, PAR-Q, health and exercise history, general info, goals)

3. General rapport questions

4. Goal discussion

5. Past health and exercise experience

6. Behavior change discussion

7. Review their current schedule

8. Collaboratively create SMART Goals

9. Review client agreement and expectations

10. Schedule our next session

Build Rapport

We know rapport is paramount to a successful relationship with our clients, but it takes intentional work in order to create it. Here are some tips for building rapport:

• Have pre-written questions that you’ve already identified to ask, and in which part of the session you’ll plan to ask them.

• Look for opportunities throughout your discussion to build rapport.

Example:

You ask the client what their current exercise habits are, and the client says: 

“I only walk my dog 10 min a day”.

Opportunity for rapport: Ask about the dog: “what kind of dog do you have What’s their name? Where do you like to walk?” 

“I play in a softball league on Sundays.”

Opportunity for rapport: Ask about the client’s experience playing sports in the past, which sports they enjoy playing, and why. Which sports do they enjoy watching and why? Etc.

• Share relevant information about yourself. Be sure to give enough that the client feels like they know you, but not so much that you derail the discussion.

While collecting necessary information be on the lookout for other opportunities to take a sidestep and engage in rapport-based discussion. Rapport and connection provide client trust. It also allows the Trainer to confirm they are a good fit to work together, since not every client is right for every Trainer.

Manage Expectations

Managing the expectations of the client is important for helping to ease their anxiety around their experience and help ensure they follow any policies or procedures that you require.

After the client books their first session: Confirm your auto-email has all the info they need:

• If in-person: where to meet in the facility    

• How long will the session will last

• Links to forms they need to complete beforehand

• If doing physiology assessments: What should they wear and/or other info related to the timing of assessments

• What will happen in the session  

When beginning the session, I also like to reiterate the point of our time together, what we’ll discuss and how long it will last.

At the end of the session, communicate with the client about what they can expect in future sessions:

• Where to meet

• What to wear

• All program and/or facility policies (e.g., scheduling and cancellation windows, payment, late policy)

• How to communicate with you and any boundaries you have regarding that process

• What they can expect from the first exercise session (I’ve found many clients are very nervous about the physiological demands of their first training session, so I like to ease their worries by letting them know that we’ll be doing a lot of learning together and practicing movements and the session will move at their own pace).

Get What you Need to Make the Program

One of the main objectives of this session is to ensure the Trainer gets all the necessary information to begin building a comprehensive and personal exercise program for the client. Go into the session knowing exactly the specifics you’ll need to do that and be sure you don’t leave without it. Before the session ends I always give myself 1-3 minutes to look over the information collected to ensure I have what I need before wrapping up the session. Inevitably there is something the client didn’t answer in detail or that you feel you need more of before an initial program can be created.

Those required items may include:

• Current exercise activity (last three months)

• Past exercise activity (last 1-3 years)

• Specific activity likes and dislikes

• Health history and current ability to exercise

• Current schedule. Includes other activities they already do and when they are free for additional activity.

Often times clients think the only valuable time with a Trainer is during movement, but it’s sessions like your client onboarding that cultivate rapport, provide valuable information to both parties, and can increase the client's motivation. Be sure to communicate the value and importance of this session in your marketing and in your direct communication with your client. Following these steps, you’ll ensure the client knows they are a priority and that you are a trusted professional that will support them on their journey to a healthy lifestyle.  

Download my FREE Goal Setting Guide to help you dig deeper with client goals and guide you through behavior change discussion.

Need more support for your Initial Consultation? Check out my Personal Training Client Onboarding Document Bundle. Available for Businesses or Individual Trainers