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Online coaching explained

What Does an Online Fitness Coach Actually Do?

The plan is the smallest part of it. If you picture an online coach as someone who sends a programme and then waits for the money, here is what the job actually looks like from my side of the screen, and how to tell whether the coach you are paying is doing it.

Written by Ashton Alderson  ·  Personal Trainer & Online Coach, Durham & Newcastle

01Before you start: working out what you need

The first job is listening. On the consultation I am working out what you are actually stuck on, because the answer is rarely "I need a better squat programme." It is usually the food, the consistency, or a week that a normal plan cannot survive. That is where the plan gets designed, and it is why I will never send a programme before we have spoken.

02Writing the programme

A proper programme takes hours, not minutes. Your gym's equipment, your training days, your experience, your injuries, your goal, and the order all of that has to go in so the sessions build on each other. Then it goes in the app with the videos, the tempo and the notes, so it is coachable from a distance. A template with your name typed at the top does not need any of that, which is why templates are cheap.

03Setting and adjusting the food

Calories and protein to start with, set for your goal and your size, then adjusted as the data comes in. Eating more but looking leaner is the outcome most of my clients want and least of them believe in. It works, but only if somebody is watching the numbers and turning them up at the right time. I have written about why here.

04The weekly review

This is the core of the job. Every week, for every client: read the check-in, look at the training log, compare this week's weights to last week's, look at the weight trend not the single number, look at sleep and stress and what got in the way. Then decide. Hold, adjust the food, swap an exercise, rewrite a block, or pick up the phone because the numbers are fine and the person is not.

A coach who is doing this properly can only do it for so many people. When a coach has hundreds of clients, this step is automated or skipped, and you are paying for an app.

05Watching your lifts

You film a set, I watch it, I reply with the one or two things that matter. Not a list of ten. That is how technique gets fixed at a distance, and it is why I ask for videos rather than hoping the reps are fine.

06Being there in between

The message at 9pm about the takeaway. The form check before Saturday's session. The "I have had a horrible week and I do not want to do this any more." Answering those is the job as much as writing the programme is, and it is the part six years as an Occupational Therapist in mental health prepared me for more than any PT course did.

07Keeping the plan moving

Every few weeks the programme changes so it keeps progressing. The same block for six months is not a plan, it is a habit. Progressive overload is the whole game, and it is my job to make sure your plan is built for it.

How to tell whether your coach is doing this

• Your check-in reply refers to something specific you wrote or lifted this week
• Your programme has changed at least once in the last two months
• Your calorie targets have moved since you started
• When you send a video, a person replies about that video
• The coach can tell you, roughly, how many clients they have

If most of those are no, you are not being coached. Here is how to choose one who will. And if you want to see how I do it, this is what online coaching with me includes.

Questions people ask

Does an online coach write the programme themselves?

The good ones do. Some use templates and rename them. Ask who writes yours and how often it changes; the answer tells you which kind you have.

Is an online coach the same as a personal trainer?

The knowledge is the same and often the person is the same. The delivery is different: a PT coaches you in the room, an online coach coaches you through your logs, your videos and your check-ins.

Do online coaches help with food?

Most do, and for fat loss or muscle building they should. Nutrition is more than half the result. If yours only sends workouts, you are getting half a service.