WHAT DOES A HEALTH AND FITNESS COACH DO? - 6 SPECIFICS

If you love health, fitness, and working out then you’ve probably considered a career as a health and fitness coach. But what does a health and fitness coach actually do? 

Thankfully, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve educated thousands of health and fitness coaches all over the world, preparing them all to do one thing:

Help clients live a larger life through fitness.

Now, before we cover specifically what these coaches do let’s first establish what a health and fitness coach is.

A health and fitness coach is a guide who helps their clients reach their goals using exercise and nutrition. Typically, these coaches are found in micro gyms, globo gyms, and recently online settings.

These coaches don’t just preach a certain type of exercise and diet. Instead, they work with their clients to find out what works best for each of them individually. Then, using a personalized approach, they help their clients create a healthy and consistent lifestyle.

Every coach will approach this a little differently, but the most successful health and fitness coaches use the principles of personalization taught in the OPEX Coaching Certificate Program. 

Now, with that out the way, let’s cover the specifics. Here is what you would do if you pursue a career as a health and fitness coach.

The 6 Things Health and Fitness Coaches Do

1) You Will Offer Coaching

Your job as a health and fitness coach is to help clients reach their goals. To do this you will need somewhere to coach. You can do this both in-person or online. Many coaches start by working as a coach inside another gym, preferably under the mentorship of a very knowledgeable coach. Then, as you gain experience you can branch out and open your own micro-gym or online coaching business. 

(Want to start your own coaching business? Learn the 5 steps to building a sustainable coaching business here.)

2) Market Your Services

Whether you own your own gym or work inside of one, you need clients to operate your business. Marketing your services and conducting sales consultations is an important part of a coach’s job. Your exact marketing strategy will depend on your target market and the service that you offer. 

Commonly, coaches market their services both online and in-person. But one of the best ways to get new clients is from referrals through your current clients. This is an ongoing process as losing some clients is inevitable (though a professional service will help minimize this!). To keep your book of clients full you will track your retention rate and figure out your monthly client churn. This will tell you specifically how many new clients you need a month.

3) Consult and Assess Clients

Once you get a new client you will consult with them and assess their abilities. This takes place over their first three sessions. First, you will consult with the client for 60-90 minutes. You will use this time to get to know your client, their history, current lifestyle, motivations, and goals. This understanding will give you the information you need to personalize their program.

Next, you will assess their abilities. You will use different movements, depending on the client’s experience with exercise, to test their range of motion and work capacity. This will give you specific information to help you choose which exercises are best for that client. 

The consultation and assessments don’t stop here. You will have a 30-minute consultation with each of your clients monthly to check-in on their progress, motivations, and lifestyle. You will also use fitness monitoring exercises to track clients’ progress. Learn our method of assessment for free here.

4) Program Personalized Exercise Programs

With the information from the consultation and assessment in hand, you will create personalized exercise programs. This is your primary service and what you will use to lead your clients to their goals. 

Using your education, you will design a program that is a mix of progressive resistance training and aerobic exercise. You will also start recommending subtle lifestyle changes specific to your client. These can include an increase in food quality, a step goal, or a goal to drink more water throughout the day. 

You will create new programs weekly for your clients based on last week's results. The exercises will typically not change much per week, but you will make subtle tweaks to create the most effective program possible. Your client will receive their program via their CoachRX app which they will also use to communicate with you when you are not on the floor.

5) Spend Time on the Gym Floor

During the week you will also spend time on the gym floor. In the personalized fitness model, clients execute their personalized programs on the gym floor, in a community setting, any time during hours of operation. There is always a coach on the floor and you will split the hours of operation with the other coaches in the gym. Time on the floor is used for answering clients’ questions, coaching and cueing movement, and building relationships with other clients at the gym. 

Not all of the clients on the gym floor will be your personal ones, yet you will keep a watchful eye on them and share anything you notice with their coach during your weekly staff meeting.

6) Practice What You Preach

Finally, you will practice what you preach. To be a successful coach you need to experience health and fitness yourself. You do not need to be a world-class athlete or have 3% body fat, but you need to strive for improvement and be a role model for your clients.

This is also a great opportunity to experiment with new types of exercise programs. Experimenting on yourself is a great way to understand how your clients will react to a certain type of exercise. Plus, if you’re interested in this career you probably already love to exercise!

What Does a Health and Fitness Coach Do?

Health and fitness coaches have many skills and wear numerous hats. They know how to market their services, run a business, consult and assess their clients, design programs, and practice what they preach.

But at the core of it all, they lead the way.

They lead clients towards their potential using health and fitness. 

Does this sound like an intriguing career to you? If so, get a taste of what it is like to be a health and fitness coach and sign up for our free coaching course today.