How to Make Online Fitness Coaching Classes More Engaging

Coaching sessions should be as engaging as possible for both coaches and clients. Session reviews, goal planning, and specific training plans are the regularly scheduled sessions for online fitness coaching. However, there are other ways to create interactive experiences that involve all your clients.

Reaching Your Clients

One way to make your online fitness classes more engaging is to show your clients that you care about them. A lot of the time, people end up choosing online coaching over in-person coaching because they feel it’s too time-consuming or embarrassing to exercise in front of others. Because of this, it might be a good idea for you to reach out to these clients and check on how they’re doing with their fitness routines. 

You can do this through a variety of ways, such as an email or a simple phone call. Don’t just wait for your client to reach out; make sure you are reaching out as well. This way, you know how your clients are doing and whether they’re enjoying being coached by you.

Create Engaging Video Content

To get the most out of your coaching sessions, you need to create high-quality content. The content itself needs to be of high quality, but so does the production. To engage your clients, you need to add text to your videos, use annotations, video effects, etc. That way, each session will feel special and unique.

Trimming the videos to appropriate times is another thing you should think about. That is because byte-sized content is all the hype right now. So, you will benefit greatly if you can incorporate such details in your videos. 

Set Aside Time for Clients

It is vital to set aside time for your clients. One common problem that might be preventing you from being effective as an online fitness coach is if you don’t set specific follow-up dates and times with your clients, who may feel neglected or like they haven’t progressed in their fitness goals. Remember to show your clients that you care about them and their progress. Check-in with them when you have scheduled a time to do so.

In addition to making sure that you have time for your clients and are there for them when they need help during their journey, it’s just as vital that your client also has time for themselves. It’s not uncommon for people to be so busy with work and other aspects of life that they can’t find the time to go to the gym every day or do what they need to take care of themselves daily to remain self-sufficient. 

Provide the Most out of the Sessions

Unfortunately, online coaching is an accessible and convenient way to learn about healthy living, but it’s also a low-stakes environment in which you can give your clients the attention they need. That means that you’ll likely want to set up meetings or communicate through email or text messages (SMS) so that your clients can be on the same page. 

That doesn’t mean that you should be texting back and forth for every conversation, though. While modern apps like Skype allow instant video chatting and screen sharing, this often means missing out on some of the small talk typical of face-to-face encounters.

When setting up coaching sessions, make sure to know what goals your client has for their health through regular exercise. It’s important to ask about these goals in writing if at all possible so that you’ll have something specific to gauge their progress against and something to help them achieve those goals. And remember: it is never too late—or too early—to start exercising again!

Celebrate Clients’ Accomplishments

When you’re working with clients, it’s easy to forget that they are only human. It’s one thing to see a friend who has lost weight and pay them a compliment, but when you see their progress every single day, it can be harder to remember the importance of celebrating their accomplishments.

As a coach or trainer, you must remind your clients how far they have come and provide them with an opportunity to share their progress with others. 

Set up Specific Follow-up Dates

Once the first session is done, it’s important to make sure that you are setting up specific follow-up dates and times with your clients. This way, both you and your client have a clear idea of what will happen next.

Following up also implies that you’re giving your clients homework for the week. So on top of preparing for the next one-on-one session, you should be prepared to give assignments to help keep your students engaged in their fitness journeys from home.

Lastly, your clients must know they can contact you at any time if they have questions. That keeps them engaged because they know they can reach out if needed!