How to Choose the Right Fitness Coach App
Professional coaches need not limit their services to the number of hours they can spend in the gym. Wider reach plus scalable coaching can make coaching full-time a realistic career option for many more types of coaches than ever before.
Modern technology has revolutionized the fitness industry. The rise of the fitness coach app has allowed coaches to handle more clients, track and analyze data more efficiently, communicate better with clients and potential clients, and even automate some aspects of the coaching process. These apps offer a wide range of benefits to coaches and clients—from costs to convenience—but what exactly are fitness coach apps, and why are they so popular?
A fitness coach app is a digital platform that connects people to coaching services of all kinds on their smartphones or tablets. There has been an explosion of new apps, each offering different types of features, but they tend to include training calendars and progress tracking, with some going further to provide the coach with video resources, training templates, and customizable interactions with their clients.
The most obvious reason coaches tend to look into a fitness coach app is to expand their potential client base. Being able to connect remotely with athletes all over the world means a much larger pool of people who could benefit from the coach’s knowledge and skills. Remote coaching also creates flexibility for both the coach and the client.
Fitness coach apps put everyone in sync even if their actual schedules don’t line up, something that is not possible in traditional one-on-one personal training relationships.
Scalable Reach
That synchronicity leads to something that has been lacking in the professional coaching realm until now: scalability. Professional coaches need not limit their services to the number of hours they can spend in the gym. Wider reach plus scalable coaching can make coaching full-time a realistic career option for many more types of coaches than ever before.
All of this depends on finding the fitness coach app that works with the coach’s services to provide all the necessary features in a streamlined platform.
If you are a coach with remote clients or are looking to start offering remote services, the choice of which platform to use is very important. This guide will help you determine which fitness coach app will meet your functional needs and provide a reliable place for you and your clients to meet and train.
Mobile Compatibility
Most obviously, the software you choose should run flawlessly on mobile platforms—both Android and iOS devices.
Almost all your potential clients will be using their phones to record videos of their sessions. It makes sense for them to be able to simply upload those videos directly from their phones for convenience. Regular updates are also important. With new hardware and operating systems coming out every time you turn around, any app that is going to keep up with you and your clients needs a team of developers that maintain the app, handle bug fixes, and improve functionality for the coaches who use their platform. Look for regular updates, functional improvements, and responsiveness to their users.
App Notifications
Athletes need to hear feedback from their coach in a timely manner, so coaches need timely reminders and notifications that they can customize to their services. Make sure the fitness coach app you choose can adjust these settings to meet your specific needs.
This functionality needs to go both ways. Coaches may want the ability to decide what kinds of things they want their clients to be notified of. Some examples are whether they want clients to be notified when they miss a workout or when new programming is uploaded. These aren’t always necessary and may lead to clients getting in the habit of disregarding alerts—not a good idea!
Programming Flexibility
The fitness coach app you choose should make it easy to prescribe the workouts your clients are performing. If you are a strength coach, you’ll need to prescribe weights, reps, and sets. If you are programming HIIT sessions, you may need to describe a certain number of cycles for distance or time. A bodybuilding routine may require giant sets: several exercises completed in a series, multiple times. Not all apps have the appropriate fields available, so make sure the one you choose fits your needs.
A great app will have templates of programs for you to use and customize. You should also be able to save your own specialized templates. This is very convenient, so you don’t have to input everything from scratch every time you get a new client or an existing client needs a change.
Communication Options
Communication with your clients will be more streamlined if it is organized in the app intelligently. For instance, you should be able to leave notes for a specific exercise directly under it—or a general note concerning the entire workout at the top.
Likewise, clients should be able to discuss individual exercises or send you messages in a chat format that isn’t tied to a particular session. Watch out for apps that limit data usage and communication, requiring you to find additional workaround solutions that can feel clunky.
Fitness App Layout
Don’t underestimate how important a good layout is. There is a lot of information and messages floating around! A well-thought-out platform will organize all this data in a way that makes accessing what you want fast and easy.
The best fitness coach app will have a sidebar menu that puts all the functionality of the app right at your fingertips.
Pricing
All these features should be available in an affordable package. The price of software can have a dramatic effect on how much you charge for your services, so make sure it’s at a price point that allows you to remain competitive in the marketplace.
We have worked hard at developing a coaching app that fulfills all of these criteria and more! We have a full-time team of developers that are in communication with coaches every day to improve and expand the features of our app. Check it out and see if it will work for your needs. We think you’ll love it.
