Why PRs Matter

Most coaches document their client’s workouts with a written log. There’s really no other way to keep track of all the details of a client’s training history over the long term. This is a critical tool when adjusting programming to continue making progress.

Of course, this log also documents PRs (personal records) for every exercise’s load, rep range, time, and/or distance the client completed to date. Clients want and need to see these metrics improve over time. It’s an objective guarantee that they’re getting what they are paying a coach for, and seeing these numbers steadily climbing up is great motivation.

Unfortunately, this information is buried in a written log. Some in-person coaches try to make these PRs easier to track over time by keeping a separate sheet in the log with all the current PRs on it. This can be updated whenever one of those PRs is bested, but it’s not very convenient, must be done manually, and that page can get crowded fast. There’s really no way to track every PR in a written log.

Most online platforms aren’t much better. One of the reasons we started developing Turn Key Coach’s software was that the options available at the time didn’t track the PRs that were important to coaches and clients. If those other platforms had a place for PRs, someone had to manually input the data. Clients would either forget to do this, not have the time, or expect that convenience to be handled for them with a high-touch service. This ends up being a huge amount of administrative drudgery for a coach to maintain for all their clients, and certainly not a good use of time for their expert skills. No matter the reason, if clients don’t see these metrics on a regular basis, their perceived value of the service suffers.

Turn Key Coach automatically collects every metric for every exercise: Loads for every rep range, time, distance, tonnage, and workout consistency, but also others like body weight and measurements, macros, sleep quality, perceived fatigue during or after sessions… anything of interest. If an exercise isn’t in the library, a coach can add it—and it will be tracked.

All of these PRs are organized and available to see on the client’s profile at any time. Also, whenever a client completes a session that contains a PR, our software automatically notifies them of it. This is great for clients that might not regularly check their profile, or that don’t realize they made a PR for a particular exercise.

For client trust and value, this is a potent feature. If a coach is doing a great job of programming and coaching technique that results in continuous progress, the customer is steadily reminded of this. This reminder not only demonstrates the utility of the service but can also serve to encourage consistency when a client doesn’t feel like they’re doing that great.

If a client fails a PR attempt, the fact that they’re still making progress in other areas can be great motivation to hang in there.

The driving factor for everything we do as coaches is PRs. Being able to easily monitor these metrics over time makes our job incredibly easier, and presenting metrics to clients helps encourage them to be better trainees.