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Coaching In-Person Clients

A lot of coaching businesses have a mixed book. Some clients are fully online — you write their plans, they log everything themselves, you review remotely. Others train with you in person — you're at the gym together, holding the clipboard, calling the next set. And many sit in between: an in-person session on Saturday, two home workouts during the week.

Assistant Coach is built for all three. You don't need a separate app for your PT clients, you don't need a parallel spreadsheet for the sessions you coach in person, and you don't need to declare anyone an "in-person client type" in the system. The capability is simple: you can log a workout on behalf of any client whenever you want.

This page walks through how that works in practice — from adding a new PT client to keeping their whole record up to date between sessions.

Add the client like any other​

There's no special setup for in-person clients. Open the Clients list, add them like you would anyone else, and capture the same intake information.

A few things worth thinking about upfront:

  • Email address. Even if your client never plans to open the app themselves, an email lets you send them check-in forms, share their plan as a PDF, and gives them a portal to look at progress photos and trend graphs later if they decide to.
  • Training history and goals. The intake form is just as useful for in-person clients as online ones — it gives you something to look back at six months in, and it forces the same upfront conversation about expectations and limits.
  • Weight unit preference. If your client thinks in kilograms but your default is pounds (or vice versa), set their preference correctly when you add them. When you log workouts for them, the numbers will use their unit so the history reads consistently.

Adding clients →

Build a plan even if you'll coach the session​

It's tempting to skip the workout plan for in-person clients — "I know what we're doing, I don't need to write it down." Don't.

A workout plan in Assistant Coach gives you four things you'd otherwise have to track elsewhere:

  1. A reference for the session itself. When you tap Log workout for a client, the picker uses their active plan to suggest the right session and pre-fill the exercise list. No "what were we doing today again?" moments.
  2. Visibility for the client between sessions. They can open their portal, see what you've programmed, and reference it if they ever train on their own.
  3. Continuity when things change. If you swap an exercise or move someone from a 3-day to a 4-day split, the change is recorded with a date. You can look back and see exactly what they were doing six weeks ago.
  4. PDF export. Some clients want the plan in their hand. The PDF export gives you a printable version without any extra work.

If you genuinely improvise every session — different exercises every time, no structure — that's a coaching style choice, but most in-person coaches benefit from at least a loose template. A simple A/B/C rotation logged consistently is more useful than a perfect plan you never look at.

Creating workout plans →

Log the workout during the session​

This is the new part. With a plan in place, logging the workout while you're training a client is genuinely a one-tap-per-set process.

Before the session​

Open the client's Workout tab on your dashboard and tap Log workout. Pick the session you're about to coach — Assistant Coach pre-selects the one that's up next in their rotation.

Take the pre-workout review screen as a chance to walk through the session out loud with your client. "We've got squats, dumbbell bench, lat pulldown, shoulder press, then plank." It sets expectations and gives them a chance to flag anything before you start — sore shoulder, slept badly, didn't eat enough.

During the session​

Tap Start logging when you're ready. The logger looks the same as the one your clients use in their own portal — same set inputs, same rest timer, same per-exercise notes. The blue Logging as coach for [client name] badge at the top is the constant reminder of whose log this is, which matters if you're coaching back-to-back clients in a gym.

A workflow that works for most coaches:

  • Log set 1 immediately after they finish it, before the rest timer.
  • Use the rest timer as a coaching cue — when it ticks down, you know it's time to set up the next set.
  • If a set goes badly or unexpectedly well, use the per-exercise note ("dropped to 60 kg, technique was breaking down" or "added a fourth set, felt strong").
  • Tap End → Complete when you're done.

The session lands in the client's history immediately. It's marked as Reviewed automatically — you were there, there's nothing to review later.

What if they prefer to log themselves​

Some in-person clients want to do their own logging, even with you watching. That's fine — let them. They can open their portal, tap into the session you've planned, and log set-by-set themselves. You can still coach between sets. The session ends up in the same place either way.

Coach workout logging →

Between sessions​

This is where running an in-person client through Assistant Coach actually beats a spreadsheet. The session itself is one workflow; everything around it is the same platform you use for online clients.

Check-ins​

Send a weekly check-in form even if you see the client three times a week. The questions you'd ask in person ("how's the knee?", "sleep okay this week?") are easier to capture in writing — and you'll be surprised how often a client mentions something on a written check-in that they wouldn't have brought up at the gym.

Use the same check-in response workflow you use with online clients. The fact that you'll see them in person tomorrow doesn't mean the written exchange is wasted — it gives both of you a record.

Progress photos​

Most in-person clients won't take photos in front of you, but they'll happily snap a few at home and upload them through the portal. Two to four months of monthly photos makes a more honest case for progress than a memory of "yeah they look bigger I think."

Reading progress photos →

Goals​

Add 1-3 goals per client and review them every 4-6 weeks. For in-person clients who don't see their own data daily, goals are how you keep the focus narrow. When you sit down to plan their next block, the goals tell you what to optimise for.

Goals tied to specific exercises (e.g., "Bench press 100 kg") update automatically from the workouts you log. No manual tracking.

Setting client goals →

Body weight and measurements​

Have the client weigh in the morning of their session and tap it into the portal. Or do measurements with them in person and enter the numbers yourself. Either way the data lives in the same place as their workouts and check-ins, so trends are easy to see in one place.

Hybrid clients: in-person sometimes, online other times​

Plenty of clients train with you once a week and train on their own twice. The system handles this naturally:

  • Sessions you coach in person — you tap Log workout and record live.
  • Sessions they do alone — they open their portal and log themselves.
  • Both end up in the same workout history. Each is labelled with who logged it, so you can tell at a glance which sessions you were there for and which they did on their own.

This is also useful for client onboarding. Some coaches start clients with a few in-person sessions to get form right and confidence built, then transition them to self-logging at home. The history stays continuous — you don't lose the early sessions when the client takes over.

Setting client expectations​

A few things to make clear early when you start with a new in-person client:

  • They have a portal too. Even if you do the logging, they can log in and see their workout history, plan, goals, and check-ins. Show them the portal once on their phone so they know it's there.
  • The history is theirs, not just yours. If they ever leave you (clients move cities, switch coaches, take a break), they keep their data via data export. This is a real differentiator from a coach's private spreadsheet — and most clients appreciate the transparency.
  • They can take over logging anytime. If they want to self-log after a few weeks, that's a tap-out, not a lock-in. Both flows work for the same client account.

What this approach is not good for​

Honesty is useful here.

  • Coaches who never want to write a plan. If your business model is "I'll figure it out at the session, no programming in advance," Assistant Coach will feel like overhead. A blank notepad is faster.
  • Coaches who only need the workout numbers and nothing else. A simple lifting log app (or paper) is lighter weight. The reason to use Assistant Coach for in-person clients is that you also want check-ins, photos, goals, and the same client record for all your clients in one place.
  • Group classes. Coach workout logging is one-to-one. A bootcamp with 12 people logging individually isn't what this is built for.

For the in-between case — a one-on-one PT or hybrid practice with a handful of regulars — having all your clients in one platform, with the same data shape regardless of who's holding the phone, is the main win.

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