Good morning! I’m still getting back into the groove of the work week, as my best friend from Illinois was visiting from Friday-Monday. I’m having a bit of bestie withdrawals!

Today, however, is filled with training clients, teaching classes, and setting up consult calls for online clients and boot camp participants ( FYI – sign ups for October just opened up yesterday!)

It’s funny. Whenever I meet someone new, and get asked the inevitable question: “What do you do?” I always know there will be follow up questions. Specifically, one will always, always ask “How does that work?” when I explain that I’m an online personal trainer and health coach.

And then I go into my spiel about how it works, what my systems are, and give a couple examples of a couple clients.

The thing is, when I first brought my personal training profession online, I had NO idea how much I’d love it. For some reason, I thought I’d have a tougher time connecting with clients who I don’t get to meet in person, when in fact, the opposite is true. It astonished me how fast and well you’re able to connect with someone you’re working with online. In fact, I’ve had clients and boot camp participants send me gifts, I’ve sent them gifts, and we’ve even met up in person if they happen to be traveling to Boulder.

I also thought it’d be harder for online clients to get as quick a results, when in fact, that couldn’t be farther from the truth, too! Week after week, nearly every single one of my clients and boot camp ladies continues to make progress shown in our weekly check-ins. Of course, there are some struggles along the way here and there – like there are with any client, in person or online – but a quick change of plans or a slightly different angle on that plan of attack will have us heading in the right direction again.

All of that said, there are some pretty vast differences between training clients in-person and training clients online.

[Tweet “Online vs. In-Person Personal Training via @TrainerPaige”]

Online Personal Training vs. In-Person Personal Training

1. The Accountability Factor.

I’m not talking about my clients’ actual goals; they’re pretty similar whether it’s an in-person or online client. I’m talking about the reason they decided to hire a trainer for help in the first place.

Many people turn to a personal trainer for help for accountability only because they would not otherwise make their workouts. They’d get charged the $75/hour rate if they missed their session, so they will show up at the gym two to three times a week to workout and meet with me. Unfortunately, this type of client also has the lowest success rate when it comes to reaching their goals, because they don’t have any intrinsic motivation. Because of this, I’ve actually let go of most of my ‘accountability-only clients’ – except for a couple, who we’ve been able to work together to find additional sources of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation for them. Right now, I’m fortunate that I have extremely hard working clients, who’d likely make it to the gym whether it’s to meet me or not.

(^one of my favorite in-person clients right there! (although they’re all favorites right now!)

On the flip side, nearly all of my online clients and boot camp ladies come to me because of my expertise in program design, implementation, coaching practices, and tools. Of course, accountability is in there as well, because I still hold you accountable in our weekly check-ins, as well as checking your training calendar to see that you’ve ‘checked in’ to complete the workout. However, it’s up to them to “show up” to the workout, both literally and figuratively. My most successful online clients and boot camp participants have some base level of motivation to complete the workouts (of course, we determine the format, frequency, and intensity of our training beforehand in our consult.)

2. The Amount of Workouts/Training.

For the majority of my in-person clients, I meet with them 2-3 times per week, for an hour each session. They work hard during our sessions, which I’ve written beforehand, based on the program that I’ve written for them. I do give them additional workouts to do outside of our sessions, but they aren’t surrounded by as much detail, scheduling, and organization that goes into my online clients’ plans.

When I’m training an online client or boot camper, they get 4-7 workouts a week, each with the same level of detail, and are held to the same standard for every single workout. I do ask my online clients to ‘check-in’ after every workout via their dashboard they get, and then we have a weekly check-in to talk about their nutrition and training in more depth.

3. Timing.

This one’s pretty self-explanatory, but with my in-person clients, we have to settle on a consecutive future date and time for our sessions. This can be tough, because many people like training at popular times, like 7:00am, and it leads to having to turn clients away. As a positive, meeting with a trainer every single Monday and Wednesday at 3pm is a great way to build routine into your daily life.

With online training, you can do your workouts at the time you want, regardless of how popular that training time is. As long as you’re checking in after your workout, I can pop in and see your training log and any questions throughout the day.

4. Price.

Online training and boot camps are much less expensive than in-person sessions. With an 8-week boot camp costing $175 and 1-on-1 online training costing between $150-$200/month it’s extremely less than the $65-$75/hour price tag that comes with in-person sessions.

One additional factor I’ll touch on is form. With my in-person clients, I can detect any sort of movement-pattern error, and cue them to correct their form. With my online clients, I’ve worked to remedy this by having you send in a quick video to me of any of the 5 basic movement patterns (squat, hinge, push, press, pull, plank) with which you might have an issue.

While training clients online is more convenient because it’s done at home, I’d have to say that I never see myself stopping training clients in-person, either. As a fitness professional, I just love that mix of getting to work with and help women across the world from my home, as well as those in my community face to face. While there are both similarities and differences, I can’t imagine myself in any other profession.

[Tweet “The difference between Online and In-Person Personal Training – via @TrainerPaige”]

Have you ever worked with an online coach or trainer? What about in-person? What was your experience?

If you missed it yesterday, sign ups are currently open for my October 5th boot camp! It’s 8 weeks long, for those who are interested in losing 5-10 lbs or more, leaning out, gaining strength, and completing a challenging, yet fun program. I’d LOVE the opportunity to work with you. If you’re interested, leave your email address in the comments, or find more information here. I’m only accepting 10 women for this program.