Individual Design Coaching: Implement Your Program

Program Implementation

Ok.  So, we did a consultation, and an assessment, designed you a program, and it’s time to put that program into action.  Now you’re starting to get the idea of what Individual Design Coaching is all about.

In Step 4, I have to teach you the new behaviors, nourishment strategies, and exercises that I want you to do, and how to implement them.  That’s a big topic.  No matter who you are or where you are on your health & fitness journey, there will be a lot to talk about here.  We have to be careful we don’t bite off more than we can chew.  I’ve already considered this in designing your program, so the things that actually show up there are only the most important and those within your reach.  My goal is to create a balance between challenge and support.  I’m giving you things to do that I already know you’re capable of, and challenging you just to reach that little bit further.

In addition to meeting with you in-person (or remotely), I use technology to communicate and deliver these programs.  This technology has some pretty cool tools that are useful for you.  I have one app for billing, another for scheduling, one for nutrition journaling, one for video conferencing, and one to deliver programs.  TrueCoach, the main platform that I use with ID clients, is a hyperlinked exercise journal with demo videos & written instructions.  Let me break that down a bit.

• Hyperlinked = Like a website.  When you click on something, it brings you to something else.
• Exercise Journal = A place where all your workouts are recorded.  Because this is hyperlinked, you can easily view the history of the last time you did this same workout or lift.  That’s great for checking on the weights lifted, times ran, or feelings generated in a workout.
• Demo Videos = Convenient reference points for what the exercise is supposed to look like.
• Written Instructions = My specific directions for how many sets to do and in what order, how many reps of each exercise, the tempo you’re going to do these reps at, rest between sets, the distances and scores and other measures you’re targeting, what weights to use, or any other note or detail I want to describe to you.

Now you take these new lessons and detailed instructions and turn them into action. In other words, you, “do your workouts”.  This is where 99% of your time & energy is actually spent. I can’t be there to hold your hand through this part.  I want you to learn to be autonomous.  The success or failure of your program all happens right here, in your ability to do the work every day.  If I’ve done my job right, then I’ve set you up for success, and all that’s left is for you to put one foot in front of the other.

You log all your activities in TrueCoach.  Sometimes, we’ll also use MyFitnessPal for nutrition journaling.  Of course, if the apps are not your thing, we have other options such as photos, texts, emails, even pen & paper.  With activities & results tracked, now we have some actual data to go over together.  This is kind of like a science experiment. We made some predictions, set up the parameters of an experiment, ran an experiment, and measured the result.  Now we get to draw our conclusions.  What’s great about this is that I am creating accountability for you by giving you someone to report to.  Someone cares.  Someone is watching.  The other cool part of this is that we have assessment data to compare your results to.  So, we can easily measure progress.

We review this stuff together & work on it together.  When you hit a snag, you have a teammate.  Many of the failures that people commonly experience when making health & fitness changes come from being alone on that journey.  You’re exploring into new territory and facing challenges that are unknown to you until you confront them.  If you don’t have a friend, a partner, or a mentor to help you out, then some of those challenges can become insurmountable obstacles.  However, if you do have a helper, they can tell you how to get over, under, around, or through that obstacle, and they can tell you what it looks like on the other side.  That’s what I’m here for.  If I haven’t faced that particular challenge myself, I have probably worked with another client who’s had the same challenge–or, absent of that, I at least have a big-picture understanding that can help you overcome it.