Expectations you should have in hiring your next coach

What Standard Do We Hold Coaching Too? 

In reality, there is no governing body for online coaching.

Nothing equivalent to a medical board, federal administration, or even organizational education standard.

Myself and John talk about elevating the standard at which we hold coaching because with no governing body it is our responsibility as coaches in the industry to move the industry forward.

With that being said, today I am going to go over some expectations we should all have for coaches in our industry that are managing YOUR physique progress and ultimately long term health.

Health Metrics for Longevity

The portion of the coaching process that I want to look at today is metric tracking. 

This is a topic that is very important as it is the objective side of the decision tree when it comes to coaching.

So the question is, what metrics are important?

Health metrics would be at the top of my importance list.

Common metrics we would see under this category would include blood pressure, blood glucose, and possibly even resting heart rate; I put this at the top of the list as it often shows the difference between coaches who care for you as a person over the long term of your competitive career and those who just see a physique to put on stage.

This would also include a space to upload lab work so that we can see how the metrics trend over time as you get deeper into your bodybuilding career.

Client Check in Metrics for Objectivity

From there, I would begin to head into some of the more obvious metrics such as body weight trend, logbook/performance progressions, step counts, and nutritional adherence that will make up the bulk of the basic objective metrics for decision making.

Contextual information, such as sleep metrics, digestion, etc are important to have as well, as they may allow us to dive deeper into your overall health.

For example, one night of bad sleep could result in blood pressure elevation, fasted blood glucose elevation, jump up in the scale weight, and even a bad day in the gym for logbook progressions.

The Art of Coaching with Subjective Metrics

And last but not least, subjective metrics would be the last concept to consider in the metric tracking project.

This portion will often include a description on clients current desire to train, an open ended section for clients  to go into detail on things that happened during the week, place to upload their progress pictures, and a questions section for them to drop questions to the coach on the process that they may have.

This is the section that starts to pull out the “art of coaching” into the client’s process.

It’s the combination of the subjective information alongside the objective that should guide decision making.

Not from a script.

Not because that is how they do it.

True situational decision making based on all of the information above.

Metric tracking may not be the end all be all for coaching, but it is a large part of it that I think we should take into consideration and unfortunately, is not done in every coach/client relationship out there.