Weekly check-in questions for personal training clients.

A weekly check-in tells you what happened between sessions. Done well, it takes a client five minutes and gives you what you need to adjust their plan. Here are the questions to ask, how to read the answers, and a free form you can copy.

The questions

Keep to the same questions every week, answered on the same day.

The numbers

1. What was your average weight this week? Weigh in each morning and average the week: one day on its own says little.
2. Average daily steps?
3. Average hours of sleep a night?

Training

1. How many of your planned sessions did you do? For example, 3 of 4.
2. How hard did training feel, from 1 (easy) to 10 (as hard as it gets)?
3. Any pain or niggles? Where, and when does it hurt?

Food

1. How closely did you follow your nutrition plan, from 1 (not at all) to 10 (every meal)?
2. How hungry were you, from 1 (rarely) to 10 (all the time)?

How you feel

1. Energy, from 1 (flat) to 10 (full of it).
2. Stress, from 1 (calm) to 10 (very stressed).
3. Sleep quality, from 1 (poor) to 10 (great).

In your words

1. What went well this week?
2. What was hardest?
3. Anything coming up next week, such as travel, a busy week at work or a holiday?
4. Anything you need from me?

Skip the weight question for clients it doesn't help. Some people are better off not weighing in at all.

Why these work

• Every scale runs the same way and says what 1 and 10 mean. A client answers without thinking, and you can compare weeks at a glance.
• Averages, not single days. Weight, steps and sleep move up and down from day to day. A weekly average shows the real direction.
• The open questions come last. The numbers show what changed. The last four tell you why, and they are often where a client mentions the thing that would have made them quit.

How to read the answers

• Look at three or four weeks, not one. A bad week happens. Two or three in a row is a pattern worth a call.
• Pain gets a reply the same day. Change the session around it, and if it doesn't settle, send them to a GP or physio.
• Low attendance is a plan problem first. If they are doing 2 of 4 sessions, ask whether 3 would fit their week before asking for more effort.
• Reply to something specific. Quote one answer back: "Sleep went from 5 hours to 7, nice." A reply that only says "great week" teaches a client the form isn't read.

Make it easy to finish

• Ask on the same day each week, in the morning, and remind them once if it hasn't come in by the evening.
• Keep it to five minutes. If a question never changes what you do, drop it.
• Ask for progress photos every two to four weeks, not weekly. A week's change is too small to see.

The free form

Download the form as a PDF, or copy the questions above into whatever you use now.

Sending it from AptCoach

In AptCoach you set a weekly check-in once on a client's page. The form goes to their phone on the day, their answers land on their page, and you can reply to any answer straight into your chat with them. Steps and sleep can come from their phone's health app instead, so you can leave those two questions out.