Why Lifestyle-Focused Coaching is the Future of Health & Wellness
I’ve got a bold view for fitness professionals to consider as we head into 2022:
Fitness coaching isn’t enough to build highly-engaged client relationships.
It’s awesome to see more players getting into the online fitness space. It’s a good thing! The more players that exist in the online fitness space, the more innovation we are going to get.
We’ve been creating this category of Online Training for over a decade, and we’ve learned so much along the way. Online training is our MO — and while our focus this past decade has been around “workouts”, I’m excited to see us broaden the Online Training category to include two more key components that’s sure to boost engagement from clients — Daily habits and Nutrition Coaching!
At Trainerize, we call this a 360° approach to health and wellness: fitness, nutrition, and habits.
In 2008, we began to define a new category: online personal training. And now we’re creating another all-new category: online nutrition coaching, via your trainer.
COACHING FOR DAILY HABITS
We believe this approach is the future — that’s why we rolled out habit coaching in 2019 — a key step towards building a true 360° approach to fitness coaching.
Let’s look back at November 2020, when habit coaching was still a “new” feature:
“Habit Coaching…was actually born out of this interest in sustainable, lifelong nutrition coaching. Habits fit into the fitness component too — really, as an evolution of personal training. Building the habits piece into each user’s personal routine builds this 360° approach to health and wellness — an overlapping venn diagram.”
“I’m seeing such a tight integration between habits and fitness and nutrition, each one feeding into the other, building healthier lifestyles. These three components are what make up Trainerize today — a powerful trifecta that offers one seamless integrated experience.”
Actions taken through habit coaching, like water intake or daily steps, may seem small — but they can have big results. In fact, these were two of the most popular habits tackled by Trainerize users in 2021. The others? Bedtime routine and protein intake, which leads us to the third component of a 360° approach to fitness.
PIVOTING TO A NEW ERA OF NUTRITION
The third component is nutrition — and it’s a huge one. When we look at our data, 66% of goals adopted in January 2021 were nutrition-related.
Food is such a massive part of the fitness equation — to ignore it completely is just not an option. And like habits, nutrition coaching can be an accessible entrypoint into a healthier lifestyle. Just tracking your meals through Trainerize partner MyFitnessPal can be an effective first step — and with an estimated 19 million monthly users, clearly the concept is resonating.
The way nutrition has been viewed is that you need a nutritionist or a dietician. People always look at it as meal plans and macro counting. What we see with our users is that people are gravitating towards behavioural changes. Coaches can influence their clients decisions — and they don’t necessarily need to build meal plans. Instead, they can coach you on your choices.
We’re creating a new category in the world of personal trainers where we invite trainers to become part of their clients’ nutritional journeys and improve relationships with food.
I see this health and wellness trifecta — fitness, nutrition, and habits — as the future of the fitness industry.
A 360° FUTURE
Want to learn more? We’re hosting our next Trainerize Collective event on December 15!
This type of full-circle, multi-faceted, lifestyle-focused coaching is revolutionizing the role of the personal trainer — and it’s not stopping there.
It’s also a logical next step for the digital fitness ecosystem. We’re all increasingly integrating tech into our lifestyles. This level of integration is relevant to app users who are familiar with concepts like streaks and regular push notifications. Anyone who manages their schedule on their iPhone calendar or practices a language on Duolingo is in tune with this type of communication — and knows how well it works.
We were the first to build tools for online personal trainers over a decade ago, and we’re the first building the new wave of online nutrition coaching, too. We’re building a full-circle of coaching — and I see nutrition as the next vertical we’re going deep on. We’re approaching fitness, nutrition, and habits with online coaching — influencing behavioural changes and healthier decisions for decades to come.
