Assessing client condition: How gym sessions should begin

Hi all,

Just a quick one here while i'm in between sessions.

Recently i have been noticing a drop in performance in some of my clients, due to a number of different factors:

- work stress

- lack of sleep

- partying too much

- in need a holiday

The list goes on...

Read people as they walk into the gym

How do i know this? 

I spend the first 3-5 minutes of every session chatting to them as they go through a light CV build up. For the most part i try to get everyone to complete 700-1000m on the concept 2 @ 60-70% effort. For my low-level guys/girls its the X-trainer.

Whether you agree in 3-5 minutes steady state exercise to start sessions or not, it allows me to assess the physical and mental condition my client is in before i continue with the day's training plan. If i see/hear something that is off, i immediately change/adjust the session accordingly.

How can you adjust?

- Prolonged warm up.

I have had sessions start with mobility and stay right there on the warm up mat for an hour. Sometimes you just need to lay off your clients when they are not feeling great.

Usually my sessions involve a group of flexible cheerleaders

- Use alternative exercises.

Last week i had a 1000m trial row scheduled in for my client JD. He said to me early that he wasn't feeling too good before we started the session, so i changed the finisher to maximum set of inverted rows and max push ups. Still challenging but a lot less likey to make him throw up!

- Re-schedule the session

Hopefully, your clients are gonna be with you for the long haul and you should care about their day-to-day health enough to call it off when its not right. Just today (friday), My client SL text me 'can we do earlier, im so tired... i can drag myself there now but not later' i replied 'see you monday'.

Hopefully, she knows i have her best interests at heart.

How do you start your sessions? I seen someone open up their session with a heavy set of bench press this week, classic :)