Plan the Training Around the Client's Year

Imagine a personal trainer named Pippa Lorimer who trains clients in their city homes, and by video when they are away. In March, Mr. Achterberg hires her for Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at seven, at $2,200 a month. He sold his company last year. He and his wife spend each summer at their house on the coast, four hours north.

In June, at the end of a session, he says that they leave on the 20th. They come back at the end of August. Pippa has a client at eight across town. “Lovely, enjoy it!” she says. “We’ll stop the month while you’re away, and I’ll see you in September.” She gives his three mornings to a new client for the summer.

At the coast, Mr. Achterberg does no training for the first three weeks. In July, a neighbor gives him the name of a trainer who comes to the house, and he books her. In September, the trainer from the coast offers to keep training him by video through the winter. He says yes, and he tells Pippa that he will not need her mornings.

Suppose instead that Pippa asks one more question on the first call in March. “Where will you be over the next year?” Mr. Achterberg mentions the coast from late June to the end of August. He also mentions 10 days in Japan in October.

“Then here’s how it works,” Pippa says. “Your month carries on while you’re away. At the coast, we keep Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at seven, by video, and I’ll write a plan for whatever you have there. For Japan, I’ll write a plan for hotel gyms. If you’d like me at the coast for a week, that’s $4,500, with my travel, a room in town, and my meals in it.” Mr. Achterberg asks what he should buy for the coast house. Pippa sends him a list that week.

All summer, he trains by video three mornings a week, on a mat in his garage. In August, he books Pippa for a week at the coast. One morning, a neighbor sees them working on the beach and asks who she is. “My trainer,” Mr. Achterberg says. “She comes with me, one way or another.” The neighbor spends her winters in the city too, and she calls Pippa in September.

Pippa’s sessions were just as good both times. In the first version, the summer was a break from the training. So the training stopped, and a trainer at the coast took Pippa’s place. In the second version, Pippa said on the first call how her work goes on while Mr. Achterberg is away. The summer was part of what he bought, and the week she came had its own price.

So decide how your work goes on while a client is away, and tell them before the first trip. A date the client trains for, such as a wedding, needs the same planning, through the weeks after it. Here is why, and what five trainers found.

When the training stops for a trip, the client may start again with someone else

Here is the course’s view of why the weeks away matter. Trips and stays at another home are among the parts of a wealthy client’s year. They can take the client away for weeks. A trainer whose work stops in those weeks leaves the client two choices. They can stop training, or they can find a trainer where they are.

Neither choice keeps the client with you. A wealthy fitness client is paying to become someone who keeps training. Two months off undo part of what they paid for. A trainer near the other house can give them what you stopped giving. Then they may keep that trainer.

The time to say what happens is the first call, not the week the client leaves. Said on the first call, the weeks away are part of what the client buys, as much as the mornings at home. Said in a hurry in June, the same plan sounds like a favor, or like a pause. The month carries on until the client chooses to stop, and the weeks away are inside it.

A Los Angeles trainer to actors fit his week around theirs, and named the cost

Dan Isaacson is a personal trainer in Los Angeles who began training famous clients in 1980. They include John Travolta and Tom Hanks. In 2006, he told April Durrett of IDEA Health & Fitness Association how he works with them. “Actors want options because they have limited availability,” he said. “If they think they’ll have to fight with you about when you can see them, they’ll go to another trainer.”

“I’ve been adjusting to clients’ schedules for almost 20 years!” he said. “That’s the name of the game when training actors.” He also named the cost. “You may end up missing revenue you could have received from booking another client in the actor’s time slot if he cancels or reschedules.”

Isaacson’s actors had little time and plenty of trainers to choose from, so he fit the training to their weeks. A wealthy client with a second home and a trip each season has the same choice of trainers. The cost Isaacson named is real, and the month covers it. The client pays for their times whether they train at home or by video. So a week away does not leave you with an unpaid hour.

A Paris trainer plans each trip with the client, and does not make them feel guilty

In 2005, IDEA Health & Fitness Association asked trainers how they help clients who travel. Fred Hoffman, a fitness consultant in Paris, was one of them. Most of his clients travel for work, he wrote. Others take frequent vacations, and some “have secondary residences where they might stay for an extended period of time.”

Before a trip, Hoffman gathers five pieces of information. How long will the client be away, and where are they going? Is the trip for work or pleasure? Will they stay in one place, and will it be a hotel or a home of their own? “From there we discuss the different scenarios that are possible and jointly make some decisions,” he wrote.

Some clients want a trainer while they are away. For them, Hoffman sets up sessions with a colleague where they are going, or makes the first contact. He gives the client a copy of their program to show the other trainer.

He also keeps one rule for himself. “What I don’t do is make them feel guilty for not working out or training when they are away,” he wrote. A trip brings the unexpected, and for some clients a vacation is a good time for a break. He often sees “increased motivation” when his clients start back.

Hoffman plans each trip from the client’s answers, the way you plan the next job from what a client told you. The client decides what the training looks like while they are away. Hoffman makes it easy for them to keep to it.

A London trainer sends the program ahead, and gives travel with a client its own price

Jon Denoris runs Catalyst Health & Fitness, a personal training firm in London. He answered the same question for IDEA in 2005. His clients are mostly “busy executives from the worlds of business and entertainment,” he wrote, and travel “plays a big part in their schedules.”

Many of those clients travel to Los Angeles and New York, so his firm has links with trainers in both cities. It emails the client’s program to the trainer ahead of time. “The client feels secure in the knowledge that he is not going into a session ‘cold’ with an unfamiliar trainer,” he wrote.

His firm also offers a travel service. A client can hire one of its trainers for a week, a month, or three months. “It is a relatively expensive service, however, as we have to factor accommodation and meals into our prices,” he wrote.

For Denoris, going with a client is a service of its own, and the trainer’s room and meals are in its price. Pippa priced her week at the coast the same way. A client who asks for a week with you at their other home hears the price before the work starts.

A San Diego trainer plans brides to the wedding, and for the weeks after it

Jessica Thomas runs Fit 2 Wed in San Diego, which trains brides for their weddings. Her brides work out in groups, boot camp style, and each one meets Thomas alone to be measured and to set goals. In 2010, she told Durrett about her 12-week program, with at least three workouts a week.

Durrett summed up what Thomas sees after the wedding. Brides can be “so focused on the big day that they come back after the honeymoon 5 pounds heavier and with slight postwedding blues.” In Thomas’s words, “They have worked so hard getting in shape and planning for this one day, and then it is over. You can prepare them ahead of time for this and help them get back into their healthy routines when they return.”

Some of her brides keep going. “Brides have tied the knot and continue to stay in my groups for maintenance,” she said.

The same article notes that a date gives a client a specific reason to work out. It also gives the training an end date. Thomas’s advice is to prepare the client for the weeks after the date before it comes. So a client training for a wedding, a race, or a trek needs two plans. One gets them to the day, and one covers the weeks after it.

Why planning only to the day of the trek goes wrong

Imagine a strength coach named Odile Brannock who trains clients one at a time in her private studio. In January, Mr. Sefton, who is 63, books her twice a week. In late April, he will walk to Everest base camp with his son, 12 days up and back. Odile writes a 14-week plan, and its last session is the Friday before he flies.

At that session, Odile has a client waiting. “You’re ready,” she says. “Have a wonderful trip, and send me a photo from base camp!” Nothing is booked for after the trek.

Mr. Sefton comes home in May with a sore knee and no plan. He means to call Odile, and he does not. In June, a friend asks him about her. “She got me up the mountain,” he says. “I haven’t trained since.” The friend asks someone else.

Odile’s plan got Mr. Sefton to the trek fit and strong. Her mistake was ending the plan on the day his reason to train ended. He came home tired and sore, with no next session and nothing planned for the weeks after.

The version that works plans past the date, before the date. In March, Odile says, “Let’s book the Tuesday after you’re home, an easy hour to see how your knees feel. Then we’ll take three weeks to build you back to where you are now.” Mr. Sefton books the Tuesday. When he comes in with a sore knee, they work around it, and he is still training in the autumn.

Planning around one client’s year does not hand them your week

A trainer may worry that fitting one client’s trips into the work will take over your week. Going with a client to their other home also leaves your other clients without you.

Vicki Van Hoosen trained actors in Hollywood for nine years before she moved home to Fresno, California. Durrett’s 2006 article described her travels with them. “I also was flown via private jet to places like London and Paris and got to experience them in style!” she said. Traveling with famous clients can mean putting off regular clients, Durrett wrote, “and that can anger them.”

Van Hoosen said that was true for her “until I hired some other trainers to train my regular clients when I was away.” In her words, “Then they were happy with this arrangement.”

So a week away with one client is booked like any other job, with cover arranged for your other clients. It has its own price, as Denoris’s travel service does. The rest of the planning takes little extra time. A session by video takes the same hour as a session in the client’s home.

How to plan the training around a client’s year

1. On the first call with a new client, ask where they will be over the next year. Ask about other homes, regular trips, and any date they are training for. Write the dates on the page you keep on the client. For example, a massage therapist can ask, “Where will you be over the next year? I’d like to plan your sessions around it.”
2. Decide what your work does while a client is away. Say it on the first call, as part of how you work. For a client who already trains with you, keep the part they would miss most, such as their set times. For example, a yoga teacher can say, “When you’re in Palm Beach for the winter, we keep your Tuesday and Friday practice by video. Your month stays the same.”
3. Before each trip, find out how long the client will be away and where they will stay. Ask what equipment they will have there. Plan the weeks away from the answers, as Hoffman does. When they come back, give the next step, and say nothing that makes them feel guilty about the weeks away. For example, a boxing coach can say, “Welcome back. Let’s do an easy session on Monday and build from there.”
4. Give a week with you at the client’s other home, or on a trip, its own price. Put your travel, your room, and your meals in it, as Denoris does, and say the price before you book anything. For example, a golf fitness coach can say, “A week with you in Scotland is $5,000, with my flights, my room, and my meals in it.”
5. When the client will be near a trainer you trust, ask the client for permission to send their program ahead. Then send it before they arrive, and introduce the two of them. For example, a trainer can write to a colleague, “Mr. Hale arrives in Naples on January 6. His program is attached. He would like Tuesday and Thursday mornings.”
6. When a client trains for a date, plan through the weeks after it. Book the first session after the date before the date comes. That is the course’s suggestion, because a client who comes home tired may not call to book. For example, a running coach whose client runs a marathon in April can say, “Let’s book an easy run together for the Wednesday after the race. Then we’ll build back over three weeks.”
7. Before you go away with one client, arrange who sees your other clients that week, and tell them the dates. For example, a trainer with a private studio can say, “I’m away the week of August 4. Sam will take your Tuesday session, and he has your plan.”

Next: You will see why some trainers have a waiting list in a city full of trainers.