what's up guys this is Jeff from sword'
healthy and today we're talking all
about fitness assessments or personal
trainer assessments or personal trainer
report cards that last one was kind of a
joke but honestly guys that go by many
different names the assessment that
we'll be going over today is meant to be
used by personal trainers with their
clients I happen to think my assessment
is pretty good at showing clients that
they're making positive changes over
time and I think it really helps to keep
them motivated and if you're a personal
trainer who's not doing assessments well
you're probably not doing as good of a
job as you could be doing realistically
without regular assessments there won't
be any way for you to actively monitor
your clients results in progress
so yeah if you're a trainer and you're
not doing them start if you're a client
and your trainer isn't doing them with
you probably find a new trainer so my
first assessment with a client is always
my second appointment with that client
the consultation always comes first of
course you do have to sign that client
on and a link to my video on how to do a
personal training consultation is up
above unlike my consultation which is
complementary or free clients actually
do have to pay for their assessments but
you know it really is complimentary
smashing the like button in subscribing
it's complimentary to my channel it's
complementary to the YouTube algorithm
and it's just a good thing to do overall
yeah anyways the first thing I do when I
have a client coming in for an
assessment is I fill out the top portion
of my assessment chart on this chart
what you're seeing now we've got name
date DOB or date of birth gender
assessment number or how many
assessments they've done and the
administrator or the person who is doing
the assessment I have all of these
things filled out before my client
arrives because be prepared duh also if
you want my assessment sheet it is
included down in the video description
you're welcome now we're taking a quick
glance at my full assessment sheet as I
go through this assessment with my
client I will make sure to write down
any information I get in the appropriate
sections typically I just print these
papers off and write everything down in
pencil but my handwriting is bad so I'm
gonna type everything in so you can see
what a finished product will look like
at the end I will complete one of these
assessments every six to eight weeks
with my client so after my client walks
through the door
I've greeted them and we've moved on to
the actual assessment first thing I do
is I get their height and their
wait use whatever methods you have at
your disposal to get these two pieces of
information after that we move on to
body fat measurements unless you're in
some crazy futuristic facility there's
one of two different ways that you're
gonna do this
the first is bioelectrical impedance
yeah you know those little handheld
devices or those scales that you stand
on or any combination of those things
yeah those devices are using
bioelectrical impedance essentially what
these devices do is they send an
electrical current through your body and
because muscle has more water in it than
fat mass does the electrical current
flows better through muscle tissue water
than it does through fat so the machine
uses this information to determine or
estimate how much fat mass you have the
issue with this is that results can vary
quite a bit
based on how hydrated you are if I'm not
that well hydrated I'm gonna come up
fatter than I am if I'm super well
hydrated I might come up leaner than I
actually am if I'm doing this test early
in the morning I'm probably gonna get a
pretty different reading than if I did
it late at night so yeah they're quick
easy and efficient but they're not the
most accurate tools ever still if you're
a personal trainer and your client is
going to be coming in at roughly the
same time every week it's not the worst
option ever the other option is skin
fold or fat calipers when it comes to
skin fold you have the three fold and
the seven fold options both available if
your tester is good at skin fold which
admittedly takes a pretty good amount of
practice this is likely to be a little
bit more accurate than bioelectrical
impedance and I'm not going to explain
how to do skinfold measurements because
that would be a video in its own right
but in my personal training studio I do
use skin fold and I do use the seven
fold method so if you guys want to learn
about skin fold at some point in the
future maybe we can make that video
later next up we get circumference
measurements and honestly guys
these ones are super important basically
we're just measuring around different
parts of the body we get measurements of
the center of the neck the shoulders the
upper chest under the armpits the waist
or just above the belly button and if
you can't find their belly button just
have your client point to their belly
button and just measure a little bit
above that and then we also measure
around the hips or the widest part
around there but when we measure the
midway point of the
forearm and the thigh on both the right
and left sides of the body
you should probably measure a midway
down each arm in leg to make sure that
you're getting your circumference
measurements as close as possible to the
true middle of each limb but yeah simple
and rudimentary as this is in a lot of
ways this is the most important part of
the assessment when I redo this portion
of the assessment in six to eight weeks
if I've done my job as a trainer well
and if my client has listened to me I
should see some impressive results here
sometimes the scale can be a real but
those circumference measurements can
look really good up next we do a posture
analysis in this picture you'll see four
different postures no one really fits
perfectly into any one of these groups
but pick the one that best corresponds
with your client you'll pretty commonly
see Chi photic or that rounding forward
posture or sway back postures and
helping your client deal with this
should be a priority this will most
definitely affect your exercise
selection in programming if I have a
client who is overly kyuk you bet your
life I'm going to be doing a lot of
different pulling exercises to
strengthen their back and help to pull
them out of that chi photic position I
write down any other things that I
notice on the right hand side of the
paper like say if I notice that there
are some big differences between the
left and the right side someone's
swaying to one side more than the other
in the next portion of the assessment I
move on to a movement screen if I'm
working with a client one on one I use
the FMS or functional movement screen
the FMS is comprised of seven different
movements the FMS is widely regarded as
one of the if not the best movement
screens in personal training and it's
easy to see why with the sheer amount of
research that has gone into it but yeah
if you're a personal trainer and you do
one-on-one training I highly recommend
that you look into FMS or the functional
movement screen it's very comprehensive
and very good when it comes to finding
different imbalances throughout the body
if I'm working with multiple clients
though I don't use the FMS I will
whoeverís has clients range of motion
and movement patterns in the workouts
themselves things like shoulder mobility
hip mobility and someone's ability to
squat these are all things that you
should just be going over with every
single client regardless the FMS however
can be pretty time-consuming and doing
that with multiple clients while you're
trying to do all of these other
different assessment activities
yeah it's not really feasible next up in
the assessment we have my favorite part
the physical tests that sounds like
super clinical and yeah I mean it kind
of is to be honest so we kicked this
section off with a three minute step
test why you do this test is a twelve
inch step in a cell phone your client
has to step up and down on this 12 inch
step for three minutes matching the pace
of the metronome I will link to the
video that I use from my metronome down
below after stepping for three minutes I
wait five seconds to take my client's
pulse for 30 seconds I then multiply
this number by two to get their score
for this test alright guys so next up in
the assessment we either have the
one-minute maximal airdyne test or we
have the maximal wall suit test
basically I pick whichever test I think
is a better fit for my client if someone
is more physically capable they get the
one-minute maximal airdyne test if I'm
not comfortable with someone doing that
test for an orthopedic reason or just
for any reason more than likely they're
gonna get the wall suit test if I'm not
comfortable with the client doing any of
these physical tests simply they don't
do them I just cross that test off the
assessment as great as all these tests
are they're definitely not worth an
injury next up I'll be showing you guys
the 60 second airdyne sprint basically
all you have to do is go as fast as you
can for 60 seconds on the air dine and
then calculate how many calories you
burn honestly guys I'm cringing about
this one a little bit just thinking
about it it's a really hard test and if
you don't have access to an Aerodyne
bike that's okay you don't have to do it
I just like it as an overall test that
makes its power and endurance together
as you might imagine many clients will
see their numbers improve dramatically
on this test if they are diligently
working to improve their strength and
endurance so if I have a client who I'm
not comfortable with doing a submaximal
sprinting type test like the air dime
test I'm gonna have them do a maximal
wall sit test and that is pretty much
exactly what it sounds like
basically I line you up against a wall I
put your knee at a 90 degree angle and
then you're in a wall sit for as long as
you can go for after this test and your
clients probably gonna need just a
little bit of a break after this test we
move on to push-ups the goal here is to
have the client do as many pushups as
they can without stopping or breaking
form men do full push-ups and women do
kneeling push-ups this is simple and
effect
if someone is really far more interested
in building strength than anything else
oftentimes I will actually substitute
this push-up test for a maximal
benchpress test the last physical test
on my assessment is a plank off of the
elbows and forearms how long can you
hold it for and you have to do with
proper form no cheating if someone gets
advanced enough I'll take this test out
and put in a more challenging substitute
for 99% of my clients though the
standard plank off of the elbows and
forearms works well okay so I filled out
my packet I have all the information
that I need and if I have any left over
time I'm gonna take my client through
some extra exercises or stretches that I
think will benefit them just to maximize
my time and give them as much value as
possible
I want these assessments to essentially
feel like sessions where they're coming
away with some cool information about
their progress and how awesome they've
been doing if they're doing a really
good job with their diet their exercise
and everything else this assessment is
gonna look really good and it's gonna be
a lot of positive reinforcement if
something's not really clicking and
they're not getting the results they're
after it's good for us to know about it
so we can make some changes if you use
my methods here your clients will
actually look forward to doing these
assessments and getting their results
very few clients will actually fight you
on doing assessments if you do them this
way and that's because you're cramming a
ton of value into a 45-minute session
all of my sessions after the initial
consultation are 45 minutes long by the
way before my client comes in for their
next appointment I fill out what I like
to call an assessment analysis so now
we're going over the assessment analysis
I have my body fat percentage here
typically I use linear software.com to
calculate this and you can kind of see
the percentage down here twenty one
point six eight so the circumference
measurement changes since last
assessment obviously this is my clients
first assessment so there are no changes
since the last assessment so there's n/a
for all of these different categories
here when I move down to the posture
analysis B was the one that was closest
to my client so I circled that one as
you can see my client had a rounded
upper back a little bit of a forward
head and her right foot was turned out a
bit so these are all just notes for me
to take down I'm always trying to
compare the
right to the left side so I'm always
looking for the differences between the
two and of course I'll be selecting
exercises to potentially help out with
this rounded upper back and possibly the
right turned out foot as well moving on
to the next page and the physical tests
my client is 29 years old so she goes in
this category and on the three minute
step test she got 110 so she's already
above average here what I would want to
do with this client is try and get her
up into this good range in six to eight
weeks by the time we redo this test
again so that's just a good short-term
goal for us to set one that will help
possibly motivate her a little bit more
to do extra cardio and things like that
next up we have push-ups my client did
22 and again she's 29 so she goes in
this category right now she's an average
range which is a pretty good place to
start out in six to eight weeks I'd like
to see if we can get her up into this
good range so of course I'm gonna let
her know that that's a pretty big jump
but I've seen it happen before
for the max plank hold she did 74
seconds so she'd be somewhere in this
intermediate range for right now and I
definitely think in six to eight weeks
we should be able to get her into this
advanced range of course my goal is to
eventually get her into these even
higher categories further on down the
road
on the third assessment page here we
have the airdyne and she's already in
good range there so that's awesome
I definitely think it would be possible
for us to get her into this excellent
category for next time she's already
pretty far ahead of the curve on that
one we didn't do the wall sit because
typically I'm just gonna have a client
do one or the other
the airdyne or the wall sit on the FMS
she scored really high actually much
higher than most people do of course
there is still some work to do here
some correcting of different movement
patterns she has a little bit of an
asymmetry between her right and left
side here yeah overall this is actually
a really good assessment and this will
allow me and my client to both set some
short-term and some long-term goals
based on the results here before my
clients next session I will either set
some time before the session to go over
this packet with them or I'll set just a
few minutes aside after her session to
do that again the whole reason that you
do an assessment like this is so that
you can do some good goal-setting
afterwards and yeah I'm gonna give this
packet to her to keep and you know it's
kind of pretty it looks good
and it's gonna help keep her motivated
at the end of the day if she's more
motivated she's gonna get better results
and really that is the most important
thing so yeah guys that's how I do a
fitness assessment as a personal trainer
if you liked the video or found it
useful please don't forget to Like and
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to grow the channel are you a trainer
and have you used my assessment or maybe
a totally different assessment comment
down below let me know what you do
because I'm curious to see what other
trainers are doing out there as always
thanks for watching stay tuned because
I'll be back very soon