Consultation
CONSULTATION PROCESS
The Consultation is where we both invest upfront time and effort in order to maximise the benefits you will gain through training. By guiding you through the process here I am hoping to remove any concerns you may have but, if you still have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.
The process divides in to four key inputs and two essential outputs.
INPUTS
PAR-Q
You will be required to complete a brief Health and Fitness Questionnaire (most often referred to as a PAR-Q) designed to assess your readiness to undertake a planned, supervised, program of exercise. In addition to being a legal, professional and ethical requirement, this helps to inform the design and planning of the program while ensuring that any potential risks are uncovered so that the best way of mitigating them can be agreed. As an extreme example to illustrate the need for this you wouldn’t want to be doing weighted squats just after undergoing knee surgery!
Informed Consent Form
It is a requirement that I must obtain Informed Consent prior to involving you in any testing procedure or your participation in a gym-based exercise programme. To this end I will explain all procedures involved in testing and what you can expect from a planned session. Once you are comfortable that you fully understand this we can proceed, with your written consent.Goals & Lifestyle
Once you have consented to do so we will discuss your lifestyle and what you want to achieve. This serves to provide not just your goals but also a context to set them within. We can also explore the type of exercises you do and don’t like to try and make the process more enjoyable for you.Goals should be SMART; Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timebound. When agreeing goals, it is important that they are realistic and achievable in a safe and controlled manner. Again, this is where understanding your lifestyle will help through understanding the time you have available to work towards your goals.
Assessment
he next step is to undertake a physical assessment. All assessments include some basics; height, weight, resting heart rate, blood pressure etc. the others will be dependent upon, and relevant to, your long-term objectives and will provide a baseline against which progress can be measured and rom which interim targets can be set.
OUTPUTS
Documented Goals
Having reviewed the baseline data and agreed long-term goals we will document these along with short-term and intermediate goals that will act as checkpoints along the way to ensure we remain on course. As with the long-term goals; these will be SMART and subject to regular review.
Training Program
Once all the cornerstones are in place a fully tailored program will be designed with the initial program typically lasting between two and four weeks before updates are required. This will depend upon the speed with which you adapt to the program which will depend in turn upon both your starting point and the regularity with which you complete it.