How Semi-Private Pro Solves all the Programming Challenges for the Owner, the Coach and the Client

Written by Emily Beers

In 2010, Tim Lyons turned his training facility—Legacy Personal Training in Scottsdale, Arizona—into a semi-private training gym.

Clients trained in small groups—at the time, four clients to one coach—each of whom had a clipboard with their training session for the day.

For Tim, writing programs was time-consuming, and the delivery on the floor was chaotic, and anything but streamlined.

Tim and his fitness director Zach Columbia knew they could do better: They could do a better job giving their coaches the tools to provide a higher level of service, and they could do a better job giving the client a better on-floor experience.

In order to do this, though, they knew they needed a more sophisticated system, so they began looking into various programming apps on the market.

There were lots of good options; however, most of the apps available were useful for remote coaching or individual design, but not so much for semi-private training. In fact there was nothing out there that met their needs.

So they took matters into their own hands and decided to create their own app.

The result: Semi-Private Pro, a programming app designed to help solve problems for semi-private training facilities.

Specifically, the challenges they sought to solve were:

1. The Coach Problem

Lyons and Columbia wanted to get coaches' heads out of client's clipboards, so sessions could run more smoothly and coaches could focus on higher level coaching.

2. The Client Experience Problem

Second, they wanted to improve the overall client experience, so clients felt like they were really getting programming designed specifically for their unique needs, and were getting the value they were paying for.

3. A Lack of Consistency

Thirdly, Tim and Zach knew they needed more consistency across the board, so clients could train with any coach and receive the same service, the same experience regardless of the session and the coach.

4. Way too Time Consuming

Finally, they needed to find a way to reduce the amount of time they (and other coaches) spent on programming, so they could spend more time working on growing the business.

The Semi-Private Pro Solution

1. Improved Coaching

Here's how the app works for the coach:

Prior to a coaching session, coaches can view the schedule in the app and see who is coming in, and they can also view each person's individualized program.

Each training station at the gym has a tablet, and prior to the client arriving, the coach can pull up the individual's program and press start so it's all ready for them when they get there.

That being said, the coach also has the ability to make any changes to each person's program if the coach knows, for example, the client is currently experiencing shoulder pain and needs an alternative movement. If they do make a change, the app updates the client's workout in real time.

In this sense, coaches do not become robots just because the app does a lot of the programming work for them. Instead, Semi-Private Pro allows them to be more organized and efficient both before the session starts, and during the session, should they need to make changes to a client's program on the fly.

2. Enhanced Client Experience

Clients show up to the gym and head to their training station and immediately see their individualized workout with their name on it on their tablet.

This helps the client feel like they're receiving individualized care, all the while knowing there's always a coach in their corner to help them out, as well as countless movement videos in the app.

Further, because coaches can see, for example, what the client did last week and when they hit a new personal record, the coach has way more knowledge of where each client is at, ultimately helping deliver an even better experience to the client.

3. Increased Consistency

Semi-Private Pro is a game changer for providing a consistent client experience across the board.

Here's how it works:

Inside the app, there are 50 different movements patterns, such as squat, hinge, vertical press, vertical pull, core rotation etc. Within each of these movement patterns are specific exercises that fall under those movement pattern categories.

For example, the squat pattern might include squat to a box, goblet squat, back squat, front squat etc.

Note: A gym owner can add or remove movements and movement patterns inside the Movement Matrix in the app, depending on their training philosophies and client's needs.

When a new client comes in, they essentially go through an assessment phase, where they are given scores between -3 and + 3 on each of the movement patterns.

And then, once the master program is entered into the app, the app then assigns specific movements to each client depending on their movement assessment scores (But again, a coach can step in an progress or regress a movement as needed).

In this sense, Semi-Private Pro means coaches are all finally all on the same page, as the app streamlines the process and ensures consistency in programming.

4. Time-Saving

With Semi-Private Pro, gone are the days where gym owners or coaches find themselves drowning in spreadsheets, building programs manually for 100-plus clients.

Ayn Toppin, for example, the owner of Guide Personal Training in Northampton, Massachusetts, said for 10 years, she used to wake up every morning at 4:30 a.m. to write and update her 90-plus clients' programs, spending two to three hours a day on programming. With Semi-Private Pro, she has been able to contract the programming out to one of her coaches, and she spends "zero time" on it.

Similarly, Scott Wilson and Matt Thoma—the owners of Results by Design Fitness in Louisville, Kentucky—used to spend 10 to 15 hours each inefficiently writing individualized paper written programs for their gym's 120 clients. Today, with Semi-Private Pro, their gym's director handles the workload and spends about 15 minutes a week only on writing the master program. And the app does the rest.

Needless to say, neither Tim or Zach need to spend time or energy on programming for their clients at Legacy Personal Training anymore, and they know their coaches are all on the same page delivering the best service possible to their clients.

Final Thoughts

For years, Tim and Zach were in the trenches, living the programming challenges.

So when they built Semi-Private Pro, they knew exactly what they, and other semi-private training facilities, needed to solve their problems.

As a result, Semi-Private Pro saves the gym owner a ton of time and stress, it's easily scalable to the coach, and ultimately it gives the client the best experience possible.