Personal Trainer Client Messaging in iOS and Android Apps

This past week we released updates to our iOS App and Android App that include the ability for Personal Trainers and their clients to send messages to each other. This Personal Trainer Client Messaging allows personal trainers to stay connected with their client to keep them engaged, on-track, and motivated. It also helps trainers stay organized and keep all of their business messaging in the app so that it doesn’t get lost in personal messages. For clients, the in App messaging also helps keep them focused and organized with their messages from their personal trainer being in the same platform as all their other fitness information.

Use Messaging on Web, iOS or Android

Personal Trainers and clients can use FitSW messaging to communicate no matter what platform they are on: the website, iOS, or Android all work even if the client and trainer are on different platforms. Below is how it looks and works on both iOS and Android.

Accessing Personal Training Client Messaging in Mobile Apps

The in-app Personal Training Client Messaging can be Accessed from the sidebar menu on android and the “More” button on iOS. If there are new messages for the client or trainer, the menu item will have a badge with the number of new messages as seen below.

Personal Trainer Client Messaging in iOS and Android Apps Messages Menu — The Messages item is in the More tab on iOS and the sidebar for Android. Above you can see there are 2 new messages as shown by the badge.

Personal Trainer Clients Messages Screen

Tap on the Messages menu item and the app will take trainers to a page that lists their clients. Here the trainer can see how many new messages are from which client. Underneath the clients name, they will also see the most recent message sent or received.

Personal Trainer Client Messaging in iOS and Android Apps Client LIst — This screen shows all the trainers clients, and the most recent message sent or received. The red square next to AC Slater show that there are two new messages from AC.

Messages Chat Screen

Click on a specific client. The app will take you to the Messages chat screen for that client. Here you can read all your messages and send new messages. Scroll up to read the older messages.

Personal Trainer Client Messaging in iOS and Android Apps Chat Screen — The messages chat screen shows all your messages and allows you to send new messages.

Personal Training clients will have access to a similar screen to type and receive messages to their trainers. All of these messages are accessible on any platform: the website, iOS or Android. The above images are for iOS but the Android platform looks very similar.

PAR-Q Android App – Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire

We have release several new features on our Android app recently, but one we wanted to discuss today was the PAR-Q Android app feature. Trainers and clients can both access the PAR-Q Screen from their tablet or phone. This allows Personal Trainers to either:

Have clients fill out the PAR-Q from the clients own device on their own time.
Fill out the PAR-Q on the trainers own device with their client.

This flexibility lets personal trainers and their clients complete the PAR-Q the way that works best for them. The PAR-Q Android App feature works just like the PAR-Q iOS App.

PAR-Q Android App Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire Access Menu — Access the PAR-Q Android App feature from the sidebar menu.

Saving the PAR-Q Data

As the personal trainer or client goes through the PAR-Q screen in the Android App, the information they enter is automatically saved. The trainer or client can then access this PAR-Q information at any time. The FitSW App saves all this information and helps trainers stay organized without having to carry around numerous hard copy PAR-Qs. Every thing is safely online, accessible from the trainer’s phone or computer.

PAR-Q Android App Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire Fill Out Form — The PAR-Q screen includes the standard PAR-Q questions, general client info, and General & Medical Questions.

Printing or Saving the PAR-Q to PDF

Trainers can access the PAR-Q information that was completed on a phone or tablet cat anytime from the FitSW.com website. From there, the trainer can print out or save to a pdf. The trainer just needs to click on the particular client in their client list. Next, they click on online PAR-Q for that client. The personal trainer can print this PAR-Q information in a nice looking format or save it to PDF. For more information on how to do this, check out our post on creating and accessing the PAR-Q online from FitSW.com.

Easily Share Personal Training Client Progress in iOS & Android Apps

FitSW is awesome at tracking progress with progress graphs, progress photos and before-and-after images. Now we have made it easy to quickly share personal training client progress on social media using our iOS and Android apps (the website already did this as outlined here for graphs and here for photos). You can share it on any social media platform you prefer at the click of a button. There are three beneficial reasons to share client progress on social media (after you have made sure your clients are ok with it of course):

Recognize your client for their hard work. A lot of clients like to have their friends see how far they have come in their fitness journey. Having their trainer highlight this on social media can be both motivating and rewarding.
Expose you to more people in your clients network. What better way for potential clients to see how great of trainer you are than for them to see how you have helped their friend / acquaintance.
Show your social media followers what you can help people accomplish and the types of people you work with.

Sharing Progress Photos and Comparison Images

Sharing Progress Photos and comparison images is now as simple as clicking a button in your iOS or Android app. First go to your Comparison Images and choose the image you would like to share.

Easily Share Personal Training client Progress Comparison Image — To share a comparison image, click the Share button in the upper right.

After clicking the “Share” button in the upper right, you will see the below screen that will allow you to choose which Social Media platforms to share the image on.

Easily Share Personal Training client Progress Comparison Share — You can choose which social media platforms that you would like to share the image on.

Sharing Progress Graphs

You can also Share Personal Training Client Progress Graphs in a similar way.

Sharing Progress Photos and Progress Graphs — Tap the “Share Progress” button in the upper right of the Progress Graph that you would like to share.

After tapping the Share Progress button, you will see the following screen where you can select which social media platform to share on.

Sharing Progress Photos and Progress Share — Personal Trainers and clients can choose from a variety of social media platforms to share on.

Uploading Personal Trainer Forms Like PARQ and Contracts

In our web application at fitsw.com, we have now added the ability for uploading personal trainer forms in addition to the Personal Training Contract form. Previously, we allowed trainers to upload filled out Personal Training Contracts for each client. Trainers can save these online and access from anywhere. We also allow Personal Trainers to save Online PAR-Q data on our website. We have now given you another field where you can upload your own personalized PAR-Q form or any other type of form you would like. I have highlighted this field in red in the image below.

New File Upload Field Form / File Types

This additional upload field can be used for any type of file you would like to upload for your clients. It could be your own customized PAR-Q if you have additional questions you like that are not on our existing Online PAR-Q form (which is based off of NASM‘s). Or this additional upload file could be a release form, another contract or any other type of customized form that you would like to save for each of your clients.

How Do I Upload A Personal Training Form

Uploading a Personal Training file or form for your client is easy.

Login to FitSW.com and then click on a specific clients name that you would like to upload a form for. FitSW will take you to the “Edit Client” page.
Toward the bottom of the “Edit Client” page, click the “Choose File” button. Then select the Form / File that you would like to upload.
Click the blue “Save” button. FitSW will save and upload your form.
You can access this uploaded form at any time by going to the “Edit Client” page. Then click the “Exiting Upload” button.
To overwrite the existing form, follow steps 1-3 again and select a new file to upload.

Progress Pictures and Progress Tracking in Android App

We recently added the ability for trainers to use progress pictures and progress tracking in the Android app. Personal Trainers can take progress pictures with their phone, save them, and then create side-by-side comparison images in the app. It’s a great way to show clients how far they have come and by integrating it into the app we make it easy for clients and trainers to do access these features on the go. These features also work in a similar way on our iOS app as described in our post about iOS app photo comparison and on our website at fitsw.com as described in our post on website before and after photos.

We also added the ability to view Progress Data in table format in addition to the Progress Graph format. We made this feature work similar to the way we did Progress Data Tracking in our iOS app.

Progress Pictures and Comparison Images

Personal Trainers and clients can access the Picture and Comparison Images using the “Pictures” item in the sidebar menu. Once there, users will see two tabs: a Pictures tab and a Comparisons Tab.

Progress Pictures and Progress Tracking in Android App Screen Demo — On the Pictures screen, users will see two tabs. One for their Pictures (which is currently selected) and one for their Comparison images.

Progress Pictures Tab

On the Pictures tab, users can see a gallery of their existing pictures. They can also click the plus button in the lower right to add another picture. The app will prompt the user to ask if they would like to add a progress image from their phones image library or take a new one. This new photo will then be added to the gallery. Personal trainer and their clients can click on a photo to see a larger version or to edit it.

Before and After Comparison Images Tab

On the Comparisons tab, users can see a gallery of their existing Before and After Comparison Images.

Progress Pictures in Android App Comparison Image Tab — The Comparisons tab allows users to view a gallery of their comparison images. Users can also add new comparison images by tapping the plus button in the lower right.

Users can tap on an image to see a larger version of it or they can hit the “+” button in the lower right to create a new comparison image based off of images in their picture library.

Progress Pictures Comparison Image Detail view — After clicking on an image, users will see the Comparison image in a larger size. From there, users can save it to their phones photos to do whatever they would like with it.

Progress Data in Table Format

We have also now enabled users to view progress data in table form in addition to graph form. In this table form, users can also edit values by clicking on an entry.

FitSW Progress Pictures and Progress Data Table Image — Progress Data can now be seen in table form. To update an entry, simply click on it and you will be able to change it.

Add Dancing To Your Fitness Routine To Stay In Shape

Periodically we allow FitSW users to submit guest blog posts. Today’s guest blog post is by Wendy D who discusses adding dancing to a fitness routine:

Fitness Routine Coach Dance Dancing — Photo credit: Michael Zittel

We all want to be fit and healthy. We may not get it right 100% of the time, but we watch what we eat. It’s not too hard to drink plenty of water, and we get our rest. But there is one area that holds us back, and that is exercise. Exercise is a very important part of your fitness routine. But it is hard to fit something into your busy schedule that you really don’t want to do.

When we are inactive, our muscles suffer. You can be small in size, and still be unfit, if your muscles are underdeveloped. Your bones will respond to the demands you put on it. But, if you do not exercise enough, your bones weaken. With age, they grow brittle and osteoarthritis can set in. This is painful and life-altering.

Reasons people avoid exercise

Some people love to exercise. You see runners in the parks, people playing tennis, basketball, and jogging. Others easily find a reason not to do so. For them, exercising is time consuming, boring, difficult to learn and get used to or they just say that it costs too much money for the items you need.

Let’s look at these reasons, realistically.

It’s time consuming – According to the Mayo Clinic, you only need to exercise 30 minutes per day to maintain your fitness level, and a little more if you want to lose a few pounds. Truthfully, how many of us have waited 30 minutes for our specialty drink at Starbucks?

It’s boring – If the exercise you have chosen is boring, it is not your thing. Keep looking, find an exercise you enjoy, and add that to your fitness routine. (We will talk more about this later.)

It’s difficult to learn – While some things are harder to learn than others, nothing that you really want to learn is too difficult. Again, if you do not enjoy the exercise enough to work for it, it is just not what you are looking for.

It cost too much money – It is rare to find any activity that does not cost something. You have to weigh the pros and the cons.

Fitness Routine Action Adult Dance Dancer — Photo credit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/action-adult-dance-dancer-270837/

Dance in your Fitness Routine

You may have never danced, but that is okay. Most people who join a dance class have not. There are many forms of dance, so you are sure to find one that you like. Dance class is usually once per week, so it is not too time consuming and can fit nicely into a fitness routine. But the best thing, is you can turn on your favorite CD and dance your heart out at home.

Expenses

The expense you will incur will be very reasonable. You might need a leotard or tights. If you are learning hip-hop the instructor will tell you. There is a fee for joining the class, and there is one item that is a must for every dancer. You must wear the right shoes.

Hip-hop (and other dancers) dance in sneakers. If you decide to take up dancing, Just for Kix has high quality sneakers for dance More formal dancers wear ballet shoes. Footwear is important, for two reasons:

A dancers shoe may look like something you see at the local department store, but they are not. Shoes can help protect you from injury. They fit differently, and they are secure. Imagine the pain you would feel if you did a spin and jump, and your shoes were stuck to the floor. Your body is in motion and when the shoe moves, it is not going to be in the correct position. This could cause injury.
The second reason is that street shoes can damage the dance floor. You may not see the tiny scratches and surface damage your shoes are causing but sometime someone can hit those spots and could get hurt.

Take some friends and go check out a local dance facility. Dance is one of the most effective and productive exercise you will ever find.

Organizing Workouts and Diets iOS App Sorting

Our latest iOS app helps Personal Trainers and their clients with organizing workouts and diets by allowing them to sort their workout (or diet) list. Users can sort lists by Date Ascending, Date Descending, Name A to Z, or Name Z to A. This makes it very easy for personal trainer and their clients to find whatever workout they are looking for. To make it easier to stay organized, the iOS app remembers the last setting so that if a trainer likes their workouts, diets or tasks listed a certain way they can keep it that way.

Organizing Workouts Diets Tasks iOS App Sorting View — Trainers and clients can sort their workouts, diets, and tasks to make it easier to find specific events.

Changing the Sort Order of Workouts, Diets and Tasks

To change the sort order of events, users can tap on the “Sort by …” button highlighted in red above. This will bring up a menu for users to select the particular type of sorting they would prefer. Personal trainers and clients can choose Sort by Date Descending, Sort by Date Ascending, Sort by Name A-Z, or sort by Name Z-A. The app will save the selection a user chooses for the next time they pull up that same screen.

Workouts, Diets, and Tasks all have this feature making organizing workouts and diets and tasks easy. The settings for each event type is saved independently. So a user could sort Workouts by Ascending Date, Diets by Name A-Z, and Tasks by Descending Date. The system would save the settings for each screen separately.

Organizing Workouts and Diets iOS App Sorting Selected — Choose from four different ways to sort Workouts, Tasks and Diets. Sort by Date Descending, Date Ascending, Name A-Z, Name Z-A.

This same sorting feature is already available on the web application at FitSW.com and is coming this month to our Android app.

PAR-Q iOS App – Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire

Today, we added the ability for both personal trainers and clients to fill-out and store PAR-Q’s in the FitSW iOS App. This PAR-Q iOS App feature is extremely easy to use on phones or tablets and lets trainer’s collect the necessary information to determine their clients physical activity readiness. Previously, personal trainers and their clients have been able to Fill Out, Print, or Save a PAR-Q form here. We also let personal trainers that have a free account also store their clients PAR-Q’s online. Trainers can then access this information from anywhere from their phone or computer. More details on how to use the web version are here. Now, we have also added this ability to our iOS app. If you are interested in the Android App PAR-Q, see here.

Accessing the PAR-Q Feature in the iOS App

To access the PAR-Q feature, make sure you have the latest version of the iOS app. Then click the More tab button at the bottom. You will see the PAR-Q in the menu list.

PAR-Q iOS App How to access physical activity readiness questionnaire. — Access the PARQ iOS App feature through the More menu.

If you are a trainer, the FitSW iOS App will show a list of clients whose PAR-Q’s you can view. Choose a client and the iOS app will take you to their PARQ. If you are a client, the app will take you directly to your own PARQ.

Viewing and Updating Your PAR-Q Form

Once in the PAR-Q screen you will see something similar to the following:

PAR-Q iOS App Viewing Editing Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire — Personal Trainers or their clients can fill out the fields and answer the PAR-Q questions on the go. Answers are saved automatically as the user fills them out.

Personal Trainers and clients can fill out these fields and the app will save answers as the user fills them in. No need to click save or anything like that. Trainers and clients can configure Height units to be inches or cm and weight units to be either lbs or kg.

Here is what the rest of the form looks like:

PAR-Q iOS App Physical Activity Readiness Questions — Physical Activity Readiness Questions portion of the form.

We have also included the standard General & Medical Questionnaire questions in this same form.

PARQ iOS App General and Medical Questionnaire Section — General & Medical Questionnaire portion of the form.

Create Workouts For Multiple Personal Training Clients

Create Workouts For Multiple Personal Training Clients at Once

We recently added the ability to create workouts for multiple personal training clients at once at fitsw.com. In the iOS app and on the website you can still copy workouts from one client to another. Now with this update, you can save even more time by adding a workout for multiple clients from the start when you first build the workout. Here is how to do it:

1) Go to Workout View and Add Workout like Normal

Go to the Workouts screen for one of the clients that you would like to add a workout for. In the specific clients Workout screen, click the Add Workout button as usual.

Create workouts for multiple Personal Training Clients add workout button — From the Workouts screen for one of your clients, click the Add Workout button as normally done.

2) Click the link to “Select Additional Clients to Apply Workout To

Enter the workout information as normal. Then click the link that says “Select Additional Clients to Apply Workout To.

Create Workouts for Multiple Personal Training Clients Click Additional Client Field — Enter workout information as normal. Then click the link highlighted in red.

3) Select the Additional Clients to Add Workout For

The link will then change to a list of clients that you can select as clients you also want the workout added for. You can use shift or command / control to select more than 1 client in the list.

Create Workouts for Multiple Personal Training Clients Click Select Multiple Clients — Click the additional personal training clients that you would like this workout also to be added for.

Then click the Save Workout button at the bottom as normal. This workout will then be added to the main client along with all of the additional clients that you selected.

Future Updates and App Improvements

Let us know what you think of this new feature and if you would like to see us add this to our iOS app or Android app.

FitSW Personal Trainer App Android Updates

We recently released a new version of our Android App that includes a ton of new features. These personal trainer app android updates include the following:

Call, text, and Email Personal Training Clients from within the app
Fitness Progress Graph Navigation Improvements
Improved Workout layout when listing exercises with multiple reps & weights.
Personal & Client Profile Pictures
Demo Exercise Video viewing Improvements
Create client accounts without requiring email
Several Other Usability improvements and bug fixes
Workout Interval Timer

Below is a bit more detail of these improvements along with some screen shots.

Call, text, and Email Personal Training Clients.

You can now contact your personal training clients any way you would like from within the FitSW Android app at the push of a button.

Personal Trainer App Android Contact Clients — Call, Text, or Email your clients quickly from within the Android App

Fitness Progress Graph Navigation Improvements

We have made it easier for you and your clients to navigate the Fitness Progress Graph menu screens. To add new data, click the plus symbol in the upper right. From that screen, you can also edit your assessments or add new ones as needed.

Personal Trainer App Android Fitness Progress Graphs — You can now add new data by clicking the plus in the upper right. From there you can edit or add assessments as well.

Improved Workout layout for Exercises with Multiple Reps & Weights

Instead of being separated by commas, we now have the multiple rep / weight exercises display this info vertically.

Personal Trainer App Android Workout Display — Multiple Rep / Weight exercises now list this information vertically to improve the layout.

Personal & Client Profile Pictures

Personal Trainers and their clients are able to add profile pictures at FitSW.com and in the iOS app. We have now added the ability for users to view these profile images in the android app. The ability to upload in the android app is coming soon.

Profile pictures are now displayed in the Android app.

Demo Exercise Video Viewing Improvements

For demo videos that are on YouTube, the demo link will create some space below the exercise to show the video right there in the Workout Details screen. For videos not on YouTube and other links, the demo link will open a new page that is easy to view in the browser.

Create Client Accounts Without Requiring Email

This is for cases where you have a client that won’t be logging into the system but you would still like to manage their data through the app. For this case, you don’t need to create a login account for the client – you just need to create a client in the system that you can view. We have made it easy to create clients this way if needed using the switches in the upper right.

Personal Trainer App Android Client Accounts — Toggle the switches in the upper right to configure whether your personal training clients should have a login.

Workout Interval Timer

The new workout interval timer allows you and your client to stay on track with your workout. Another updated to FitSW’s personal trainer app Android.