Real-World Lessons for Fitness Professionals

Volume 3: Online Coaching or Face-to-Face Personal Training?

If I were qualifying as a Personal Trainer today and had to choose between building an online coaching business or delivering face-to-face Personal Training, my answer would be easy.

Face-to-face. Every time.

That might sound like a strange statement from someone who actually offers online coaching.

But the market has changed.

And I believe Artificial Intelligence is going to fundamentally change the value proposition of traditional online fitness coaching.

I’m not saying that because I dislike online coaching. I’ve delivered it myself for years.

I’m saying it because if I were starting my career again today, I’d be asking myself a very simple question:

What can I offer that technology can’t easily replicate — and what will people still be willing to pay me for?

Increasingly, I think face-to-face Personal Training has the stronger answer.

What Are Online Coaching Clients Actually Paying For?

When discussing the threat AI poses to online coaching, you’ll often hear several reasons why people will continue paying human coaches.

Accountability.

Expertise.

Individualisation.

Relationships.

Coaching.

All perfectly reasonable arguments.

But I think we need to examine each of them rather than simply assuming they’re protected human skills.

Accountability

Let’s start with one I’ve accidentally tested myself.

I’ve been using ChatGPT as an exercise accountability tool.

I report my workouts, what I’ve done, how training went and sometimes why I didn’t train.

And strangely enough, it works.

I know perfectly well I’m communicating with AI.

That doesn’t stop me thinking:

“Shit. I better get something done today because I don’t want bad feedback tonight.”

Does that mean AI accountability will work for everyone?

Absolutely not.

Some people will need another human being waiting for them at the gym.

But I’ve heard the argument:

“You could just turn the AI accountability off.”

Of course I could.

I could also cancel my Personal Trainer, stop my direct debit and ignore their WhatsApp messages.

Human accountability isn’t compulsory either.

So I no longer believe accountability alone is enough to protect an online coaching business from AI.

Expertise

This is where I think the industry has an even bigger problem.

A good coach has knowledge accumulated through qualifications, CPD, experience and years of working with real people.

That absolutely has value.

But information itself is becoming increasingly cheap.

If I’m paying an online coach primarily to tell me:

What calories I should consume.

How much protein I need.

What exercises I should perform.

How many sets and reps.

How to progress my programme.

What exercise I could substitute.

How I might get through a plateau.

I can already ask AI many of those questions and receive an answer in seconds.

And AI doesn’t automatically suffer from another problem I’ve seen throughout my career: the experienced professional who stops learning.

We’ve probably all met someone who says:

“I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I know what works.”

Experience is incredibly valuable.

But only when it’s combined with a willingness to keep learning.

Having 30 years’ experience doesn’t necessarily mean you have 30 years of continuously updated knowledge.

Individualisation

This used to be one of online coaching’s strongest selling points.

“Don’t follow a generic programme. I’ll build something specifically for you.”

Again, AI is rapidly eroding that advantage.

Tell an AI system your age, training experience, goals, available equipment, weekly schedule, exercise preferences, limitations and previous programme.

It can individualise around those variables.

Is that automatically equivalent to an experienced professional making good decisions?

No.

But the customer doesn’t necessarily need AI to be better than the coach.

They need it to be good enough that they start questioning the price difference.

And I think we’re already seeing that mindset.

I recently overheard a conversation on a gym floor where someone looked at what their friend had received from an online coach and essentially said:

“Mate, he’s ChatGPT’d that. Get rid of him. Just use ChatGPT.”

Whether that particular coach had actually used AI wasn’t really the interesting part.

The customer had already made the value comparison.

That’s what I think online coaches should be paying attention to.

“But AI Can’t Watch You Train”

Even this defence is becoming weaker.

There are already fitness applications using computer vision to analyse exercise technique through a smartphone camera.

Set up your phone.

Perform the exercise.

Software analyses aspects of your movement and provides feedback.

I’m not suggesting for one second that current consumer technology is equivalent to having an experienced Personal Trainer standing beside you.

It isn’t a comparison I’d currently make.

But look at the direction of travel.

For years we could say:

“AI can write your programme, but it can’t see you perform it.”

That’s already becoming outdated.

AI is acquiring eyes.

And we’re talking about the technology available now.

A newly qualified Personal Trainer today could potentially have a 30 or 40-year career ahead of them.

What will that technology look like in five years?

Ten?

Twenty?

I don’t know.

Neither does anyone else.

But I’d certainly consider the direction it’s moving when deciding which business model to build my livelihood around.

What About the Human Relationship?

This is where I think online coaching still has a genuine defence.

A great online coach can absolutely build strong relationships with clients.

They can understand someone’s personality, recognise behavioural patterns, provide emotional support, challenge excuses, celebrate achievements and become an important part of someone’s fitness journey.

I’ve seen coaches who are exceptionally good at this.

But there’s a problem.

Doing it properly takes work.

A lot of work.

Regular conversations.

Video reviews.

Detailed feedback.

Calls.

Remembering what’s happening in people’s lives.

Adapting communication to the individual.

Being available when something goes wrong.

Creating a genuine relationship despite potentially never sharing the same physical space.

That’s a skill.

And if you’re providing that level of service, I completely understand why you might charge £150, £200 or considerably more every month.

The problem isn’t necessarily whether the service is worth £200.

The question is:

Will enough consumers continue believing it’s worth £200 when increasingly capable AI alternatives cost a fraction of that?

That’s a very different problem.

The Online Coaching Paradox

And this is where I think things become particularly difficult for someone starting an online coaching business today.

One of online coaching’s attractions has always been scalability.

You aren’t selling every client another physical hour in your diary.

You can coach more people.

Deliver programmes digitally.

Communicate asynchronously.

Remove geographical restrictions.

Potentially operate with lower overheads.

But what happens if differentiating yourself from AI requires you to provide more human interaction?

More calls.

More individual feedback.

More video analysis.

More conversations.

More relationship building.

More time.

Suddenly, the thing that makes your service difficult for AI to replicate is also the thing that makes your business less scalable.

And if you’re investing that much individual time into each client, you need to charge accordingly.

Which brings you straight back to the original problem:

How do you persuade enough consumers to pay hundreds of pounds every month for that human difference?

Especially when poor-quality online coaching has already damaged consumer perceptions.

So What Do I Mean By “Coaching”?

This came up recently when I was discussing this very subject.

Someone mentioned that humans still provide “coaching.”

My immediate response was:

What exactly does that mean?

Because sending someone a programme isn’t necessarily coaching.

Recently, I watched someone struggling badly with an exercise they’d been prescribed remotely.

They had the programme.

They knew which exercise they were supposed to perform.

But they didn’t actually know how to perform it properly.

The instruction had successfully travelled from coach to client.

The coaching hadn’t.

For me, coaching is also what happens when the plan in front of you stops being the right plan.

Recently, one of my own clients unexpectedly became upset during the first exercise of a face-to-face session.

Something clearly wasn’t right.

At that point, their programme stopped being my priority.

I eased the session back.

We talked.

We had a laugh.

Afterwards we sat down, had a cup of tea and chatted for a while.

Later, the client told me that the conversation and that little bit of normality had really helped.

They hadn’t messaged me beforehand saying:

“I’m struggling today. Please adjust my programme.”

I saw it.

Their demeanour.

Their performance.

Their mood.

The fact that something wasn’t right.

And I reacted.

That’s what I mean by coaching.

It’s observation, judgement, communication and adaptation happening continuously while you’re working with another human being.

And right now, I believe that’s one of face-to-face Personal Training’s greatest strengths.

Does That Mean Online Coaching Is Dead?

No.

And I’m deliberately not making that prediction.

There will undoubtedly continue to be excellent online coaches.

Some will build extraordinary communities.

Some will have specialist expertise.

Some will provide exceptional human interaction.

Some consumers will simply prefer working remotely with a particular person.

Hybrid models combining technology with human coaching may become even more important.

And some coaches will undoubtedly use AI to make their own service considerably better.

But I think the lower-value end of online coaching faces an enormous challenge.

If your service is essentially:

Programme.

Calories and macros.

App access.

Weekly WhatsApp check-in.

Occasional programme adjustment.

Then I’d be asking a very uncomfortable question:

How much of what I’m charging for can my customer increasingly obtain elsewhere for very little money?

That’s not an attack on online coaches.

It’s a business question.

And it’s one I’ve asked about my own service.

I’ve already reduced the price of my own online coaching because I personally find it increasingly difficult to justify traditional premium online-coaching prices for services technology can replicate to a growing extent.

I’d rather acknowledge the market changing than pretend it isn’t happening.

If I Were Starting Again Today

So back to the original question.

A newly qualified Personal Trainer asks me:

“Should I start with online coaching or face-to-face Personal Training?”

For me?

Face-to-face. Every time.

I’d get onto a gym floor.

I’d work with real people.

I’d learn how different bodies move.

I’d learn how to communicate with different personalities.

I’d learn to recognise when somebody isn’t themselves.

I’d learn when to push.

When to pull back.

When the textbook answer doesn’t fit the human being standing in front of me.

I’d build relationships.

I’d build experience.

I’d build a reputation.

And I’d use technology — including AI — to make myself a better coach rather than trying to build a business around selling information that technology is making cheaper every year.

Maybe online coaching will evolve into something completely different.

I actually think it probably will.

But if I were placing a bet today on which part of Personal Training remains easiest for the consumer to understand the value of?

I’d put my money on the trainer standing beside them.

Not because AI can’t coach.

Because face-to-face coaching gives the human professional far more opportunities to demonstrate why they’re still worth paying for.