If you work in the fitness, health, exercise, or strength & conditioning space, it’s a given that you’ll be creating, producing, and uploading content for your clients and athletes. If you’re not doing this, I think what you’ll find is that they’ll move on to a coach or trainer who does.
If you’re down with adapting with the times, then it’s important to, at the very least, develop a basic understanding of how to (a) create video content and (b) upload it onto TrueCoach. In doing so, this will give you a variety of ways to train and educate your athletes.
For me, it comes down to these 3 simple steps:
- Make sure you have a cell phone (who doesn’t?!) and an adjustable tripod
- Find a quiet and clean training space that looks like somewhere your athlete would want to train
- Start a YouTube channel for easily uploading your videos onto TrueCoach
Let’s jump in!
THE TECH
Honestly, there isn’t much “tech” needed to get things rolling.
Sure, you could purchase an expensive video recorder, a decked-out tripod with tons of gadgets and add-on features, in addition to an entire film crew, but let’s be realistic here.
The only “tech” you’ll really need is your cell phone and an adjustable tripod. The one I use is from Amazon – feel free to check it out here. Nothing fancy, just something that gets the job done.
The key is the adjustability to be able to record different angles and heights that arise when shooting a variety of exercise videos. Trust me, the more options for different angles and heights, the better.
When it comes down to actually recording from your phone, you’ll want to ensure that you record with the phone held sideways. In other words, film with your phone in a horizontal (wide) orientation. Making sure that your tripod can account for this is key. Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered with the link above for that very reason!
Recording your videos for the purpose of uploading to YouTube (and then TrueCoach) will come out best in the horizontal orientation. I typically only use a vertical (upright) orientation when using the video on Instagram for a ‘Reel’ since that’s much better suited for that frame.
THE ENVIRONMENT
We discussed the importance of a clean and quiet gym. That’s super important.
Think about it this way: would you want the car salesman to be eating Funyuns inside of the car that you potentially might buy?
Probably not.
That’s why it’s key to figure out a way to have access to a clean and quiet space. The clean part might be easier. This means to do your best to make the gym area look tidy, clean, organized and put-together. The more aesthetically-pleasing the gym area is, the better chance that your athlete will be able to focus on the exercise that you’re actually trying to teach. Clutter in the background always causes distraction.
In terms of keeping it quiet, this one might be challenging for coaches and trainers who operate out of commercial gym settings or shared training spaces. Trust me, I hear your frustration. This is where you’ll need to be as creative as possible. Seek out hours of the day where the gym is either closed entirely or at very low volumes. Seek out quieter areas of the gym. Find open pockets of time that allow for a quieter surrounding.
I understand that this isn’t always going to be possible. However, higher quality videos make for more of a connection with your athletes especially if they’re solely being training online or remotely. Worst-case scenario, purchase a wireless microphone to clip on and wear during video recording to block out the excess noise around you. I also got mine from Amazon and you can check it out here.
Although these might seem like annoying hurdles, they’ll ultimately help you create a higher quality of content for your athletes.
THE PROCESS
It goes without saying that, if you don’t already have a YouTube channel, it’s time to officially create one.
Now that you have a YouTube channel, it’s time to start creating video content!
Here’s the exact checklist I use each week when creating video content:
- Step 1 – Finalize a list of 8-12 exercise videos I plan to shoot during my 20-30-minute recording session.
- I also keep a running Google document with exercise thoughts and ideas that I’m constantly adding to – think of this as my ‘draft’.
- I’ll do maybe 2-3 recording sessions each week so having this ‘draft’ is super important for me to remain efficient.
- Step 2 – Set up the gym area prior to recording.
- This means to tidy up and organize the area to make sure what gets caught on tape looks aesthetically-pleasing from both a visual standpoint and learning standpoint for the athlete who ends up watching.
- Step 3 – Have everything you need pulled up and ready to roll on your phone.
- This means to have the following apps open on your phone: Email, Camera, Photos and YouTube.
- You’ll want the Email app open to have access to your exercise video lists (I store mine as emails)
- The Camera app needs to be open for recording your videos.
- The Photos app needs to be open so that you can quickly edit and chop.
- Lastly, once you’ve edited and chopped each video to your liking, go ahead and upload to YouTube.
- Step 4 – Upload all of your videos from today’s recording session onto TrueCoach.
- This is always MUCH easier when done in smaller batches, which is why I typically keep each video recording session to 8-12 total videos.
- Log into TrueCoach on your laptop or desktop, click ‘Library’ and then click the blue button to the right that says ‘+ Add exercise’.
- For each video, it’s as simple as this:
- Copy and paste your exercise name from YouTube into the section that says ‘Exercise name’.
- Then, copy and paste your exercise link from YouTube into the section that says ‘Link to video’.
- Lastly, hit ‘Save exercise’ and now you’re done!
Start using this checklist and you’ll see how quickly you can begin pumping out exercise videos for your clients on a weekly basis!
CONCLUSION
Creating and uploading video content for the purpose of coaching your athletes on TrueCoach is much easier when you have all of the right pieces in place. For me, that’s having the right tech, the right environment and following a checklist to make for an easy process. Start locking these things in today for a user-friendly approach at coaching your athletes in the online world.
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