Success on Day One: The Role of Discovery in Fitness

You've decided to start exercising. Welcome to the club! If you're working with a coach, the first step in your training journey will be a discovery process. It might be called an assessment, evaluation, screening, consultation, etc., but the purpose is the same. You and your coach will align goals and, through a variety of exercises, you'll both discover your level of fitness and movement capabilities.

At Fitness Lounge's 31st Street Astoria location, I might ask how long you can hold a plank.

A thorough and effective discovery process is the foundation for everything that follows—it informs programming decisions, introduces you to your coach's training approach, and lays the groundwork for a relationship built on trust and collaboration.

In my discovery process, for example, I consider a spectrum of fitness qualities. On one side of that spectrum are more passive qualities like posture or joint range of motion. On the other side are more active qualities like strength, power, and endurance. How I implement the process differs based on the client and training circumstances.

When your goals are oriented towards improving range of motion, mobility, or flexibility, I believe it's beneficial for a coach to spend time observing some of those "passive" qualities directly. I'd especially look at ribcage and hip position as well as hip and shoulder ranges of motion. This also includes situations where you're seeking outcomes like pain reduction or improvements in some bodily limitations. As a coach, I don't treat pain or recommend exercises as treatment for any medical condition. However, if a client has a limitation, I would like to establish what their body can do safely before we start moving weights around. In any of these circumstances, I would generally recommend starting with a single Discovery Day and then proceeding directly into a tailored training program.

Every discovery process has benefits and drawbacks, so it's important to start the right way for you.

In the absence of the above indicators, the discovery process can be oriented increasingly towards active fitness and the performance of exercises. If this is you, I would recommend starting with a trial package of sessions (typically three) with your coach. In my framework, this trial would be a Discovery Trial. A well-designed trial package should aim to cover the broadest set of exercises in a maximally accessible way. A skilled coach can often infer from this information what, if any, underlying movement capabilities a client needs to improve without requiring direct observations from passive "table testing."

The discovery trial gets you exercising immediately in accessible and informative training sessions.

As a coach, I see the Discovery Trial as a win-win scenario for me and client. You're working out from day one, and I have the opportunity to observe how you respond and move in the actual exercises we'd perform in sessions. (And not for nothing, it's just more fun than checking ranges of motion.) With multiple training sessions to work with, I can start with the most accessible exercises and continue flexibly into upcoming sessions. Following the trial, you'll be ready to move into a tailored training program.

Whether you start with a Discovery Day or a multi-session Discovery Trial, the key element is discovery. At the beginning of any training relationship, it's so important for coach and client to have an honest appraisal of current capabilities from which to build. When you start training with me or with any other coach, you have every right to be set up for success from your very first program.

Are you in Astoria or the New York City area and ready to start training? Contact me using the submission form below!