Having a target or a fitness goal is essential when first starting out with a male or female personal trainer in the UAE.

Whether your goal is weight loss, to learn kickboxing, build more muscle or get cardio fit having an ‘end goal’ will help you stay focused and motivated on your training journey.

Of course, in order for you to reach your goal you will need to know how you are doing along the way.

This is why personal trainers in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah all have various methods of monitoring your progress.

It’s not just about numbers on the scales. Many will check your muscle gains regularly too with different measuring tools.

We asked a professional fitness coach in Dubai why and how they monitor their Dubai PT clients progress.

Question 1: In Dubai a male or female personal trainer is hired by someone who usually has a specific health and fitness goal.

This might be weight loss, weight gain, body toning or even sports fitness.

The personal training plan usually includes monitoring of a clients progress as time goes on.
What methods of progress monitoring do you use and why do you think it is important to keep track of how your clients are doing in relation to
their goals?

In Dubai, many of my clients’ focus is mainly on weight loss, keeping the body toned and strong, and the same time being healthy.

I consider tracking their progress extremely important, and I trust technologies in it, as they can save the data, that you can access at any time.

The main progress tools that I use are tape measurements and scale weights.

As some people will come with expectations of losing weight, and I always explain that weight might remain the same.

however, if your measurements are going down – we are moving in the right direction.

Of course muscles gained can increase the weight, but the body composition will be getting better over time.

Question 2: When monitoring a client, if you or the client are not seeing the results that are expected do you change their training plan in some way?

I always start with training clients and let them adapt to training first for a week or two. This is because most are beginners, or haven’t trained for a while.

If after a couple of weeks there is no difference in measurements or weight, the next step will be to check their nutrition and give it more focus.

Even if after that, when the client keeps track of the food, trains consistently, and in 1-2 months there is no result showing I would suggest a check up with their medical professional to rule our any hormone related issues.

Medical conditions are rare but if there are noticeable lack of results this has to be ruled out.

For weight loss clients in Dubai the main aim is consistency. With consistent training and good nutrition small changes will start to appear.

For example, I currently have one client in Dubai in such situation. Her weight loss was not as great as it could have been until I discovered that she was under medications, has a lot of bloating issues.

Unfortunately it can take a couple of months for some medications to leave the system completely but the weight loss will eventually kick in.

Much of the time clients don`t see results because of a lack of consistency or they are not counting their total calories consumed.

Question 3: To ensure client’s goals are on track how often do you monitor their progress?

For weight loss clients I usually check weight, measurements, nutrition every week.

I do weekly checks because I have noticed clients go too frequently off course and need more accountability and reminders.

For my clients in Dubai who are more focused on overall health improvement, checks and monitoring aren’t necessarily every week as they just makes them more stressed and are only needed if they want to get back on track after vacation or after some time of no training.