One of the lead motivations for the creation of StrengthPortal was to build software that increased the trainer/client relationship. It is a goal for StrengthPortal, as well as for all personal trainers, to turn short-term clients into long-term clients and to establish predictable recurring revenue. After having used StrengthPortal the last two months as a client of my brother Andrew McGunagle, I wanted to share my experience and explain why it led to a more enjoyable training experience on my end.

Better transparency
Andrew has trained me with a powerlifting focus for the last five years. Having been detail orientated and organized since a young age (I can vouch for this), Andrew always wrote personalized strength programs for us and kept track of most of the data. An issue that I had in the past was that even though Andrew was writing these programs and telling me what we would do from week to week I always felt that I wasn’t getting all the information I wanted. I would ask him almost every week what the plan was even though he had told me multiple times. StrengthPortal has solved this for me. Now, when Andrew writes a program for me and sends it to me I can see the entire workout program laid out and know exactly where I’m at within the program. Seeing the workout program laid out visually makes it easier as a client because I understand that it is a process. I don’t have any stress going into a workout because I know exactly what lifts I will be doing today and what my focus should be.

All my workout data is captured
Unfortunately for me, all I really have from the last five years of working out is several videos of exercise PRs. I know, I know. I need to improve getting the bar off the floor with my initial drive. Anyhoo, it is pretty disappointing that I don’t have any of my past workouts to look through. I would love to go through the past several years of workout data and see where I made the biggest gains. It’s weird that I didn’t do this. I love fitness and tried out multiple workout tracking applications, but none of them ever stuck for me. I hated having to write out everything each time I went to the gym. With StrengthPortal, since most of the workout data is already set up by the trainer I’ve had no problem confirming the workout data because it’s quick and easy. Now I can go back to the workouts for the last two months, look at my numbers, and see how far I’ve come.

Progress is clear and defined
Having input my workout data and body metrics in StrengthPortal it becomes much easier to see that Andrew’s program has allowed me to make progress towards my goals. Being able to see the exact numbers I started with compared to where I am now makes it a much easier decision on my end to continue working with Andrew. I sometimes get asked by people whether StrengthPortal is a danger to trainers because the client can see everything and eventually do it all on their own. There will always be DIY fitness people, but if you have never worked with a personal trainer its easy to not understand how much knowledge they have and how much work goes into writing a program that will get the results you want. It’s not easy, which is why the fitness industry is as large as it is. For me, if I want to do something right I will willingly pay to make it happen. Andrew is my brother and StrengthPortal is my business, but the software has shown me that the programs he writes clearly work. I am excited to keep on working with him in the future.

Thanks for reading everyone. The StrengthPortal team is excited for whats to come in 2014. Happy New Year!