How to get the most out of a check-in
A check-in isn’t a test. It’s the information your coach builds your next week on.
If your coach sends you a check-in every week, it’s tempting to fill it in quickly, or only when things went well. That’s a shame, because the bad weeks are exactly the ones your coach can do something with.
Honest is more useful than pretty. Missed three workouts, slept badly, ate out two evenings? Write it down. Your coach can’t adjust anything for a week they don’t know about. A plan that isn’t working is a plan that needs to change, and they only know that from you.
Measure at a fixed moment. Weigh yourself in the morning, after the toilet, before breakfast. Take your progress photo in the same place, in the same light. Weight fluctuates by a kilo or more a day due to fluid and salt; if you measure at different times, you mostly measure noise.
Look at the trend, not the day. One bad measurement says nothing. Four weeks heading in the same direction says a lot. Your coach looks at it the same way.
Fill it in when it suits you. You can save a form halfway and finish it later. Sending without signal works too; it goes as soon as you have a connection again.
Once sent, it’s fixed. Your coach reads your answers as submitted. Forgot to mention something? Say it in the chat. In the app you can see whether they’ve already read your check-in.
And ask questions. A check-in is also the moment to ask why your plan is the way it is, or whether an exercise can be swapped. A good coach would rather explain it than have you quietly skip it.
