Assessment forms that make you look professional from day one

A fitness assessment does two jobs. It gives you the information you need to build a safe, effective plan, and it shows a new client — often within their first hour with you — that they are working with a professional. A rushed assessment signals a generic programme is coming. A structured one signals the opposite.

This template covers everything a coach needs: health screening, goals, lifestyle, baseline measurements and a movement screen that works in person or over a video call. Copy the sections into your own form, remove what you do not use, and keep the order.

What a fitness assessment should cover

A complete assessment has five parts:

1. Health screening — is it safe to start, and is medical clearance needed first?
2. Goals and motivation — what the client wants, why, and by when.
3. Lifestyle — schedule, sleep, stress, food and activity outside training.
4. Baseline measurements — numbers and photos you will compare against later.
5. Movement screen — how the client moves today, so you can choose exercises and progressions.

Parts one to three are usually a form the client fills in before your first session or call. Parts four and five happen live, in person or on video.

Part 1: Health screening

Start every new client with a physical-activity readiness questionnaire. The PAR-Q+ is a widely used standard version, and the PAR-Q+ Collaboration makes it available free, along with guidance on what to do with the answers (PAR-Q+ Collaboration). Use the official form rather than rewriting the questions yourself.

Alongside it, ask:

• Current injuries, pain, or areas that feel limited
• Past injuries and surgeries, and when they happened
• Diagnosed medical conditions and current medications
• Pregnancy or recent childbirth
• Anything a doctor or physiotherapist has told them to avoid

If any answer raises a concern, ask the client to get clearance from their doctor before you begin, and keep a record that you asked. Screening is not about diagnosing — it is about knowing when a situation is outside your scope as a coach.

Part 2: Goals and motivation

Good goal questions give you something to measure and something to remind the client of when motivation dips:

• What is your main goal, in your own words?
• Why does it matter to you right now?
• What would success look like in 12 weeks? In a year?
• Is there a deadline — an event, a trip, a medical check-up?
• What have you tried before, and why did it stop working?
• On a scale of 1–10, how ready are you to make changes?

The "why now" and "what did not work before" answers are often more useful than the goal itself. They tell you what to protect in the plan and what to avoid.

Part 3: Lifestyle

Plans fail when they ignore real life. Collect:

• Work schedule and typical daily routine
• Days and times available to train, and how long each session can be
• Equipment access: full gym, home setup or bodyweight only
• Average sleep hours and sleep quality
• Stress level, on a 1–10 scale
• Daily activity: rough step count, commute, standing or desk job
• Diet type (for example vegetarian, eggetarian, non-vegetarian, vegan, Jain), foods they avoid, who cooks at home and how often they eat out
• Alcohol and smoking habits

For coaches in India, the diet-type and who-cooks questions are as important as any macro target — a plan that cannot be cooked in the client's home kitchen will not last.

Part 4: Baseline measurements

Choose a small set of measurements you will repeat every two to four weeks. More data is not better data; consistent data is.

• Bodyweight — ideally a weekly average of morning weigh-ins
• Circumference measurements — waist, hips, chest, upper arm and thigh, measured at the same points each time
• Progress photos — front, side and back, in the same lighting, clothing and pose
• Resting heart rate — measured on waking over a few days, if the client has a watch or can count it
• Simple performance markers — for example, push-ups with good form, a timed plank or how far they can walk comfortably in 10 minutes

Some clients find photos and measurements uncomfortable. Explain that they are private and used only to track progress, and let them opt out of anything they are not ready for.

Part 5: The movement screen

A movement screen shows you how a client squats, hinges, pushes, pulls and balances today, so you can choose exercises they can do well and spot where to start easier. You are observing, not diagnosing.

A simple screen that works in person or on video:

1. Bodyweight squat — depth, knee path, heel contact and torso position.
2. Hip hinge — can they bend at the hips with a neutral back, for example reaching towards the knees?
3. Push-up or incline push-up — body line, elbow path and control.
4. Plank hold — alignment and how long they can hold good form.
5. Single-leg balance — steadiness on each side for up to 30 seconds.
6. Overhead reach — can they raise both arms overhead without arching the lower back?

Note anything painful and stop that movement. Pain during the screen is a reason to refer the client to a physiotherapist or doctor before loading that pattern.

Running the screen online

For online clients, run the screen on a video call or ask for short recorded clips:

• Ask for a side view and a front view of each movement.
• Keep the camera at hip height, with the whole body in frame.
• Ask them to do each movement slowly for three to five repetitions.
• Save the clips so you can compare them at the 12-week review.

Turning the assessment into a plan

Once you have the answers, summarise them in three lines before you write any programme:

• Priorities: the one or two outcomes that matter most.
• Constraints: time, equipment, injuries and food realities.
• Starting point: which movements to build from and where to start easier.

Share that summary with the client. It shows you listened, and it makes the first plan feel personal rather than generic. For what happens next, use our client onboarding template, and set up weekly check-ins with our check-in template.

Common assessment mistakes

• Skipping health screening because the client "looks fit".
• Collecting data you never use. Every question should change the plan in some way.
• Too many measurements. Pick a few and repeat them consistently.
• Testing to exhaustion on day one. The goal is a baseline, not a fitness test.
• Not repeating the assessment. Re-measure every 8–12 weeks to show progress.

Running assessments in BrixFit

In BrixFit, you can send new clients your onboarding form with the screening, goal and lifestyle questions, and keep their answers on their profile. Baseline measurements, habits and progress photos — with side-by-side and slider before/after views — sit in the same place, and in-app graphs show changes over time. The health-metrics engine calculates BMI, BMR, a body-fat estimate and a protein target from the numbers you collect; the formulas are explained in our health metrics methodology. See how it fits together in the fitness coach CRM for India.