Q: How is it possible to screen and re-screen all of your clients, and how often do you re-screen everyone?
A: You have to a have a good system to make it easy.
We understand that screening all of your clients and setting up a re-screening system can seem like a daunting or downright impossible task, but luckily for you we have went through many failures to make sure you can easily have success.
With this article I want to show you step-by step how to get your initial screens and how to make sure you can keep those screens current so your clients can progress without wasting time doing needless corrective exercises.
Start with Screen Week
To get this started we need to get everyone screened for the first time. If you only have a few clients this is no big deal, but if you have over 100 people this may seem downright scary! We know the feeling; we’ve been there.
Step 1 is to set up screen week. This is an entire week dedicated to getting those initial screens.
When we started screening everyone we had a lot of clients so we had to set up 20 person group screens to get started. We used Monday as a day for just screens, and anyone who was screened on Monday could start working out on Tuesday. This method only works if you have enough space and staff, which we did, but if you don’t you may just have to close down workouts for a week for screens and recovery.
No, not everyone is going to be able to make it that week, but it is what it is. Just set up a few make up times after screen week to make sure that the people that missed have can get in for a screen. It is important however to let people know that after screen week, no one trains without a screen, no exceptions. You can set up those make up sessions as 1 on 1 sessions or have small group screens with up to 3-4 people.
*If you want to make life easier and learn how to screen groups of 20 people fast, Smart Group Training Volume 1 – Screening and Corrective Exercise is the definitive resource to learn how to screen large groups using the Functional Movement Screen.
Honestly, you can get those initial screens however you want. You can do them all 1 on 1 if that works for you and your client load.
Start Screening During Your Initial Consultation
Now that you have all of your clients screened, it makes it really easy to make sure all of your new clients get screened during the consultation. Not only is it important to get a screen before you train a clients, it also has shown to improve closing percentage in our gyms and a lot of our readers as well.
You have the choice of whether you would like to do 1 on 1 consultations or group orientations. Once again SGT Volume 1 is a great resource to show you how to do group screens for orientations, but we have had a much better closing percentage doing 1 on 1 consultations over group orientations.
* Stay tuned tomorrow for my article on How To Increase The Quality of Your Fitness Consultations and Skyrocket Your Closing Percentage
Set up a Re-Screening System
We have had success re-screening a few different ways.
My personal favorite way to get re-screens is to set up 1-2 spots each day for 3 person group screens. Once again, I have a big gym and a big staff, so this may or may not be possible for you., but if you have a hour each day that you want to dedicate to screens, it’s a great way to stay on top of screens and make sure that people have plenty of opportunity to get screened.
Another good way to make sure you keep up with screens is to have one big group screen each week or month. A lot of our readers just set up group screens on the same day each week. The amount of times you will need to set up with depends on the amount of clients that you have. If you have 100 clients, obviously you will need to have one group screen each week with 25 people. This method is great, but you still probably have to have a few slots open throughout the month for make-ups.
Finally, the last way we have done re-screens is to have one big screen week during recovery week. I hate doing this, and only do it if necessary. Honestly, we really only use this as a threat if people have been slacking on getting re-screened. Basically I’ll say something like this: "Hey everyone, we need to make sure at least 90% of you have had a re-screen in the last 3 months or we are going to have to have a re-screen week the first week of next month, so make sure you book your re-screen online today." We have NEVER had to actually do this.
Screen the Weakest Link Pre-Workout
We will often look at the client’s weakest link really quick before the workout IF we have time. This allows us to see if the initial corrective strategy has worked. We show our clients their specific corrective exercises in the consultation and tell the clients to do them at home, so a lot of times they come in with a cleared dysfunction on their first workout. If a client is being diligent about clearing their weakest link we will try as hard as we can to screen it out before the workout or at least give them ways to screen their weakest link on their own. I’ll write an article on how to have your clients screen themselves and have that for you within the next week or two as well.
Keep Track and Ask
We keep track of when our clients did their last screen on our client management system. You can use a CMS like Mindbody or you can do something as simple as a excel document. If we see that someone hasn’t done a screen for a while we simply say something like: "Hey Susie, I see you haven’t had a screen in 3 months. Let’s get that booked now so we can make sure we know what’s going on with you to be able to train you to correctly. We have Saturday at 10 or Tuesday at 5pm, what is best for you?"
That’s it!
It may seem like a little work up front, but honestly it’s really easy. Just make sure you have good systems, and stick to them and you will have the best group training system around.
Train Hard & Train Smart!
Steve Long