7 Lessons From 7 Years of Online Coaching

In August 2019, Blakley and I took a pretty big leap. She closed her gym in Houston, I quit my job, we sold our house and moved to Boise, Idaho, to go all-in on Digital Barbell.

We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. 😃

Seven years later, we're still here, helping people get stronger, healthier, and more capable through online coaching. The business has turned into something we never could have predicted, and we've learned a lot along the way.

Some of those lessons are about fitness and coaching. Others have more to do with relationships, perseverance, and faith.

So, to mark seven years of doing this full-time, Blakley and I sat down to talk about seven lessons we've learned from online coaching. Whether you're a coach yourself or just someone trying to get a little healthier, I think there's something here for you.

1. Consistent exercise is the secret to staying on track with your nutrition.

If you're somebody who struggles to stay consistent with your nutrition, here's something I'd encourage you to try.

Get consistent with exercise for several weeks before putting pressure on yourself to overhaul your diet.

We've seen this relationship work in both directions. When people start exercising consistently, they often find themselves making better decisions about food. And when people improve their nutrition, their training performance and consistency often improve, too.

The two go hand in hand.

Part of it might be that you start exercising and want to feel good during your workouts. You get a little more energy, sleep better, and feel proud of what you're doing. You start thinking about how your choices affect that feeling.

Exercise also gives you some pretty immediate feedback. You finish a challenging workout and think, "I'm glad I did that."

You don't necessarily get the same feeling from choosing a salad over macaroni and cheese.

There's no such thing as a “salad high”.

But when you're building a habit of exercise and experiencing those positive benefits, making other healthy choices can start to feel more natural.

So if nutrition has been a struggle, don't feel like you have to fix everything at once. Start by getting consistent with your workouts and see what happens.

2. Clients that work out at the same time on the same day every week are more successful.

After coaching hundreds of people online, we've noticed a pattern.

The clients who work out at the same time on the same days each week tend to be more consistent over the long term. They stick with their training and give themselves more opportunities to build strength, muscle, and better fitness.

That might sound obvious, but it's surprisingly easy to overlook.

One of the great things about online coaching is flexibility. You can work out at home, at a gym, or wherever you happen to be. If something comes up on Monday, you can move your workout to Tuesday.

But that flexibility can also become a problem when you never actually decide when you're going to exercise.

When we ask new clients which days and times they'll work out, a lot of them say something like, "I'll probably shoot for three or four times a week."

That's a good intention. But it's not a plan.

Instead, try deciding that Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 4 p.m. are your workout times. Put them on your calendar. Let your family know. Treat those appointments like you would a work meeting or a scheduled class.

You can still move things around when life happens. That's the beauty of having flexibility.

But make changing your schedule the exception rather than the default.

One of our clients is a pilot who never knows exactly where he'll be from one week to the next. Every week, he sends us his schedule, and we figure out when he'll train. His workout times change, but he still treats them like appointments.

That's the important part.

Don't just decide how many times you want to work out. Decide when you're going to do it.

3. Strong connections are built through consistent personal communication, not necessarily just by being in person.

One thing we didn't fully appreciate when we started online coaching was how meaningful the relationships with our clients could become.

Blakley had owned a physical gym, and the community there was incredible. People built friendships, got married, and spent time together outside the gym.

We wondered whether that same kind of connection could happen online.

It turns out it can.

But it doesn't happen automatically.

You have to be intentional about getting to know people. You have to ask questions, listen, and create an environment where clients feel comfortable sharing what's going on in their lives.

Sometimes that means talking about a workout or helping someone improve their nutrition. Other times, it means helping them navigate a difficult season, whether that's a loss in the family, a health challenge, or some other unexpected event.

We've had conversations with clients that have genuinely moved us to tears.

When we started Digital Barbell, I didn't expect to become so invested in the lives of people we were coaching on air squats and nutrition habits.

But that's what happens when you build real relationships.

And it's not limited to online coaching. You can work alongside somebody for 20 years and never get beyond surface-level conversation. You can also build a meaningful connection with someone you don't see in person very often.

It comes down to making the effort.

This is one reason we've tried to share more of ourselves through the podcast, our emails, and even our Airstream videos. When people get a sense of who we are, it makes it easier for them to share parts of their own lives with us.

Coaching is about more than delivering workouts and checking off boxes. The relationship matters, too.

4. Above all else, maintain momentum.

This might be the lesson I'm most passionate about.

It doesn't matter how much weight you can squat or how many pounds you've lost if you lose the habits that helped you get there.

Those accomplishments are worth celebrating. But the bigger goal is to maintain the momentum you've built around your health.

Life will interrupt your routine. You'll get sick, go on vacation, deal with an injury, get busy at work, or have something happen that takes your attention away from training.

That's normal.

The danger is letting a temporary interruption turn into a complete stop.

We've had former clients come back to us years later after losing a lot of the progress they'd made. When we talk through what happened, there's often a legitimate reason their routine got disrupted.

The problem isn't that life happened. The problem is that they lost all their momentum and had a hard time getting started again.

And restarting is hard. It's like pushing a boulder up a hill.

That's why we encourage clients to find a way to keep going, even when they can't do everything they'd normally do.

Going on vacation? Maybe you can squeeze in two short workouts with resistance bands.

Dealing with an injury? Maybe you can train the parts of your body that aren't affected, with appropriate modifications.

Having a ridiculously busy week? Maybe you can do two shorter workouts instead of your usual four.

The point isn't to make progress every single week. Sometimes the goal is simply to keep the habit alive.

One of Blakley’s clients, in her 70s, was on an extended trip to Africa and asked us to send her two resistance-band workouts each week.

We weren't expecting those workouts to produce some huge physical transformation. The point was to help her maintain her routine so she could return home and pick up where she left off.

That's a win.

Ask yourself this question when life gets messy:

What's the minimum I can do today to keep my momentum going?

You might be surprised by how much that small decision matters over the long term.

5. Success is reserved for the problem solvers, not the excuse makers.

I came up with this quote one morning, and I've shared it on Instagram a few times:

"Success is reserved for the problem solvers, not the excuse makers."

And no, ChatGPT didn't write it.

I'm not saying this to beat anybody up. I'm pretty good at making excuses myself. Sometimes Blakley has to call me out on them.

But after working with hundreds of clients, we've noticed a difference between people who make progress and people who struggle to get where they want to go.

The people who make progress tend to look for ways to solve problems when life gets in the way.

The people who struggle often treat those same obstacles as reasons to stop.

Let's say your shoulder hurts. You could decide you're done working out until it's completely better. Or you could figure out what movements you can still do safely while you work through the issue.

Maybe your schedule gets turned upside down. You could skip your workouts for the week, or you could find a way to fit in two shorter sessions.

Maybe your usual approach to nutrition isn't working with your current schedule. You could throw in the towel, or you could figure out what adjustments would make it more manageable.

The circumstances aren't always within your control. Your response is where you have some influence.

The next time you catch yourself thinking, "I can't do this because…," try adding a different question:

"I can't do that, but what can I do?"

There's usually some kind of compromise available.

It might not be ideal. It might not be what you planned. But doing something is often better than giving up entirely.

6. In the coming years, coaches will be tempted to let AI do their job. That will be a mistake.

This is a big one, and it's only going to become more relevant.

As artificial intelligence improves, I think coaches will be tempted to let it do more and more of their jobs.

I'm not talking about using AI as a tool to become a better coach. There are plenty of ways it might help us work more efficiently.

I'm talking about handing over the actual coaching.

Imagine a future where a coach uploads a client's workout data, nutrition check-in, or lifting video into an AI system. The system generates the feedback, writes the workout program, and sends the response to the client.

The coach becomes a middleman who passes information back and forth without really engaging with the person they're supposed to be helping.

Some people see that as an opportunity to scale a coaching business to millions of people. We've had conversations about that very possibility.

But that's not the kind of business we want to build.

Our website says we want to be the coach who knows your name. That means knowing more about you than your weight, workout numbers, and nutrition habits.

It means knowing your dog's name. Knowing when your elbow hurts and you need to modify a workout. Knowing when you're going through a difficult time and need a little extra support.

You can teach an AI system to imitate a person's voice or follow a set of coaching standards. But we don't believe that makes it the same as having a real person who knows you, cares about you, and takes responsibility for helping you succeed.

There's a human element to coaching that we don't want to lose.

That doesn't mean we'll refuse to use AI. There are practical ways it could help us do our jobs better. For example, it might help us identify when a client has missed several workouts so we can reach out and check in.

That's useful.

Using technology to help us pay better attention to people is different from using it to avoid paying attention to them.

We want AI to support the coaching, not replace it.

And yes, Blakley has already used AI to see what our living room might look like with a different couch. So I'm not saying we should throw all the technology out the window.

I'm just saying that when it comes to coaching, the human connection is a big part of what people are paying for.

7. Taking a leap of faith is the best thing that you can do for yourself.

Seven years ago, Blakley and I made a decision that changed the direction of our lives.

We closed the gym, left Houston, and moved to Boise so we could build Digital Barbell.

We weren't making much money from the business at that point. By the grace of God, some good friends offered to let us live in their home while we got things going.

About two months after we moved, the world shut down because of the pandemic.

That's not exactly how you draw it up in a business plan.

But here we are, seven years later.

Looking back, I can see how much our faith in God helped us take that leap. We didn't know how everything was going to work out, but we trusted that we'd be OK.

And this wasn't the first time we'd taken a big risk.

Back in 2009, we moved to Tennessee to help take care of Blakley's grandfather and planned to remodel homes. That plan didn't work out the way we'd hoped. The financial situation changed; we eventually moved back to Houston, and Blakley had to ask for her old job back.

You could look at that experience as a failure.

We spent a lot of the money we'd made from selling our house, moved back in with family, and had to start over.

But something unexpected happened while we were in Tennessee: We found CrossFit.

That experience helped set us on the path that eventually led to Digital Barbell.

We had no idea at the time that a move that didn't work out the way we'd planned would have such a lasting impact on our lives.

Over time, those experiences have helped build our faith and confidence. We can look back and see times when things didn't go according to plan, but we were provided for and found ourselves moving in a direction we never would have predicted.

That doesn't mean every decision will work out exactly how you want it to. It doesn't mean taking a leap of faith is easy or that you should make big decisions without thinking them through.

It means you don't have to know every detail of the outcome before you take the next step.

And this applies to fitness, too.

Starting a workout program can feel like a leap of faith, especially if you've tried before and struggled to stick with it. You might wonder whether this time will be any different.

But taking that first step gives you a chance to build evidence that you can do hard things. You start showing up, making progress, and proving to yourself that you're capable of more than you thought.

That confidence can spill over into other areas of your life.

You might start by taking a leap of faith with your health and fitness. Over time, you may find yourself more willing to take a chance on a new opportunity, a career change, or a different direction in life.

You don't have to know exactly where the road leads.

Sometimes you just have to take the next step.

Seven years in, we're still learning

When we went full-time with Digital Barbell in 2019, we couldn't have predicted what the next seven years would look like.

We've learned that exercise and nutrition support each other, that putting workouts on the calendar makes a difference, and that meaningful relationships can grow even when you're not in the same room.

We've learned to protect momentum, look for solutions instead of excuses, and be thoughtful about how we use technology.

And we've been reminded that some of the best things in life begin with a step of faith before you know exactly how everything will work out.

We're grateful for every person who's trusted us to be part of their fitness journey. We know that asking someone to help you with your health is a leap of faith in its own right, and we don't take that trust lightly.

Here's to continuing to learn, grow, and help people get stronger for whatever life has in store.

Thanks for being part of the journey.

Want to hear us talk through these lessons? Listen to the full episode of the Digital Barbell Podcast, where Blakley and I share more stories and discuss what seven years of online coaching have taught us.

Give it a listen here: YouTube - Spotify - Apple

If you’re ready to get in the best shape of your life with our help, click the button below, and we’ll be in touch today.

All the best,

Jonathan