How Fitness Trainers Can Use ChatGPT to Create Personalized … – MUO – MakeUseOf
Learn how fitness trainers can use ChatGPT to get started creating and modifying workout plans for clients.
ChatGPT has a wide range of applications for professionals in various fields, and the fitness industry is not left out.
One popular use case of ChatGPT in fitness is creating personalized workout plans. Fitness trainers with many clients can take advantage of this to simplify program planning and divert some of their time to other important facets of their job. Continue reading to learn how to use ChatGPT to ease your workflow as a fitness trainer.
ChatGPT is a great way to build a custom workout plan if you explain to it exactly what your client aims to achieve. Training intensity may be different for people, depending on sex, age, size, and goals. This is why you must be specific.
In the image below, ChatGPT has created a workout plan for a 25-year-old who wants to build muscle quickly.
Simply inputting the client’s goals and current fitness levels while you ask ChatGPT to create the workout plan is a good starting point. After doing this, you can use other prompts and measures to create a more comprehensive workout plan.
Now, you can ask ChatGPT to consider any other preferences your client may have. Does the client prefer home or gym workouts? How much time can they devote to training based on their schedule? Do they like group workout plans or prefer to train alone?
You can also feed the AI information about other forms of exercise your client wants to engage in, apart from the one predominant in the plan. For instance, the client may be an avid golfer who golfs multiple times a week, even as they're trying to gain muscle mass at the gym.
By considering all these factors, you can create prompts to guide ChatGPT in creating a more personalized workout schedule.
Long prompts are a way to get ChatGPT to prescribe a plan without breaking down the specifics into different commands. You can input all the information about the client: their fitness goals, fitness levels, and training preferences, and ChatGPT will provide a workout plan with the details.
Here’s an example of a long prompt:
"Madi is a 16-year-old who wants to improve athletic performance as she plays high school football. At the same time, she wants to gain muscle because being big is an advantage in her sport, so she wants to incorporate some muscle-building exercises. However, all she has is a barbell and some plates. Prepare a muscle-building-focused workout plan that allows her to train three times a week."
Long prompts are great if you have many clients across a wide range of fitness specialties and goals. They save you time because you just have to gather all the client’s special information and feed them to ChatGPT in well-formed sentences. Not providing context is one of the ChatGPT prompt mistakes that long prompts can help you avoid.
Your expertise as a fitness trainer really comes into play here. You need to look at ChatGPT’s plan and make tweaks based on your knowledge of your client's needs, as you shouldn’t completely rely on AI for health or fitness advice.
In some cases, the client’s goals are not specific enough, even after multiple prompts, and you don’t find out until you see the workout plan. Being a fitness professional, you can include previously omitted important details at this point and make the workout plan more suited to the client’s goals.
It is also expedient to change the workout plan based on rest and recovery. If you previously input that you want the client to train three times every week, ChatGPT may incorporate rest days that don’t match their schedule.
So, because you must properly plan rest days for optimum fitness, you may need to adjust the plan based on your client’s schedule. You could instruct ChatGPT to reschedule the rest days or reschedule them yourself while sticking to the AI’s exercise suggestions.
From time to time, you have to revisit the plan and make changes to accommodate your client’s growth. Based on what you have noticed from your client’s reports on how they feel during and after training or from watching them train, you can instruct ChatGPT to modify the workout plan it has created.
If your client is getting used to the current intensity of workouts, you can copy and paste the previous workout plan back into ChatGPT and ask the AI to create a more intense version. Then, you’ll get a whole new workout with ChatGPT, either adding more reps and sets to the exercises or creating more difficult alternatives.
For example, ChatGPT has modified the 25-year-old man’s home workout plan to make it more intense. From the image below, you’ll see that it has replaced normal push-ups with plyometric push-ups. And instead of planks, it has prescribed planks with shoulder taps.
With changes in muscle endurance and general lifestyle over time, your client may need to engage in other training and exercise forms. For example, if they now have access to gym equipment but only once a week because of their busy schedule, you can modify a home workout plan to include one gym day per week.
Also, you can ask ChatGPT to add cardio, conditioning, CrossFit, or mobility exercises to a workout plan for an all-encompassing approach to fitness, depending on your client’s current needs and preferences.
To avoid monotony and keep your client’s motivation high, you can also instruct ChatGPT to vary exercises. While this is similar to increasing exercise intensity, it is completely different because it only involves creating alternatives, not making the exercises more difficult.
You can use this initiative for periods when your client is losing consistency, as it adds some spice, making their workouts more interesting. ChatGPT has many workout and exercise suggestions, so you can continue experimenting until you find something you like.
ChatGPT is a great tool for doing anything, including creating great workouts. However, it cannot completely replace your expertise as a fitness professional. There is more nuance to creating a personalized workout plan than ChatGPT can handle. The AI may not adequately understand the context in some situations, even after you try to explain in your prompt.
In other situations, it may be easier to fix or include something yourself instead of instructing ChatGPT. In any case, review the AI’s suggestions thoroughly and ensure to remove those that don’t align with your client’s goals.
Dreamchild has been a professional writer, casual gamer, and TTRPG enthusiast since 2016. He studied law briefly before leaving it to pursue a full-time career in freelance writing, sharing the knowledge he has amassed with curious readers. He also volunteers at a repair shop, where he helps people troubleshoot minor software and hardware issues with their Apple devices.
