Ten keys to Compliance Programming

The first in a series of short articles. How Fitness by Phone® is different, and why it works where other health and fitness programs fail dismally.


1.    Issue of compliance.

    Personal training clients are getting savvier about what they want. They want more results, usually for less money. With the way the economy is behaving, only trainers who can deliver measurable results based on verifiable research will prosper.

    The majority of clients want to achieve major body transformations, especially weight/fat loss.
Research by Klem et al 1997 shows that it means expending an extra 400 calories a day via exercise and movement.

    If you as a client of Fitness by Phone® are going to achieve significant body changes, let alone just great health, you will need to be given tested tools and techniques to keep you motivated. Especially motivated to increase your activity levels each day and make a permanent lifestyle change.

    Surveys show that only 10-25% of personal training clients exercise regularly over a 24 week period - something always "comes up" to interrupt the training session -illness, schedule changes, or bluntly, just can't be bothered.

    Why so dismal? The problem is this. Clients rely on the TRAINER BEING THERE to motivate them. They become so dependent on the trainers physical presence for feelings of competence and self-efficacy, they don't exercise enough. Or at all on the other 4-5 days of the week when the trainer isn't present.

    As a result clients devolve into a maintenance mode of exercise, or cease altogether and rarely achieve the results they go to a personal trainer to get.

    At Fitness by Phone® we use a system called "compliance programming", a combination of techniques backed up by University research.
Our own association has documented an increase of compliance from 10-25% using traditional personal training to 75-90% using our methods. That's a 300% to 900% increase in effectiveness over the last 10 years with thousands of clients over 40 states in the US and Canada.

2.    Transtheoretical Model

    This will help you understand where you are in relation to starting a health or weight loss program.

    First we have to identify if you are ready to change and by how much. This model was developed to help smokers quit by Prochaska and Marcus,1994 and has been applied successfully to control exercise adherence.

    There are 6 stages of readiness to participate in a weight loss/exercise program. They are progressive - precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance and termination.

1.    Precontemplation - a person has no intention of changing their behaviour (such as being a couch potato) in the next six months. Sometimes this is because the person is unaware of the consequences of their behaviour. Often however, and this is critical, it is because they have tried and failed to change in the past, and don't want the risk of failure again. Perfectly understandable and I come across that situation all the time.
2.    Contemplation. A person seriously wants to make a change in the next six months - maybe their doctor has made some suggestions for instance but it isn't critical (yet).
3.    Preparation. A person decides to change their behaviour or takes some steps to make the change e.g. join a gym or buy running shoes. Or they have been informed that if they don't make a significant change they might die or suffer permanent health impairment.
4.    Action. Actual changes have been made over the last six months.
5.    Maintenance. The good behaviour change has been maintained for at least six months.
6.    Termination. The good behaviour continues to be maintained and there is no temptation to relapse into the old behaviour.

Here is a question - Where are you now?


3.    Self Efficacy.

    Self-efficacy theory is related to the above model because it increases as you move through each stage. According to James Annesi (1996) self-efficacy is "a persons judgement of his/her ability to devise and execute strategies of action required to attin designated types of performance".

    In other words when will you be mentally strong enough to be your own trainer, and oversee your own eating and exercise program to keep getting the results you want?
Many studies show that perceived self-efficacy is the best indicator of whether you will stick to exercise or not. The more confidence you feel, because you are getting better at what you do, tends to build on itself.
You become a self fulfilling prophecy.

    All Fitness by Phone® clients become self managed in the long run and it usually happens within three to six months.

    Our success is that we do ourselves out of a job!

    One of the problems with standard personal trainers and gym memberships is this. They are usually aimed at people who are already at the action stage.

    If you are overweight, have failed a lot, and given up, you are not going to respond to the "buy it now" gym membership offer are you? You will need a lot of reasons to put yourself on the line once again.

    That is one reason why Fitness by Phone® is so successful. To my knowledge the generous 100% money back guarantee has never been exercised in ten years of operation.

    What other health, weight loss and fitness program has the confidence to guarantee your success?

Go to the form page and fill it out now. Nothing to lose (except excess weight) and everything to gain (your life and figure back).