What Happens at an Assessment — And Why It’s the Starting Point for Everything
Most people who book an assessment with me have been managing a problem for a while.
Sometimes it is an injury that keeps returning. Sometimes their energy or recovery has become unreliable. Sometimes they can still train, but no longer trust what their body will tolerate.
Over time, they develop a working theory:
“My knee is weak.”
“My back is tight.”
“I’m getting too old to train properly.”
“I just need to become more disciplined.”
The assessment is where we stop relying on that theory and start building a clearer picture.
Not to find everything that is imperfect.
To decide what matters, what needs attention first and what training is appropriate now.
Why the assessment comes before the programme
A programme built around goals alone is incomplete.
Two people may both want to become stronger, but require very different starting points.
One may be ready for progressive strength work immediately. Another may have pain that needs appropriate clinical input. Another may have sufficient strength but poor aerobic capacity. Another may be training well but unable to sustain the programme around work, sleep and family demands.
Giving all four people the same programme because they share the same goal ignores the information that determines whether the programme will hold.
The assessment establishes:
What you want your body to let you do
What you can currently tolerate
What is limiting progress
What may require referral or further investigation
Which qualities need priority
What can be trained normally
What needs modification
How we will know whether the approach is working
That makes the assessment a decision-making process—not a collection of tests.
The conversation comes first
Before measuring anything, I need to understand the history.
That includes:
Previous injuries, surgery and relevant health conditions
Medication and current medical care
Training and sporting background
Previous programmes and why they stopped
Current pain, symptoms or physical concerns
Work, travel and family demands
Sleep, energy and recovery patterns
Nutrition and eating routine
The activities you want to return to or preserve
What you are currently worried your body cannot handle
This often explains more than a single physical test.
It also helps establish whether coaching is appropriate or whether medical, physiotherapy or other specialist input is needed first.
Movement and task assessment
I use movement screening to observe how you currently perform a range of fundamental tasks.
Where appropriate, this may include the seven movements within the Functional Movement Screen:
Deep squat
Hurdle step
Inline lunge
Shoulder mobility
Active straight-leg raise
Trunk-stability push-up
Rotary stability
The screen helps identify movement options, asymmetries, pain responses and tasks that may need further exploration.
It does not diagnose an injury. It does not predict with certainty who will get hurt. A low score does not automatically mean an exercise is unsafe.
The useful question is:
Does this finding affect something the client needs or wants to do?
If it does, we investigate it further and determine whether improving that movement would create a meaningful benefit.
If it doesn’t, it may not need to become a programme priority.
I may also assess relevant real-world tasks such as getting to the floor, carrying load, balancing, stepping, reaching or moving in directions required by the client’s life or sport.
Strength, power and physical performance
Where appropriate, I establish baselines for qualities such as:
Grip strength
Lower-body power
Trunk endurance
Basic strength patterns
Balance or single-leg control
Carrying capacity
Other tasks relevant to the client’s goals
Tests such as a standing long jump, plank hold or grip-strength measurement can provide useful repeatable baselines when they are appropriate for the person being assessed.
They are not marks to pass or fail.
They help answer:
Which qualities are already well developed?
Which qualities may be limiting capability?
What should the programme preserve?
What should it develop?
What is the safest and most useful way to establish a starting dose?
Not every client needs every test.
The assessment should fit the person—not force the person through a fixed battery simply because the tests are available.
Aerobic and cardiovascular response
Aerobic capacity influences what someone can sustain during training and how quickly they recover between repeated physical efforts.
Depending on health history and current ability, I may use an appropriate aerobic test alongside heart-rate response, perceived effort and recovery after the test.
Heart-rate recovery provides information about how quickly heart rate falls following exercise. It can be a useful cardiovascular marker when the protocol and measurement conditions are consistent.
It is not a complete measure of someone’s overall recovery capacity.
The result is considered alongside:
Current activity
Training history
Symptoms
Resting heart rate
Relevant medical information
Performance during the test
How the person feels afterwards
Where health history or symptoms make testing inappropriate, I modify the assessment or request appropriate medical clearance.
Body composition
Body composition may be assessed when it is relevant to the client’s health, performance or goals.
Skinfold measurements can provide an estimate of body-fat levels and changes over time when performed consistently. They are not a perfectly precise measurement, and they should not dominate the assessment.
For many clients, preserving or increasing lean mass matters more than pursuing an arbitrary body-fat percentage.
For others, body composition may not need to be measured at all.
Sleep, energy and recovery
I ask about sleep duration, regularity and how restored the person feels.
Where a client already uses a wearable, I may review trends in resting heart rate, HRV and estimated sleep duration. Wearable data can help identify patterns, but it is not diagnostic and sleep-stage estimates have limitations.
No individual score decides the programme.
I compare the data with:
Energy across the week
Training response
Work and emotional demands
Soreness and symptoms
Consistency of sleep
Perceived recovery
Ability to perform normal daily activities
The purpose is to understand whether the proposed training can be supported by the client’s current life—not to give them another set of numbers to worry about.
Nutrition and health information
The assessment also considers whether the client’s normal eating pattern supports their activity and recovery.
That may include:
Meal regularity
Protein and carbohydrate intake
Hydration
Fuelling around training
Appetite
Digestive symptoms
Supplements
Practical barriers created by work or travel
I do not diagnose food intolerance or medical nutritional conditions.
Persistent digestive symptoms, unexplained fatigue, significant dietary restriction or concerns raised by medical test results may require input from a GP, registered dietitian or another qualified healthcare professional.
If a client has recent blood results, these may provide useful context, but medical interpretation remains with the appropriate clinician.
What comes out of the assessment
The assessment should produce a clear working plan.
That includes:
The desired capability
What the client wants to be able to do reliably in training and life.
The primary constraint
The factor currently having the greatest practical effect on progress.
The first priorities
The one or two qualities or behaviours that need the most attention now.
The programme starting point
The appropriate exercise selection, training dose, progression method and between-session support.
What we will monitor
The measures that tell us whether the intervention is working.
The review point
When we will reassess the priority and decide what comes next.
The assessment may identify several areas that could improve. That does not mean they all need attacking at once.
The purpose is to establish the right order.
How progression is judged
I look for progress across four areas:
Technical competence
Is movement becoming more controlled, confident and repeatable?Physical performance
Are load, repetitions, speed, duration or work capacity improving?Response over the next 24–48 hours
Is the client tolerating the work without an unacceptable increase in pain, fatigue or disruption?Independence
Is the client becoming better at understanding and managing their own training?
Progression does not require every marker to be perfect.
It requires enough evidence that the current dose is being tolerated and that the next step serves the client’s goal.
What the assessment is not
It is not a fitness test you pass or fail.
It is not an attempt to diagnose every symptom.
It is not a sales conversation disguised as testing.
And it is not a search for enough faults to justify a complicated programme.
It is a working session designed to answer:
Where are you now, what is getting in the way, and what is the most useful thing to do next?
That is why the assessment is the starting point for everything.
