Intake Form

Intake Form: what is it?

The intake form is where coaching stops being generic. Two clients with the same goal, the same age and the same weight can need almost opposite programs once you know one trains at 6am in a hotel gym and the other has a bad shoulder and three free evenings. Collecting that before you write anything costs the client fifteen minutes and saves you weeks of adjusting a plan that never fitted. It is also where health screening happens, which is the part that is not optional.

What to include

An intake form does four jobs, and each section should earn its place. Anything you would not act on should not be there, because every extra question lowers the completion rate.

Health screening is not the same as a general questionnaire

Screening exists to identify clients who should see a doctor before starting or who need a modified approach. Standardized screening questionnaires such as the PAR-Q are widely used in the industry for exactly this. Whatever instrument you use, treat a red flag as a reason to seek clearance rather than as a box to tick.

Record the answers and keep them. If a client's situation changes, and it will, you want to know what they told you at the start and when.

Getting it actually completed

A long form sent with no explanation is the most common reason onboarding stalls. Clients abandon it, then feel awkward about the delay, then go quiet. Design against that.

• Say how long it takes and why it matters before they open it.
• Ask only what changes your decisions.
• Put the health screening first, while attention is highest.
• Use open questions where the wording matters, and options where it does not.
• Chase it the same day it is due; a stalled intake almost never restarts on its own.
• Confirm you have read it, and reference something specific from it in your first message.

Reading it properly

The form is worth nothing if it is filed and forgotten. The details that change a program are usually not in the health section but in the practical one: a client who trains before work will not do a 75-minute session, and a client with two small children will not batch-cook on Sundays no matter what the plan says.

Revisit it. An intake taken a year ago describes a person who has changed, and re-running the practical and goal sections at the start of each new block is one of the cheapest retention habits available.

Store it properly as well. An intake contains health information, sometimes photographs, and always personal detail a client gave you in confidence. Keep it somewhere with controlled access rather than in a messaging thread or a personal drive, do not forward it, and delete what you no longer need. Data protection rules apply to coaches like anyone else, and beyond the legal question this is the file that most obviously shows whether you run a professional practice.