Personal trainer client intake form: free template and questions

Section 1: Contact and basics

• Full name, email and phone number
• Date of birth
• Emergency contact (name and phone)
• How did you hear about me?

Section 2: Goals

• What is the main thing you want to achieve in the next 3 months?
• Why does it matter to you right now?
• How will you know you have achieved it? (a number, a lift, how clothes fit, an event)
• Have you tried to reach this goal before? What happened?

The "why" question is the most useful one on the form. It tells you what to remind the client of in week five, when motivation drops.

Section 3: Training history

• How long have you been training consistently? (never, less than 6 months, 6 to 24 months, more than 2 years)
• What does a typical training week look like right now?
• Which exercises do you know and feel confident with?
• Do you know your current best lifts or recent working weights? (optional)
• Have you followed a written program before? Did you log your workouts?

Section 4: Health screening

Use a standard pre-exercise questionnaire such as the PAR-Q+, which covers heart conditions, chest pain, dizziness, bone or joint problems and medications. Then add:

• Are you currently pregnant or have you given birth in the last 12 months?
• Is there anything a doctor has told you to avoid?

A yes to a medical question means the client should get clearance from a health professional before you start. Do not diagnose and do not program around a medical issue on your own.

Section 5: Injuries and limitations

• Do you have any current pain or injury? Where, and what makes it worse?
• Any past injuries or surgeries we should know about?
• Are there exercises you cannot or do not want to do?

Section 6: Schedule and equipment

• How many days per week can you realistically train? Which days?
• How long can each session be?
• Where will you train? (commercial gym, home gym, outdoors, travel)
• What equipment do you have access to?

Ask for the days they trained in their best recent month, not their ideal week. Programs built on wishful schedules fail in week two.

Section 7: Lifestyle and preferences

• Average hours of sleep per night
• Stress level from 1 to 10, and main sources
• Job type (desk, on your feet, physical labor, shift work)
• Current eating habits, and whether you want nutrition guidance
• Activities you enjoy and ones you hate
• How do you prefer feedback: direct, or encouraging?

Consent and agreements

Close the form with informed consent, a liability waiver, your cancellation policy and permission to store their data. Have these reviewed for your country and your insurance; templates found online rarely match local law.

Turning answers into the first program

Map each section to a programming decision: goal sets the rep ranges and focus, training history sets the volume and exercise complexity, schedule sets the split, equipment sets the exercise choices, and limitations remove or replace movements. Our step-by-step guide to creating a workout plan for a client walks through that process.

Keep it with the training data

Answers buried in an email are forgotten by week three. Keep the client's goal, limitations and notes next to their program and logs, so every review starts with the context. In GoHarder each athlete has a profile with their goals and full workout history, so the context stays next to the numbers.