Inside the OPEX Method Mentorship Week 8: How To Become a True Fitness Professional
This blog series will document the 10 week experience of Dr. David Skolnik as he goes through the OPEX Method Mentorship. Follow along as we add to this blog each week.
How To Become a True Fitness Professional
f you coach for a living, you probably spend a lot of time thinking about program design, energy systems, and assessment. But at some point, you realize that becoming a professional coach is about far more than writing great workouts. It is about who you are, how you show up, and how you run your business.
Week 8 of The OPEX Method Mentorship, shared through Dr. David Skolnik's experience, zooms out from sets and reps and focuses on the identity and habits of a true professional. This is where your purpose, values, systems, and service all come together.
From Technical Skills To The Professional Coach
The mentorship spends its first seven weeks on the nuts and bolts of coaching. Topics include:
How to assess movement
How to program for strength
How to build aerobic capacity
How to approach anaerobic or “pain” work
How to write an effective training plan
How to coach lifestyle and behavior
All of that matters. You cannot be a solid coach without technical skill.
But at some point, you need to pull all of that together and answer a bigger question: how do you act like a professional every day, with every client, in every part of your business?
That is the focus of this part of the mentorship.
The Common Early-Career Mistake: “I Can Help Everyone”
Ask experienced coaches what they would change about their early years, and a common answer comes up. Many wish they had been more clear about who they wanted to work with.
Most new coaches say things like:
“I can help everyone.”
“I’ll work with anyone who wants to get fitter.”
This might feel generous, but it often creates confusion instead of clarity. If you say you help everyone, it is hard for a potential client to know:
Why they should pick you
Whether you have experience with people like them
What makes you different from the next coach
If you try to speak to everyone, you end up speaking to no one.
Coaches talk a lot about the “ideal client avatar.” That has value, but it skips a more important question.
The Better Question: What Kind Of Coach Do You Want To Be?
Before you obsess over your ideal client, you need to get clear on your ideal self as a coach.
If you are going to pour hundreds or thousands of hours into education, client work, and business building, it needs to line up with who you are and what you care about. If your business and your values do not fit, it does not matter how “ideal” your clients are. You will feel off-center and burned out.
So start here:
Why do you coach?
What change do you want to create in people’s lives?
How do you want to influence your local community or online audience?
What will you never compromise on when you coach?
When you know that, “ideal client” becomes much easier to define, because now you know what “ideal” even means.
Define Your Why, Values, And Principles
There are three layers that guide you as a professional coach:
Why you coach
This is your mission. Maybe it is to help people stay strong as they age, or to give busy parents a simple path to health. The exact words are personal, but you should be able to say them clearly.Values you will not bend on
These are the things you will protect in your work. For example, honesty, long-term thinking, or respect for each client’s context.Principles you use to live out those values
Principles are how your values show up in daily action.
If you value honesty, a principle might be, “I only program what a client can actually recover from.”
If you value long-term health, a principle might be, “I do not sacrifice joint health for short-term performance.”
You do not need a fancy mission statement to start. You do need a clear sense of why you are doing this and how you plan to show up every time you coach.
Once you have that, the rest of your business choices start to line up.
From Purpose To Positioning, Systems, And Pricing
After you define why you coach and how you want to work, you can finally start to:
Position yourself in the market
Build systems that match your values
Understand and communicate your value
Dr. Skolnik coaches other coaches, and one question always comes up: “How much should I charge?” A better version of that question is, “What am I worth as a coach?”
There are two parts to that:
What you believe your work is worth
What the people you want to coach believe your work is worth
In simple terms, it depends who is giving you the higher number. But you cannot answer that with any confidence if you have not done the work on your purpose and values. Your pricing, your policies, and your offers should reflect the type of professional you have chosen to be.
What To Track Changes As Your Business Grows
The “business of coaching” side of the mentorship reinforces that you should track what actually matters for your current stage, not what looks good on a spreadsheet.
Your focus might look something like this:
Stage of businessWhat matters most right nowZero to a few clientsGetting those first clients and serving them wellAround 10-15 clientsConsistent communication and client resultsAround 20-25 clients, overwhelmedSystems, time management, and process efficiency
If you have zero clients, tracking elaborate systems is a distraction. You need to get your first client and give them a great experience.
If you have 25 clients and you are working 80 hours a week for less money than you want, then “get more clients” is the wrong target. Your key metric is now system quality. You need a process that lets you keep serving 25 people well without destroying your schedule or your energy.
The lesson is simple: match what you track to what you actually need in this season.
Communication, Sales, And Closing With Confidence
In the mentorship, Dr. Skolnik also highlights several frameworks around communication and sales. The goal is not to turn you into a pushy salesperson. The goal is for you to feel prepared and confident when you talk to leads and clients.
This includes:
Communication frameworks for check-ins and feedback
Clear ways to set expectations with new clients
A structure for “closing with confidence” when someone is ready to sign up
When your communication is clear and repeatable, clients feel safe. They know what comes next. They know you are thinking ahead and not just reacting.
That confidence is a big part of being seen as a professional, not a hobbyist.
Coaching Is A Service: How To Delight Every Client
Carl Hardwick, CEO of OPEX Fitness, teaches a simple idea that anchors this part of the mentorship: coaching is a service industry.
Your job is to delight clients through:
Consistency
Care
Clarity
Consistency means you show up the same way, every time. You follow through on what you say you will do.
Care means you pay attention. You notice when a client’s life is hectic and adjust their training. You listen when they talk about sleep, stress, or work.
Clarity means no confusion about what they are doing, why they are doing it, or what success looks like.
If you delight clients, you also delight your referral sources. In time, many of your clients become your best referral sources.
If you overpromise and underdeliver, the opposite happens. Dr. Skolnik uses a simple image for this. It is like ordering a cheeseburger and getting a burger with no cheese. You technically got a burger, but you did not get what you were told you would get. That gap is what kills trust.
Professional coaches do not sell cheeseburgers without cheese.
Think Like A Coach One Or Two Steps Ahead
Dr. Skolnik shares a quote he passes on to his own students:
To get where you want to be, you need to adopt the habits of someone who is one to two steps ahead of where you are now. That way, when you arrive at your goal, you already have the habits and systems to stay there and succeed.
This is a powerful way to grow as a coach.
Instead of only thinking about certifications or more knowledge, ask:
What does a coach with 20 steady clients do every week that I am not doing yet?
How does a coach with a full-time online roster manage check-ins?
How does a gym owner with a small, loyal client base structure their week?
A simple action step from this week of the mentorship is:
Identify two or three coaches who are one or two steps ahead of you.
Study their systems and habits, not just their social media.
Look for small, concrete things you can apply in your own practice.
Maybe it is how they structure consult calls. Maybe it is how they ask for feedback. Maybe it is how they schedule focused time for programming.
The key is to act now like the coach you say you want to be later.
Going Deeper With The OPEX Method
If you want a more guided path, OPEX Fitness exists to help coaches build long, fulfilling careers, not just short bursts of client growth.
You can explore The OPEX Method and CCP Level 1 coaching education through the OPEX Method Mentorship and CCP Level 1 overview.
If you are not ready for a full mentorship yet, you can still sharpen your skills using:
Free coaching guides and tools from OPEX Fitness free downloads
Extra resources through the CoachRx free resource library
Daily fitness education from LearnRx
Coaching software support with CoachRx professional coaching software
Use these to keep building both your technical skills and your professionalism.
Bringing It All Together As A Professional Coach
Becoming a professional coach is not only about better squat progressions or smarter aerobic work. It is about aligning your identity, your values, your systems, and your service.
Start by deciding what kind of coach you want to be, then let that shape your clients, your pricing, your communication, and your daily habits. Track the things that matter for your current stage, delight your clients through consistency, care, and clarity, and study coaches who are one or two steps ahead.
If you keep doing that, your business will grow, your clients will stay longer, and you will
Next Steps
Become A Professional Coach.
Wherever you are on your coaching journey, learn a repeatable and proven system to simplify program design and build a sustainable career. See how the OPEX Method Mentorship can help you find your version of success as a professional coach.
Elevate Your Coaching Business
CoachRx empowers fitness coaches to excel in program design, nurture client relationships, and scale their businesses with unparalleled efficiency and insight. Discover why CoachRx is the preferred choice for fitness coaches seeking to differentiate and deliver exceptional services.
Continue To Learn & Grow
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