The Personal Trainer Master Prompt for ChatGPT

Photo by Sam Moghadam Khamseh on Unsplash

What can I say? I’ve struggling with my workouts.

And it took my a while to realize just how relatable a problem this is. You see, I just gave birth to my second child five months ago. And coming off years of being a competitive athlete who (to use the forbidden phrase) “bounced back” almost better than ever after her first pregnancy…this struggle is frustrating.

Last time, I planned my workouts, found my motivation, and did the work. Sometimes it was an online workout plan, some of it was with a trainer, all of it was helpful, healthful, and enjoyable.

Now…now I’m bored.

All my old workouts are boring, and they feel ineffective. Planning new ones is a chore, and it feels like I’m trying to reinvent the wheel.

I’ve become one of those people looking for a “magic solution,” which is not who I was before. I understood that when you put in the work, you see results. I was intrinsically motivated to just do it.

Finally I realized…

I didn’t trust my own workouts anymore. I had to find a better way, so I started hunting for online personal trainers.

The search yielded expensive and overwhelming results.

That was until my husband said, “Why not try ChatGPT?”

Lightbulb.

I’d been learning to craft better, more effective prompts ever since baby was born and I went back to work. It was time to put that experience to use for myself.

The Methodology

One of the best prompts in anyone’s arsnel is simply asking ChatGPT how it can help. Mine went something like this:

You are an experienced personal trainer. What are the most important ways you can help me?

And

What’s the best way to prompt a fitness plan?

This is what it told me:

To receive a personalized fitness plan, provide details about your current fitness level, specific goals (e.g., weight loss, muscle gain), preferred workout environment, any existing health conditions or limitations, and the frequency/duration you can commit to. The more information you share, the better ChatGPT can tailor a comprehensive and effective fitness plan to suit your needs.

Now, if you’ve ever worked with ChatGPT, it works on a kind of U-curve. On one end of the curve is too little information which leads to broad, non-specific results. On the other end of the curve is too much information, and ChatGPT will drop or ignore some of your specifics — or it will make things up that aren’t true or good for you.

The answer above…that’s on the too specific side of the curve.

We want to find that sweet spot in the middle.

This is where I got to work.

Disclaimer: This prompt is intended for use by individuals who have been cleared for fitness by their healthcare providers. It is a high-level generator that can take the guesswork and complexity out of designing workouts for healthy individuals looking for a personal training alternative. If you have health or mobility issues, struggle with motivation, are coming back from injury, want additional nutrition support, or have a specific goals that would benefit from more diverse training methodology, please seek out a professional!!

The Prompt

If you read everything to this point, bravo and thank you.

If you’re just here for the prompt, I won’t make you wait any longer:

Personal Trainer Master Prompt for ChatGPT

Act as an experienced personal trainer.

Goals: Your goal is to create a X day workout plan with a focus on [workout goal].

Context: Your client is [currently working out x days per week] / [not currently active] Your client has [preexisting conditions] / [no preexisting conditions]. Your client has been cleared for workout by their physician.

Rules: Your client works out [at home] / [at the gym] (include equipment if at home) Your client works out X amount of time Your client takes inspiration from: [athlete, celebrity, type of activity]. Your client enjoys: Your client does not enjoy:

YOUR RESPONSE FORMAT: Day of the workout: (above the table) Table with 4 columns: 1- Exercise 2- Reps 3- Sets 4- Rest

There should be X days of unique workouts in your response.

Ready to see the results?

Pretty sexy, huh?

Not as sexy as you’re going to be once you create some workouts.

Now, I consider this the “Master Prompt.” It is suitable for a variety of individuals to create a comprehensive, tailored workout routine.

Prompt Appendix: How to best use the prompt

I have run this prompt through different scenarios and these are the best hacks I found for setting your workout goals:

Under “Goals”

Specify number of days you want to workout per week, but don’t bother telling it days of the week. This will only focus the response on details that could take away from other goals.
Your workout goal should be as succinct as possible: “weight loss” “hypertrophy” “strength” “power” “athleticism” are all good prompts. “look like a supermodel” is not a good prompt.

Under “Rules”

Inspiration could be a person (Ben Affleck’s Batman or Cardi B) or a type of methodology (Vince Gironda’s style) or a sport (Crossfit or Pickleball). Only pick one. You can always do the prompt again after your first cycle of training with a new inspiration.
Enjoys: again, short and specific is best. Like getting sweat? Input HIIT. Like working your core? Abdominal Exercises. Same goes for things you don’t enjoy. (I tried the enjoy/don’t enjoy with specific exercises and that was all it gave me to do…some variation every single day.)

Do Not Change

“Your client has been cleared for workout by their physician.” Unless you haven’t been cleared, leave this sentence. Otherwise ChatGPT will scold you (LOL).
“Your Response Format” — Even if you’re adding context (more on that below), ChatGPT is responsive to the needs of the workout and will adjust if it feels it needs to.
“There should be X days of unique workouts in your response” — other than changing the “X” to an actual number, make sure this always says “unique” or ChatGPT try to get away with repeating workouts.

I tried it! But it needs adjusting…

Some of the more savvy fitness individuals (as my husband wanted to point out…) might be looking for more specificity. For example:

What if I want a PPL style workout with two unique PPL cycles?
What if I want to mix in cardio and weight lifting?
What if I want to only do supersets?

I get it. This is a really great prompt for most people.

For more experienced guys and gals, there are two ways you could handle this.

You could try to specify the prompt more…but as mentioned before, the more specific you get, the more could be left out of the final output. I find the more I try to specify up top, the less happy I am with the results.

I prefer to add context.

Context takes the original output into account, which helps with every added layer you prompt. It’s better to adjust for any master prompt output deficiencies than to adjust the prompt entirely.

How to Add Context

Once this prompt has been outlined for you, if you find the response needing some extra tailoring, you add context.

Just make sure to re-instruct the table format, or it will disappear.

Context: Please turn these workouts into supersets.

It’s that easy.

You could also try “Please add cardio” or “Plan Push-Pull Days.” Each will yield you a more specified result.

I plan on getting more into this wild world of ChatGPT fitness prompting, and look forward to finding more exciting ways to specify, specialize, and make fitness accessible to more people.

Good luck, have fun, and get fit!