What a Coach Actually Does in a Live Online Class (and Why We Stop at 6 People)

"Online class" can mean a recorded video, a stream with hundreds of screens, or a coach watching you live. They are different products. To show what the coached kind actually contains, we counted what happens in our own recorded classes.

Method: from 101 readable recordings of YourTrainer coaching classes, 17 August to 7 September 2026 (26 members, 4 coaches, mostly one-to-one). Percentages are shares of those classes. Members are anonymised; coach lines are quoted from class by first name.

One class, by the numbers

The class, minute by minute

1. Warm-up, 5 to 10 minutes. The same pattern across all four coaches: joint rotations (shoulders, elbows, hips, ankles), then dynamic stretches (chest openers, leg swings, cat-cow), then a pulse raiser such as 30 seconds of jumping jacks or high knees.
2. Main block, about 25 to 30 minutes. Six or seven exercises. The most programmed in our classes were plank variants, squats, shoulder presses and thrusters, rows, curls, hinges like the Romanian deadlift, and push-ups.
3. Effort check after every set. You rate the set 1 to 10. Seven to nine is the target. If form held, the weight goes up.
4. Finisher, 3 to 5 minutes. Short conditioning: mountain climbers, burpees, jumping jacks, scaled to you.
5. Cool-down and homework. Stretching, then next steps such as a step target or a stretch to do daily. Homework was given in 72% of classes.

The cues you will hear most

"Chest up" was the most repeated cue, in about a third of all classes. Then: back straight, full range of motion, elbows close to the body, up fast and down slow, soft knees, glutes tight, knees tracking the toes. Coaches repeat the same cue 3 to 5 times per exercise on purpose. Hearing it once does not change a movement; hearing it on the rep where it slips does.

"The last reps are the reps which cause muscle growth. The initial reps are to get you to the last reps." (Coach Vivek, in class)

Why we stop at 6 people

In our recordings, actual talking took about half of the connected time. Apply that to a 45-minute class and you get roughly 20 minutes of coaching talk to share. This is simple maths, not a study, but it shows what class size does to your share of the coach.

Six is the largest group where a coach can still see every tile on one screen, give each person several cues and remember who had knee pain last week. Above that, a coached class turns into a broadcast.

How to get the most from a live class

• Camera about 2 metres away at hip height, whole body in frame.
• Side-on for hinges, front-on for squats and presses.
• Say it when something hurts. Sharp and short usually means a joint; dull and lingering usually means muscle. Coaches change the move either way.
• Rate your sets honestly. A 7 to 9 is where progress happens.

That is the format of YourTrainer Live: 45-minute classes of 6 or fewer, a certified coach on camera, 3 days a week at the hours you pick. See how it compares with other online classes or the batch times.

Related reading

• Does online personal training work? What a coach sees on video
• What people actually ask a personal trainer
• Building strength with light dumbbells