Camera, earbuds, music: live video training logistics

Before a first live session, almost nobody asks me about sets and reps. They ask about logistics. Where does the phone go? Earbuds or speaker? Can I play my own music? Will my Wi-Fi hold up?

Fair questions, because setup is the one part of live video training that's on you. If the coach can't see your hips, they can't check your squat. The good news: a solid setup takes five minutes, uses stuff you already own, and works for any live service, ours included.

Key takeaways

• Put the camera side-on for squats and hinges, about 45 degrees for presses and rows, at hip height, 6 to 10 feet back.
• You don't need a tripod. A chair seat, a bookshelf, or a phone leaned against a stack of books works fine.
• One earbud in, one out is the setup most people land on: coach in one ear, your music and the room in the other.
• Play music out loud in your room, not through the call. You control it, and the call software filters most of it out anyway.
• A 1-on-1 HD video call needs roughly 1.2 to 3.8 Mbps each way. Almost any home connection clears that.
• Wear clothes fitted enough that your knees, hips, and shoulders show on camera. Baggy up top is fine if the joints still read.

Where do I put the camera?

Think about which direction the movement happens in, then film from the side where the joint angles change.

Squats, deadlifts, hinges, lunges: side-on. From the front, a hip hinge looks like almost nothing is happening. From the side, your coach sees depth, back angle, and whether the weight drifts away from you.

Presses, rows, curls, most standing upper-body work: about 45 degrees. Straight-on hides your elbow path behind your torso, and pure side-on hides one whole arm. The diagonal shows both at once.

Floor work like push-ups and planks: side-on again, with the camera lower, roughly at torso height when you're down there.

Put simply: side-on for anything hip-driven, diagonal for anything arm-driven.

For height and distance, our coaches' rule of thumb is hip height, 6 to 10 feet back, phone in landscape. Closer than 6 feet and your feet or head get cut off mid-exercise; further than 10 and details like wrist position get fuzzy.

And don't stress about nailing this before day one. At Bespoke Fit, dialing in the angle is part of your first session; your coach looks at the frame and adjusts you until it's right. More on that first hour in what to expect in your first session.

Do I need a tripod?

No. I've never told anyone to buy one.

The easiest option is a cheap phone stand, a small tripod or bendy gooseneck for about 10 to 20 dollars on Amazon, Temu, or eBay, or a 3D-printed one if you have a printer. If you'd rather not buy anything, a phone stacked on books to hip height, a bookshelf or windowsill, a couch armrest, or a laptop on a chair pulled a few feet back all work. If the phone keeps sliding, a mug behind it fixes that.

Sessions with us run on live HD video in our app, and the browser works too, so whatever device you prop up, there's nothing extra to install.

Earbuds or speaker?

Both work. Which one wins depends on the room.

Speaker mode wins when you're home alone in a quiet room. Nothing in your ears, nothing falls out during floor work, and your phone's mic picks up your voice from across the room just fine.

Earbuds win when the house is asleep, you share the space, or the room is noisy, a garage with a treadmill running, kids in the next room. The coach's voice lands right in your ear instead of competing with the room.

The compromise most people settle into: one earbud in, one out. Coach's cues in one ear, your music and your surroundings in the other. You never miss a cue, and if an earbud pops out during burpees you've still got the other one. Any earbuds with a mic are fine; no need for sporty ones to start.

Who controls the music?

You do. This surprises people, so here's how it works on a live call.

Music doesn't travel through the call. Video platforms run echo cancellation and noise suppression, which are built to isolate one thing: a human voice. Anything else, music included, gets treated as background noise and filtered down to a garbled murmur. It's why singing on lockdown video calls sounded so bad. So your coach can't DJ your session, and you can't stream your playlist to them either.

Instead, you play your own music in your own room, out loud or in your open ear, and keep it below voice volume so cues cut through. Your coach just talks over it.

And it's worth playing something. A 2020 meta-analysis of 139 studies in Psychological Bulletin found that music reliably improves physical performance and lowers how hard exercise feels, with small-to-moderate effects, and faster music helped more than slow. Your playlist is a training tool, not a distraction.

How fast does my internet need to be?

Slower than you'd think. Zoom's own system requirements put a 1-on-1 video call at 1.2 Mbps up and down for 720p HD, and about 3.8 Mbps up, 3.0 Mbps down for 1080p. Other platforms, ours included, sit in the same range. If your home internet streams video without buffering, it will carry a coaching call.

If your video ever looks choppy: train closer to the router, since walls cost you far more than raw plan speed, and if home Wi-Fi is genuinely bad, a phone on 4G or 5G usually beats it. Run one speed test before your first session, confirm you're above about 4 Mbps each way, then stop thinking about bandwidth forever.

What should I wear, and does lighting matter?

Wear whatever you'd normally train in, with one filter: your coach needs to see joints. Shorts or leggings beat baggy sweatpants because knee tracking and squat depth stay visible. Up top, loose is fine as long as your shoulders read through it. The one genuinely bad outfit is all black in a dim room against a dark couch.

Lighting follows one rule: light in front of you, not behind you. Cameras expose for the brightest thing in frame, so a window at your back turns you into a silhouette. Face the window instead, or put a lamp roughly behind the camera. Ceiling lights plus one lamp is plenty; nobody needs a ring light to deadlift.

What if I hate being on camera?

You're in good company, and the fix is mostly a settings toggle.

A 2021 Stanford paper in Technology, Mind, and Behavior argued that a big driver of video-call discomfort is the self-view window, the little mirror of yourself that no real-world conversation includes. The author's advice was simple: hide self-view. Your coach still sees you; you just stop watching yourself. Most apps have this, ours included, and once the angle is set you don't need your own feed.

Beyond that, remember what's on the other end: one person, not an audience, watching your knee track over your foot, not judging your living room. In our experience the self-consciousness fades within a couple of sessions.

How do rescheduling and messaging work?

The etiquette is the same for any live service: message the moment you know, and never just no-show. A two-line note two hours out ("today's not happening, can we do tomorrow at 7?") keeps everything easy. Silence is the only move that actually costs goodwill. Life happening is expected; skip the apology essay and just rebook.

Our own conventions, plainly: everything runs through in-app messaging, so rescheduling is one message, not an email chain. Sessions are unlimited, so moving one never burns anything. And you can message your coach between sessions with whatever comes up. Details in the FAQ.

What this means for you

• Set the phone side-on at hip height, 6 to 10 feet back, in landscape, then record a 10-second test clip of one squat. If ankles, hips, and shoulders stay in frame, it's right.
• Start with one earbud in and your music on a speaker, below voice volume.
• Run one speed test. Above roughly 4 Mbps each way, your connection is a solved problem.
• Face a window or lamp, skip the all-black outfit, and wear something fitted at the knees.
• Need to move a session? Send two lines as early as you can, then actually rebook.

Common questions

Phone or laptop, which is better? Either works. Phone cameras are usually sharper and easier to prop anywhere; a laptop gives you a bigger screen when your coach demonstrates a movement. Our sessions run in the app or the browser on either one, nothing to install.

What happens if my connection drops mid-session? Platforms downgrade quality before they drop, so a slowdown usually just looks blurry for a few seconds. If the call actually dies, rejoin the same way you joined; your coach will be there. Nobody assumes you bailed because your router blinked.

Can my coach hear my music, and is that a problem? They'll hear a faint, filtered version at most, because noise suppression strips out non-voice audio. It's not rude and you don't need to turn it off. Just keep it quiet enough that you can hear cues over it.

The setup is the easy part

Everything above works for any live coaching service, and you can absolutely sort it out yourself: prop the phone, test the frame, done. Plenty of people do exactly that and get real value from it.

If you'd rather have someone dial it in with you, that's built into how we start. Your Bespoke Fit coach spends part of the first session getting your camera angle right for the room you actually have, then it's set for good. Sessions are live 1-on-1 HD video, unlimited, wherever you train. The whole flow is on how it works, your first month is $49, and founding members lock in $299 a month for life, with 25 founding spots. The setup takes five minutes. The training is the part worth showing up for.