Ask a supplement brand how well it is known among the professionals who shape its category, and the answer is usually a guess. We asked the question indirectly, and the answer is blunter than most brands would like. When 924 coaches described, in their own words, a supplement they had seen work, 71% named an ingredient or a category. Fewer than one in twenty named a brand.
This is not a finding about whether coaches recommend supplements. They do: 69.7% of coaches in the same survey recommend at least one supplement category, and those who recommend name 2.2 categories on average, as set out in the recommendation breadth report. It is a finding about what coaches carry in their heads when they recommend. At the recommendation layer, the category is fully formed and the brand is mostly missing.
The short answer
In an optional open-text question answered by 924 coaches, 71% named an ingredient or supplement category and fewer than one in twenty named a brand. The few brand mentions were spread across more than 30 different brands, none named more than twice. Coaches decide the category; no brand owns the conversation yet.
Under 1 in 20
coaches name a supplement brand when describing what works
71%
name an ingredient or supplement category instead
30+
different brands across the few brand mentions; none named more than twice
924
substantive open-text answers from coaches
What this is, in one paragraph
This is a read of one optional open-text question in the QuickCoach coach survey, not a brand study. Of 2,253 coaches who completed the survey between late March and early September 2026, 924 gave a substantive answer to an optional question about supplement results from their practice. Answers were coded for ingredient, category and brand mentions by keyword and then reviewed by hand. The question did not ask for brands, which is the point: what a coach names unprompted is the professional equivalent of unaided recall. No brand is named on this page. The full method sits at the foot.
What coaches name when nobody prompts them
Coaches describe results in the language of ingredients. A typical answer names a compound and what it did: protein for hitting a daily target, magnesium for sleep and recovery, electrolytes for hydration. The category is vivid and specific. The label on the product almost never appears.
The brand mentions that do appear are scattered. Across 924 answers we counted more than 30 different brands, and none was named more than twice. There is no default brand at this layer, in the way there is a default answer to the question of what to take for recovery.
An unaided recall test, run on professionals
Brand trackers separate aided awareness, recognising a brand from a list, from unaided awareness, naming it without prompting. Unaided is the harder number and the more valuable one, because it measures what actually comes to mind at the moment of choice. That is mental availability, the concept at the centre of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute's work and the subject of the guide to brand building.
An open question about what has worked is, in effect, an unaided recall test run on the professionals who guide the purchase. On this read, the category passes and the brand fails. Coaches have strong, specific views about what to take. Very few attach a brand name to those views.
Why the brand drops out
Three explanations fit the answers, and they are not mutually exclusive.
- Ingredient talk protects the coach's credibility. Naming a compound sounds like evidence. Naming a brand can sound like a sales pitch, and a coach's recommendation is only worth something while it doesn't.
- Scope of practice. Many coaches are careful about the line between training advice and product endorsement, and several said so in their answers. A category recommendation sits inside that line more comfortably than a brand recommendation.
- The shelf gives them nothing to remember. When dozens of products make the same claim in similar packaging, the useful knowledge is the ingredient. A brand without distinctive assets gives a coach no reason to name it.
None of these is a reason for a brand to stop trying. They are the reasons the ground is still open.
What this means for a supplement brand
The uncomfortable read is that most brands have no presence in the conversation that decides their category. The useful read is that the conversation is unowned. Where a coach's unprompted answer is an ingredient rather than a brand, the first brand to become the default name for that ingredient holds an advantage that competitors will find slow and expensive to take back.
It also changes what a brand should measure. Consumer awareness tells you whether shoppers recognise your name. It does not tell you whether the professional who answered the question first had any name in mind. That needs the professional side measured on its own: unaided first, then aided, then repeated wave over wave to see whether a position is forming. The method is set out in Both Sides of the Sale, and the question of whether a coach keeps naming the same brand is the subject of the stickiness explainer. For what a brand does to earn a place in a coach's repertoire, see the practitioner layer playbook.
What this page does not claim
- It is not a brand ranking. No brand's mention count is published here or anywhere on this site.
- It is not a record of what coaches say in sessions. It captures what coaches name when asked to describe results. A coach may recommend a specific product to a client and still describe the result by its ingredient.
- It is not a census. The sample skews towards independent, digitally engaged practitioners on the QuickCoach platform, so read it as a strong signal about the network measured and a directional one about the wider non-clinical workforce.
- The brand share is approximate. Keyword coding with manual review can miss a brand written in an unusual way. Even if the true share were double the one reported, brand mentions would still sit below one in ten.
Find out whether your brand comes to mind
hale measures unaided and aided awareness among the coaches who shape your category, alongside their clients, continuously and against your competitive set. If no name comes to mind, that is the first number worth tracking.
Where these figures come from
How we got these numbers
Source. The QuickCoach coach survey, a voluntary survey completed by 2,253 coaches between 28 March and 3 September 2026 on a platform used by more than 40,000 coaches and fitness businesses. QuickCoach is one of the platforms behind the hale panel. This read uses one optional open-text question about supplement results coaches had seen in their practice.
Definitions. A substantive answer excludes blanks, one-word replies such as "no" or "n/a", and unreadable text; 924 answers met that bar. An ingredient or category mention names a supplement compound or type, such as protein or magnesium. A brand mention names a commercial supplement brand or product line. Answers could contain both. Coding used keyword matching followed by manual review.
Scope. The sample skews towards independent, digitally engaged practitioners on the QuickCoach platform, so read it as a strong signal about the network measured and a directional one about the wider non-clinical workforce. Brand-level counts sit beneath this topline and are held as part of hale's brand-tracking work. Figures are rounded.
Privacy. Everything is aggregated and anonymised. No individual coach, client or business is identifiable, and no personally identifiable information is included.
Frequently asked questions
Do fitness coaches recommend specific supplement brands?
Rarely by name. In an open-text question answered by 924 coaches on the QuickCoach platform, fewer than one in twenty named a supplement brand when describing what had worked, while 71% named an ingredient or category. Coaches recommend categories readily; brands rarely come to mind unprompted.
What do coaches mention when they talk about supplements?
Ingredients and categories, described alongside the result they saw, such as protein for meeting a daily target or magnesium for sleep and recovery. The product's brand is usually absent from the description.
Which supplement brands do coaches mention most?
hale does not publish brand-level counts. The few brand mentions in this survey were spread across more than 30 brands, with none named more than twice. Brand-level reads for a specific brand and its competitive set are part of hale's paid brand-tracking work.
How can a supplement brand measure its awareness among coaches?
By asking coaches to name brands unprompted before showing any list, then measuring aided recognition, and repeating both over time against a fixed competitive set. Reading coaches and their clients together shows whether professional awareness is turning into consumer demand.
Published October 2026, drawn from the QuickCoach coach survey (2,253 respondents, 924 substantive open-text answers), aggregated and anonymised. Mental availability is cited as an Ehrenberg-Bass Institute concept, not hale's own claim. hale is a health-tech holding company; its coaching platforms, QuickCoach and FitFocus, form the network behind this research. To see what this looks like for your brand and competitive set, start a conversation or reach us at research@halehealth.io.
How hale research works: the panel, the instruments and the privacy rules.
