About becoming a personal trainer

lol cheers for that.

As you've said 1000 times before, until you really establish yourself, as a business, you're always going to be borderline going under (imo anyway)

The Hamburgler said:

As you've said 1000 times before, until you really establish yourself, as a business, you're always going to be borderline going under (imo anyway)

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Yep!

This is why I work for someone else. Then I'll only be borderline going under emotionally. "Oh noes, nobody wants to train with me, however will I get clients again?" I was thinking just this morning. Then an old client came back. So there you go. Ups and downs, drama drama drama, pass me a hanky and a sixpack of VB, boohoo.

Haha.

I can see myself getting a part-time job whilst initially trying to set up later on. Weekends in a pub or a day or 2 a week in somewhere like GNC *Gag*

So far as I can make out, around half the staff of GNC are also personal trainers - though I don't think they'd pass Adam's "10-12+ hours a week" test.

Just work for a community gym, the gym shift hours they give you stop you going broke while you build up the PT.

If I was further advanced in my course ie finished, AND had completed my apprenticeship I would have gone close to getting a job with RACV. That would have been pretty schweet

Anyway, recently a rather slim young woman said, "I want the back of my shoulder here to be flat, not curved. How can I do that?"
"That is muscle. You are human."
'How do I get rid of muscle?"
"Sit at home and eat nothing but celery."
"..."
"I do not recommend you do this. Just accept that you have muscles on your body. This means you are not a cripple. That's not so bad."

I just sat there thinking of my women clients' likely reaction to the idea of wanting to lose muscle.

Lol you could have always told her she could get the muscle cut out

Almost every woman with big thighs (not this one) is convinced she has enormous thigh muscles. Stumptuous says, "probably not."

Typically the woman with largeish thighs will do some squats and feel their soft legs become harder. This is in fact the first stage before they become smaller, but at the first sign of muscles actually waking up and being used, they panic and... run off to the treadmill.

Whereas the guys squat and realise it's hard, so they stop.

This is why I need more PT clients, they don't argue so much and mostly do what I tell them to.
"Okay Gina, get ready, last set of Tabata,"
"Thank fucken God for that."
"And... go!"

Ah yes the Tabata protocol
I plan on, in the future when I have enough space, getting battle ropes and making people do Tabatas with those after doing them with a lower body exercise like UDLs or KB swings. Or if they're not well conditioned, alternate between the 2 within a single Tabata

Thing that shits me is when a largish girl goes to the gym once or twice and complains she gets bulky easily - no, that's just your fat you're trying to convince yourself is muscle
One particular girl told me this, then refused to tell me what her program was like or how long she was doing it for after I explained that it takes up to a couple of months and testosterone for any noticeable muscle growth to occur

You misunderstood Kyle, I hate the FF set up.

The PT's simply pay a flat rate $100 a week as rent. It offsets your rent. He is using your space and equipment. You pay rent, he pays rent, very basic and straightforward.

If someone was smart, they would have a warehouse for free.

Any PT would gladly back himself in to make money whilst only paying $100 a week, they pay much more at FF and theres thousands of them, with more qualified PT's every minute.

Shit, you could make money without having a single gym member, simply hire enough PT's to pay more rent than you are, let them bring the clients in.

I may be onto something here. Rent out warehouses, put equipment in them, advertise for PT's, not members lol

For what it's worth, I ran my own business Pt'ing for maybe about 7 years all up & I would say the observations about starting/continuing a PT business on here are fairly accurate.
For most of those years it was my only source of income, but I did have other channels at various times. Firstly for a while I took on the PT co-ordinator role at the gym I was PT'ing at which was gold. Also at another stage I worked for a seperate small gym PT'ing/gym floor work. At my peak I probably was doing something like 25ish session at least at my own business & 10 or so at the other gym. I found it hard to imagine doing more under normal PT circumstances (i.e. without being in a specialist training facility with dedicated athletes.) as I was back & forward a lot & dealing with a lot of different personalities.
Anyway the reason I posted was actually to recommend doing the NEIS course (if it is still available, shame if it's not, would need to check with centrelink). This is/was a little known government run scheme whereby you get paid the dole to do a course in running a small business & then they pay you a dole wage for your first year of business. This enabled me to not have to stress as much when the business started up. Do this & find a gym that will offer a fair rent price. (I never paid more than $250/mth & when I started out they let me pay per session.) Long term if you can get a good arrangement like this it is a better option than working for the gym. Working for the gym long term you're gonna feel ripped off you're not getting the hourly rate you deserve, that said if you're going in with little experience this is probably fair & a good way to learn but you wouldn't want to be doing it long-term

nh700 said:

At my peak I probably was doing something like 25ish session at least at my own business & 10 or so at the other gym. I found it hard to imagine doing more under normal PT circumstances (i.e. without being in a specialist training facility with dedicated athletes.) as I was back & forward a lot & dealing with a lot of different personalities.

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I take it these were 1/2hr sessions?

The top trainers I know of employed at gyms (as opposed to self-employed in PT studios, etc) do 100-120 30' sessions a month, ie ~25 a week. They have a couple of other things like a few group classes or the like, and of course regular gym shifts to keep them busy.

One long-term PT person I know commented that at one stage he'd had 20-25 clients, and that this was too much, he couldn't keep track of everyone properly. By getting some of the clients to go from 30 to 60 minute sessions, or 1 to 2 or 3 sessions a week, he managed to get down to 12-15 clients while doing the same total hours of training people.

Most are far short of these numbers so it's not an issue. But it does appear that once you have 12-15 clients, you're always going to have someone coming or going, there'll be a lot of ups and downs. It's rare to just recruit a certain number of clients and keep them for ages without having to look for more.

Almostly exactly 50/50 1/2hr to 1hr ratio.
If I had my time again I'd do 45min session across the board. 30mins is too short for almost anyone & there's no time to bond which is important if you want long term clients. Conversly 1hr was too long for most & often dragged in my opinion.
Personally I felt I could keep track of everyone fairly well but I got into the zone of putting in relative to what my clients did. I spent hours writing programs/doing extra stuff & spending extra time with people that were dedicated & were nice to be around. Others that were slack got the slack me, I'd show up but not give them much & it helped save my energy for those that would use it well. Me & one particular client (really good bloke but he couldn't be assed doing much other than a bit of bench) used to literally nest on the bench for about 50mins of the hour twice a week & we did this for years on end. The other trainers/people at the gym thought it was hilarious. Really it was a win/win, everyone was happy he got away from the daily grind, had a decent bench & we both got to talk about the weekends footy.

Moral of above, PT'ing (as oppossed to strength coaching etc) is often more about companionship & counciling than fitness.

nh700 said:

If I had my time again I'd do 45min session across the board. 30mins is too short for almost anyone & there's no time to bond which is important if you want long term clients. Conversly 1hr was too long for most & often dragged in my opinion.

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This has been my experience. My private sessions are 45'00", no choice about the sessions in gyms, though.

In practice the clients I like will get longer than their 30'00".

Personally I felt I could keep track of everyone fairly well but I got into the zone of putting in relative to what my clients did. I spent hours writing programs/doing extra stuff & spending extra time with people that were dedicated & were nice to be around. Others that were slack got the slack me

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I'm not slack with anyone, I'm not interested in 50 minutes of chit-chat and 10 minutes of work. Not saying that's how everyone should be, every trainer has their own style. That ain't mine. However, I do put in extra for some clients.

I want three things in a client, they should be,

• likeable - we get along
• reliable - not a matter of their showing up all the time on time, but they should give as much notice as they possibly can
• hardworking - during the sessions, no complaints, putting the effort in

For me to keep a client, they must have 2/3 of those. If they're hardworking and reliable but I don't really like them, I'll put up with them because they deserve to get good results, they're working for them. If they're a bit flakey but work hard when they show up and really I like them, or if they're a bit lazy in sessions but are really reliable and I like them, I'll cut them some slack.

But if they are lazy and unreliable, however much I like them, they're out. And so on. Only 1/3, well maybe it's just me, so I'll try to find them another trainer. 0/3 I just fire them.

This is somewhat affected by where I'm working. One gym has direct debit membership, the other pay-as-you-go, at the latter if the person doesn't show I don't get paid, at the former I can choose to charge them anyway. So obviously at one place I will tolerate unreliable people for a bit longer.

If they have all 3 qualities, then I will put in extra effort for them, researching stuff relative to their goals and giving them the information, if I've no appointment immediately after theirs the session may go over time, and so on. I treat them with extra care because they're great clients, ideally ALL of my clients would be likeable, reliable and hardworking - I want them to stick around.

As well, only for those with all 3 qualities, a fourth issue comes in - do their particular goals interest me? I don't care about sixpack abs, for example, but if someone wants to get strong, I am all into that. Then the person is getting 4/3, more than 100% - and then I'm really stepping out to help them, they'll get free sessions and all sorts.

Had an interesting class tonight - we were learning about how we should train kids on the off chance we get one.
Ending up with my bear crawling (and I can bear crawl FAST) head first into a stack of tables and knocking them all over haha

nh700 said:

Moral of above, PT'ing (as oppossed to strength coaching etc) is often more about companionship & counciling than fitness.

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Pretty much

"Can we please add some weight now?"

Now that's a good client.

It's his first session for a month, and he only worked out twice without me, I was trying to ease him into it. But since he asked for it... we did military press drop sets. 40kg to failure, 35kg to failure, 30kg to failure, 25kg to failure, then 20kg to failure.

He eats it up, I love crazy bastards like that.

They're the clients that basically train themselves. Gotta love them.
My mum was the opposite our first session. Much better 2nd and 3rd time round.
My uncle I basically have to try and hold back otherwise I think he'll hurt himself (he's having his prostate removed in a couple of weeks so that will be hindering him as well)

"I've been ill for a few days," texts the client.

Well thanks for telling me 15 minutes before the 0600 session when I've already driven to work, mate.

Selfish, that's all.