A Post On Building Your Fitness Business By Pat Rigsby

Recently Nick Berry and I were asked to contribute a chapter to a book called “The Only Business Book You’ll Ever Need.” This was an incredible honor as a few of the other authors were Brian Tracy, Robert Allen and Harvey McKay, all New York Times Best Selling Authors. This book won’t be on the shelves for a couple more months, but I wanted to share an adaptation of our chapter with you as it definitely can help you build your business.  Enjoy this sneak peek.

As an fitness business owner, you essentially accept the fact that you’re trading the security that comes with a steady job for the opportunity that comes with owning your own business.  But what if we told you that security and opportunity don’t have to be mutually exclusive?  Our experience is that not only can you have the best of both worlds, but you can do it more quickly and easily than you probably imagine by creating multiple streams of income within your fitness business.

About the time we launched our first fitness business together, our “The Only Business Book You’ll Ever Need” co-author, the legendary Robert Allen, released his best selling book: Multiple Streams of Income, which served as inspiration for us as we embarked on building our new personal training business. We were opening this fitness business in a town of just 23,000 people in Central Kentucky, not exactly a perceived hotbed for personal training, so we knew from the beginning that we needed to have multiple ways of generating revenue if we wanted this venture to be a success.  So instead of simply relying on selling one-on-one personal training services like most people who owned similar types of businesses, we created a number of different revenue streams, including:

• One-on-One Personal Training
• Group Personal Training
• Weight Management Programs
• Sports Performance Programs
• Dietary Supplement Sales
• Smoothie Bar
• Workshops
• Corporate Fitness Programs

This approach quickly propelled us to a point where we had over 400 clients in a town where utilizing the typical approach to this type of fitness business might have yielded 1/10 that amount.

And that’s where things really started to take off.  Soon, health clubs and personal training business owners were seeking us out to consult and share some of the strategies that we’d successfully utilized so they could employ them in their own fitness businesses.  These consulting opportunities opened our eyes to the vast opportunities that were available sharing our systems and strategies through information marketing and business coaching.

Over the next few years we developed a variety of coaching programs, information products and seminars helping personal trainers grow their businesses.  Most recently we launched two separate personal training-based franchises, one targeting the youth fitness & sports performance market and the other targeting the adult fitness market. Both are among the fastest growing fitness franchises in the world.

Once we’d positioned ourselves as industry leading providers of business coaching and resources for fitness professionals, we would be presented with opportunities to obtain ownership in other business in the industry where our expertise would be of value.  Now, along with our business coaching and franchises, we also have ownership in a leading fitness certification organization, an equipment company, several niche fitness information-marketing fitness businesses and a handful of other businesses, collectively providing us well over 100 different income streams.

Now we teach thousands of fitness professionals around the world to employ the ‘multiple streams of income’ approach and how simple it is to integrate into a fitness business.  While you may not have an interest in building a fitness business that looks anything like ours, the ‘multiple streams of income’ approach will work in your fitness business too, perhaps even better than it’s worked in ours.   Really it simply starts by answering these two questions:

1. What ‘problems’ do your current offering(s) create?
2. What opportunities do your current customers / clients / patients present?

By answering those two questions you’ll easily be able to identify potential income streams for your business.  Let us give you examples of how we might have answered those questions in our personal training business.

What ‘problems’ do your current offering(s) create?

One-on-one personal training is potentially too expensive for many consumers so offering small and large group personal training allows those than can’t afford one-on-one personal training similar benefits while being available at a much lower price point.  Also, personal training focuses on the exercise component of physical improvement, but there are other factors than can impact someone’s success while trying to achieve fitness goals like nutrition, supplementation and recovery.  By offering weight management programs, supportive nutrition solutions though our ‘smoothie’ bar, dietary supplements and workshops, we can address the other factors that will help our clients achieve their fitness goals more quickly and easily.

What opportunities do your current customers / clients / patients present?

Many personal training clients are either business owners or business decision makers, so they can open doors to opportunities to provide corporate fitness programs or off-site weight management programs at their companies.  Additionally, many clients have children and / or are in positions of influence (teachers, school administrators, coaches, etc.) for the youth population and would see the benefit in, and help promote, youth fitness and sports performance offerings.

Hopefully you’re already getting some ideas for income streams you can develop based on those two questions.  Another great way to get ideas for potential income streams is to simply look at other businesses and see what they do.

Here are a couple examples:

Automotive dealerships don’t just sell cars.  They do repairs. They do preventative maintenance.  They offer financing. Some dealerships even provide things like detailing or car rental programs.

Amusement parks don’t just offer rides and attractions.  They sell food and refreshments.  They sell a variety of retail products from theme-related attire and toys to sun block and sunglasses that visitors might have forgotten to bring.  They also offer paid parking, photographs taken during guest stays, and many have their own hotels that guests can utilize during their visit.

There are thousands of businesses employing the ‘multiple streams of income’ approach, so learn from the successes they’re having so you can create your own.

Once you’ve determined some general ideas of what other problems you could solve for your clients or the opportunities that they could create for you and your fitness business, then you need to decide on the models for your income streams.

Basically there are five types of Income Models you can implement:

1. Service Based
2. Product Based
3. Coaching / Consulting Based
4. Information / Knowledge Based
5. Affiliate / Referral Based

Each of these Income Models has it’s own set of benefits and drawbacks and some may be more appropriate than others for your business, but you should have no problem choosing a couple that you can integrate into your business and add additional revenue – in some cases almost immediately.

So let’s take a look at each of these Income Models in greater detail.  We’ll share an overview of the model and an example of how we’ve integrated it into our own businesses.

Service Based – This is typically the easiest to add to a fitness business, as it often requires little set up and relies primarily on you or a staff member utilizing skills that you (or someone on your team) possess and will be of benefit to your clients and typically compliments your primary offerings. The upside to this type of Income Model is the ease of start up and integration into your personal training business.  The downside is that it’s time and skill intensive.

When we had our first personal training business, the easiest and most obvious Income Model for us to integrate was a Weight Management Program.  This program was basically a nutritional education program delivered by our staff members that helped our clients reach their goals faster and was the perfect compliment to the exercise based coaching that was our primary offering.

Product Based – Product based models are potentially very simple to integrate into your fitness business as well.  The upside to the product based Income Model is that it usually doesn’t require any special skill to offer products beyond some basic product knowledge and this model isn’t as time intensive as the others.

The first potential drawback to the product model is the fact that most products or similar competitors will be offered in other retail outlets so there isn’t as much price elasticity as with the other models.  The other drawback to the product model is that it usually requires an upfront investment for inventory.

Our initial use of the Product Based Income Model was through selling dietary supplements to our personal training clients.  Our clients were regularly investing in supplements to help them reach their fitness goals and often consulted with our staff when choosing what supplements to purchase, so it became obvious very quickly that we should carry our own line of quality supplements and direct our clients to purchase from us.  Not only were there financial benefits to this, but we also now could direct our clients to products that we knew and trusted.  A great win/win.

Coaching / Consulting Based – Coaching / Consulting Based Income Models are great if you’ve established a successful fitness business and are willing to share your business systems and knowledge with other entrepreneurs.  The primary benefit to this Income Model is that the potential financial upside of business-to-business coaching /consulting is typically much greater than providing services to consumers. The other real upside is that it allows you to leverage what you already know and do in your own business by sharing it with others.

The potential drawback to the Coaching / Consulting Based Income Model isn’t really a drawback at all. It’s more of a pre-requisite.  To ethically coach or consult you should have experienced some success in your own experiences. If you’ve successful gotten a certain type of client results over and over – and have a systematic approach that others can model, then this approach is very powerful.

We first employed the Coaching / Consulting Based Income Model by teaching other personal trainers and health club owners how we’d successfully built our personal training business.  This Income Model eventually merged together with the Information / Knowledge Based Income Model and evolved into our two franchises: Athletic Revolution International and Fitness Revolution International.

Information / Knowledge Based – In the Information / Knowledge Based Income Model you simply document what you know and do successfully and package it to be shared with others.  There are many advantages to this model.  Some of the biggest are the fact that you can develop information products to offer to people that normally couldn’t be your clients due to geographic constraints, so essentially the whole world is potentially your market.  There is great leverage with this type of Model too.  You can create a product once and sell it over and over again.  Typically the margins on offerings in this Model are very high too.

If there is any downside to this Income Model, it is that while your market is no longer limited by geography, the same goes for your competition.  When offering an information product or program you will be competing for your prospect’s attention with many more marketers than you would typically face when just selling products or services locally.

We began with the Information / Knowledge Based Income Model with two different offerings at about the same time. One of our offerings was directed to other fitness business owners sharing our systems, strategies and tactics for building a successful personal training business.  The other offering featured my wife, Holly, and was a consumer product called Fit Yummy Mummy, which was a fitness program specifically designed for moms.  In both cases, we simply packaged the things that we’d done successfully in our own fitness businesses and shared them with people who could benefit from the knowledge, but couldn’t work with us face-to-face.

Ultimately both of these initial products laid the foundation for new fitness businesses that have each become category leaders in their respective markets.

Affiliate / Referral Based – This Income Model is very simple to integrate into your fitness business as it basically just requires you to find a product or service that you can refer your clients to, which is complimentary to your offerings.  The upside to the Affiliate / Referral Based Income Model is the fact that it requires very little work on your part to generate additional revenue.  The ‘partner’ that you are referring business to will provide the service or product while paying you a referral fee.  The downside to this Model is that you are putting your relationship with your customer in the hands of someone else.  If they provide an inferior product or service, then you will suffer the ill effects of that. Therefore, if you employ this Income Model, be certain to only refer only businesses of the highest quality.

We initially utilized this Income Model by referring our personal training clients to a massage therapist.  The massage therapist provided a quality service to our clients that we did not offer and paid us a referral fee for every client we sent.  In addition to those benefits, the massage therapist also referred their clients to us for our services to make this a great reciprocal relationship.

By determining what problems you could solve for your clients or the opportunities that they could create for you and your fitness business and the income models you can employ to address them, you can not only add tens of thousands of dollars to your bottom line and better serve the people you work with, but you may also lay the foundation for new fitness businesses that enjoy even greater successes and profits than the one you have now.  We certainly have.

Dedicated to your Success,

Pat

A fitness business owner success story by Pat Rigsby

Each month here at FBI we’re going to start recognizing a Fitness Business Owner of the Month.  We hope to not only recognize fitness entrepreneurs for their successes but also to inspire other fitness pros to move forward in their business endeavors.

The winner will not only get a public ‘pat on the back’ in the form of a post like this, but they’ll also receive a 1 hour coaching call, free admission to the live event of their choice and a product of their choice from what we offer here at FBI.

Our January Fitness Business Owner of the Month is Greg McClellan, Owner of Elite Athletes in Winston Salem, North Carolina.

Greg and his business Elite Athletes have been in operation for over a year and a half and in that time have grown to serving anywhere from 100-225 clients with a team of 3 full time and 2 part time trainers.

They offer one-on-one, small/large groups, sports specific training and nutrition coaching with their primary market being youth fitness & sports performance.

Greg is a great example of the opportunity the fitness industry offers.  In just under a year in business he’s grown to over 100 clients and has a staff helping to deliver his services to create leverage in his business.  He’s not only employed multiple streams of income into his business, but he’s also tapped into one of the true goldmines in the industry – youth fitness / sports performance.

So Congratulations Greg!  I’m excited to name you Fitness Business Owner of the Month and look forward to giving you your well deserved prizes of the coaching call and the product from the FBI collection of resources as well as seeing you at a live event of your choosing soon!

If you’d like to be considered for next month’s Fitness Business Owner of the Month, please contact our Customer Experience Manager, Lee Ann Salsman at leeann.fcg@gmail.com for an application.

A post on marketing your fitness business by Pat Rigsby

One of the most underutilized ways to market your fitness business is through using handwritten notes or sending cards.  In a time where everyone defaults to email you can stand out from the crowd by doing a little more and sending cards or notes though the mail.  Marketing your fitness business this way isn’t very expensive as you’re only mailing a very targeted list and the return on investment is typically outstanding.

Here are a few ideas and examples you can use:

Sending A Referral Request Card – for most of our more successful fitness pros, referrals are either their #1 or #2 lead source.  There are a number of ways to ask for referrals, but one I see most fitness pros ignore is sending cards or notes to request referrals.  Here’s a simple one you can swipe and deploy:

Dear (Name),

I’m firing my advertisers!

I’ve decided that instead of paying the newspaper, radio or some direct mail company to market our camps I’d rather reward you. 

For every friend, family member or co-worker that you refer to one of our camps, I’d like to give you a $50 American Express Gift Card.  This will allow you to benefit from sharing your experiences with me and our programs to those that are important to you.  It will also allow me to continue to work with motivated clients like yourself and to spend my time working on program design, training and serving my current clients instead of marketing.

So, if you feel like my camps have benefited you, I’d appreciate it if you share them with those people you care about.  I look forward to helping them and rewarding you soon!

Sincerely,

(Your Name)

Here’s another example that you can send after someone has been part of your program for a month:

(Name),
I just wanted to send you this note to thank you for being my client. I really strive to give you the best service possible and hope that you feel that I exceed your expectations in every way.

If you do feel this way, you’re pleased with the incredible progress that you’ve made and you know someone who would really benefit from this same type of program, would you be kind enough to tell them about me? You may have a friend, a coworker, or a family member who is looking for a program like ours. And by telling them about me and what I offer, and how we’ve truly delivered for you, that means that I can focus my time and energy on continually giving and doing more for you and my other important clients instead of marketing and advertising. So, if you have anyone close to you who would really benefit from our programs, please let them know about how I can help them.

Thanks again and I look forward to seeing you soon,

(Your Name)

Sending A Referral Thank You Card – One of the most powerful things that you can do to boost your referrals is to recognize the referrer when they do send you someone.  This will encourage them to refer again and start to create a referral culture in your business.  Here’s a   simple card you can send:

Dear (Name),

I met with (referral name) last (day). I can’t thank you enough for recommending me to her.

She is exactly the type of person I enjoy working with and helping achieve fitness success. My business is built on happy, satisfied clients sending me other happy, satisfied clients—so you know your referrals are very important to me. I would like to give you a $50 American Express Gift Card as a way of expressing my gratitude.  I’ve included it with this card so you can enjoy it immediately.

Thanks again,

(Your Name)

Sending Birthday & Christmas Cards – Not every card or note you send needs to generate revenue.  Sending cards at birthdays, Christmas and other special occasions is a great way to enhance the experience your clients are having with your business.  Here are examples of very simple cards or handwritten notes you can send during Birthdays and Christmas:

Dear (Name),

I just wanted to wish you a Happy Birthday! I hope you enjoy your special day and know that I am thinking about you. Happy Birthday!!!

(Your Name)

Dear (Name),

I want to wish you a happy holiday season, and let you know we appreciate you being a part of the Fitness Revolution family. Sincerely,

(Your Name)

Sending A Reactivation Card – One of the easiest ways to boost your income is to run a reactivation campaign.  While defaulting to email may be the easy way to go – you’ll get a better response if you include a card or handwritten note in your campaign.  Here’s one you can use:

(Name),

“I Miss You!”

I’m very concerned.

You were a valued client of mine and I haven’t seen you for a while. I would genuinely like to know the reason why. I hope that you weren’t unhappy in any way with my service or your results.

Or maybe you were concerned about the cost of training and didn’t think you could afford to continue.

I can only guess at why you haven’t continued to be a client but I’m concerned that the goals you had when joining us are going to go unfulfilled.

I want you to know that if there is anything I’ve done that has kept you from continuing, I want to make it right.

So I want to invite you back to train with me for 2 weeks… for free. No strings attached. It’s truly important to me that you reach your health and fitness goals and the best way for me help you is to have you here as a client.

I hope to hear from you in the next few days, and I look forward to seeing you very soon.

Sincerely,

(Your Name)
(phone)
(email)

Sending A Card To Your Network – If you want to add clients in a hurry, there is no better way than to leverage your network.  Hopefully you’ve got a list of the people in your network already, but if not – I’d start creating one.  Once you have it, here is a note you can send to not only get them to try out what you have to offer, but to also start cultivating them to hopefully one day become ambassadors for your business:

Dear (Name),

I hope things are going well.

I’m writing to share some good news.  I’m expanding my personal training business and I wanted to let you know that I want you to lean on me as your fitness resource.  I’d like to give you two weeks of my fitness bootcamp for free to use as you wish so that I can help you achieve any fitness goals you may have, or provide them to someone important to you if you feel you don’t need them right now.

I’d also like to invite you to join my free fitness newsletter and know that you can contact me anytime that you have a fitness related question.

I hope you can come in and participate in camp soon as I’d enjoy seeing you again and being of help to you.

Sincerely,

(Your Name)
(contact info)

Sending Upsell Offers – One simple way to maximize the value of your clients is to offer upsells to them soon after they become clients.  Here is a simple example upsell card you can send 3-5 days after someone joins one of your programs:

Dear (Name),

Thank you for becoming a client of Fitness Revolution. I realize that you have choices when it comes to fitness and I truly appreciate you choosing me to help you reach your goals!

As a way of expressing my gratitude for you becoming a client I’d like to offer you a 15% discount off of Prograde Nutrition’s (product), which is the perfect compliment to your current program. 

If you’re interested in adding this, you can call me or let me know during your next training session.

Thanks again,

(Your Name)

Sending Cards To Unconverted Leads – Sometimes leads come into your business that you don’t convert.  Maybe it was bad timing.  Maybe they weren’t that motivated.  For whatever reason they didn’t join then – but that doesn’t mean they never will.  When you’re marketing your fitness business, one of the best ways to maximize ROI is to continue to market to all of your leads since you’ve already paid and put in the work to acquire them.  Here’s some copy you can use:

Dear (Name),

I wanted to follow up one last time and thank you for considering me to help you achieve your fitness goals. I appreciate the opportunity to earn your business, and I am disappointed you decided against joining. Over time, I’ve learned that many people like what my programs have to offer, but for some reason or another they feel like it isn’t the right time for them. I know that everyone needs a healthier lifestyle, and I know that I can help them achieve that. So in order to help you adjust to this new lifestyle, I am going to change my offer to you.

I’d like to invite you in for 2 free weeks of to train with me to experience how my programs can benefit you.  No strings attached. If you don’t want to continue after that at least I’ll know that I’ve empowered you with the knowledge that it takes to get results.All I need from you is to call me within the next 2 weeks to schedule your first camp and I will take care of the rest. Easy enough?I want to thank you again and hope that you are able to make it in to take advantage of this offer, and start moving towards the goals you have set for yourself. 

Yours in Fitness,

(Your Name)
Phone

 

Sending Cards or Notes To New Additions To Your Network – If you want to be great at networking then you need to be great at following up.  Here is some brief copy that you can use:

Dear (Name),

I wanted to follow up and let you know that it was great meeting you at (event).

(Short note about the person you met and what you learned about them)

I’m also writing to let you know that I want you to lean on me as your fitness resource.  I’d like to give you two weeks of training for free to use as you wish so that I can help you achieve any fitness goals you may have, or provide them to someone important to you if you feel you don’t need them right now.

I’d also like to invite you to join my free fitness newsletter and know that you can contact me anytime that you have a fitness related question.

I hope that you can make it in for a session soon as I’d enjoy seeing you again and being of help to you.

Sincerely,

(Your Name)

There you go – several cards you can market your fitness business with – ready to use.  Now when it comes to sending the cards or notes, I have 3 suggestions:

Sending Handwritten Notes – There is nothing better than a handwritten note since it’s so personal.  Use blank cards and let people know you took the time to write them personally. The only downside is that it’s time consuming.

Send Out Cards – We’ve used this for some time.  You can pre-write cards and use it like you’d use an autoresponder system.  The cost for the system and cards is very reasonable for what you get.  The only downside is that you lose a little of the personal touch – but you still are doing more than 99% of other businesses and it’s very scalable.  You can learn more about Send Out Cards here: https://www.sendoutcards.com/. If you choose to use Send Out Cards you’ll need a code to join – ours is 30152.

Postcard on the Run – This is something I just came across and love.  It’s an app for smartphones that allows you to snap a picture and use it to create a postcard.  The picture serves as the front of the card (glossy stock) and you can type a short message on the back.  The cards are relatively cheap and because you can snap photos of people in sessions and use them – it has a nice personal touch.  You can learn more here: http://www.postcardontherun.com/

So when you’re marketing your fitness business hopefully you see that cards or notes can play a big role  – and now you’ve got some ready to use copy to get you started.

Dedicated to your success,

Pat

There are hundreds of ways to grow your fitness business and we touch on plenty of them here at the Fit Business Insider. But sometimes when you want to get more clients, generate more referrals or increase your income it really boils down to taking action instead of just knowing what to do.

So with that in mind I wanted to help you grow your fitness business today by getting you to take action.

Step 1: Choose A Strategy For Fitness Business Growth

Like I mentioned, there are dozens of things you can do to grow your fitness business, but I don’t want to overcomplicate this so we’re going to limit the list to things that you can do which won’t cost much money, are relatively easy to implement and can be started immediately. Here are your options:

• Add an upsell at the Point of Sale
• Switch your month to month clients or clients that pay by check into 3, 6 or 12 month clients on EFT.
• Raise your rates 3-5%.
• Launch a Reactivation Campaign
• Add a Point of Sale Referral Request
• Launch an evergreen Referral Program
• Create a Joint Venture with another local business
• Collect Testimonials from your successful clients
• Launch a Transformation Contest
• Hold a 3 Day Promotion
• Hold a Workshop
• Create a Downsell Offer

Now it’s time to decide which strategy you’ll use over the next several days to grow your fitness business. Will you ask your new clients to upgrade to a bigger program or a special bundled offer? Will you initiate a joint venture with someone who can send you clients right away? Will you raise your rates?

Which strategy should you execute first?

That depends on what you already have in place, the assets you have available (database, space, time, etc) and what has the most potential upside for your particular situation.

Honestly, I don’t care. I just want you to do SOMETHING. Take action and reap some rewards. Then choose another one and do the same.

So pick one strategy and get started.

Step Two: Create Your Plan

Once you’ve decided which strategy you’re going to use, you need to develop your action plan. You need the details worked out, the timeline in order, specifics about any other people (like staff members or JV Partners) that might be involved and items / materials needed to execute the plan.

This plan is basically your outline for your new growth strategy – so make sure you’ve done your preparation.

Here’s an example:

72 Hour Promotion

Dates: January 25th – 27th

Offer: Launch of 6 Week Nutrition Coaching Program. During 72 Hour Promo the price will be $197. After the promotion it will be $297.

Needs: 3 Days Worth of Promotional Emails (4 emails in all). Flyers to be handed out in the facility. A dry erase board for internal promotion. Course materials. Course details (dates / times / description).

Other People’s Involvement: Other staff members should know details and be able to enroll clients.

Incentive to Buy: $100 off the program if purchased during the promotion.

That’s about it. You can certainly get more detailed, but that would be enough to build on.

Step Three: Produce The Materials

Whether it’s simple email broadcasts to your list, a form that clients can use to give you testimonials or new price sheets reflecting your increased rates – you’ll need to produce the emails, scripts, flyers, forms, content and whatever else is needed to execute your strategy.

For a Testimonial Request Campaign, here’s an example of the materials you might need:

• Testimonial form – online or offline
• Script to ask for testimonials to be used in person or on the phone
• Email to request testimonials

Step Four: Prepare Others To Do Their Part

If you are enlisting staff members, joint venture partners or clients to play a role in your strategy, you need to empower them to do their part. This means giving them the tools and training needed to execute the plan.

For example: If you were going to include photos or videos in this, then directions for your staff or any outline for the specifics / format would also be necessary.

If you are asking your clients to refer people – you need to not only incentivize your clients, but you also need to educate them on what a good referral looks like, provide them with marketing materials and tell them what steps to take to get a referral into your pipeline.

Scripts, tools, specifics about the plan and it’s execution are all necessary if you’re getting others involved.

Step Five: Launch!

This is the day you put everything into action.

Review your plan, make sure all systems are go and start bringing in new clients, getting testimonials or generating revenue.

Be sure that the fulfillment of anything you sell is in place. Refine your scripts and emails based on the feedback that comes in. Offer extra thanks or post-purchase reassurance for anyone that purchases or responds.

Be sure to track your plan and the results so you can improve on the plan and roll the strategy out again in the future or use the intelligence you gain to improve other strategies you implement.

That’s it – Plan it, do it, track it. Reap the benefits and move to the next strategy.

If you want to grow your fitness business, being proactive and regularly taking actions like these are a must. Use this plan to get you started and use the momentum and cash you generate to take your business to the next level.

Dedicated to your success,

Pat

I recently wrote an article about the burpee, possibly the most popular and bastardized exercise on the planet.

Since Pat, Nick, and Fitness Business Insider are all about promoting good coaching, I though this article might be useful with regards to how to properly teach, perform and progress the burpee.

At the end of the day, there’s no better exercise to assess total body fitness and the better your clients and campers can perform it through a full range of motion without joint pain the better their overall results will be.

Enjoy the article!

BJ Gaddour, CSCS
CEO of StreamFIT.com

There was a time when Mike Tyson was the baddest man on the planet. Everything about the former heavyweight champion of the world was intimidating: the way he dressed in all black shorts without the traditional robe of his competitors, the way he used to rock his head side to side back and forth like he had mental problems, and the way he came into the ring all sweaty and lathered up like a caged beast ready for battle. Without a doubt, Iron Mike used to win his fights before they even started.

Look no further than his world famous ring entrance to the Tyson vs. Spinks fight, arguably the most intimidating entrance in Boxing history:

http://youtu.be/Pmvfb8al0QE

As you can see in that video, Spinks looked like he was about to soil his pants.

In the world of fitness, if there’s one exercise that could rival Tyson’s reign of terror in his prime, it would have to be the burpee. In fact, whenever my campers or clients hear that burpees are on the agenda for a given workout, they take a deep breath, a heavy gulp, and seemingly pray to the Gods in an attempt to summon the courage to get through the hellfire coming their way.

The burpee is the baddest exercise on the planet and an incredible whole body muscle-builder, fat-burner, and metabolism-booster that will also make you more athletic for sport. The movement finds its roots through the work of American physiologist Royal H. Burpee in the 1930’s, who developed the burpee test as a quick and easy way to assess total body fitness. The exercise continued to gain popularity through widespread military use and of course as the calisthenic of choice in gym classes and athletic practices worldwide.

The burpee basically describes a series of smooth and fluid movements that have you going from a full stand to a push-up position and back. It’s no wonder this whole body up and down movement is a metabolic nightmare involving nearly every muscle from head to toe. But, it’s also the most bastardized exercise on the planet that can implode your knees and back like a stiff and solid Mike Tyson upper cut.

First of all, performing this exercise with close feet often results in a lot of extra pressure on the knees and back during the transitioning crouched position between the stand and the push-up. The lower back will tend to excessively flex leading to an increase risk of chronic lower back pain in the short run and herniated or bulging disks in the long run. Plus, squatting on your toes increases the sheer force on your knee caps leading to patella-femoral issues like patellar tendonitis (runner or jumper’s knee) in the short run and arthritic knees that need to be replaced in the long run.

What’s especially concerning is the fact that burpees are often improperly performed for a high number of reps with short, incomplete rest periods (resting less than you’re working). Think about it- multiply bad form by lots of reps by excessive fatigue and you’ve got an exercise that will break you, both literally and figuratively.

Luckily for you, I’m about to show you how to properly perform the burpee and make some instant modifications that will immediately boost performance and reduce the risk of injury from this classic total body builder. Plus, I’ve provided you with both a customized exercise selection and a companion 10-minute burpee bootcamp workout you can do anytime, anywhere based on your current fitness level.

The result will be a more refined burpee routine that very well may break your heart, mind, and soul, but not your body. That we’ll leave to Mr. Tyson.

Burpee Bootcamp

Phase I- Beginners: I haven’t worked out in 6 months or more, I am more than 20 lbs above my ideal body weight, and I lack mobility in my ankles, hips, and upper back.

Burpees are best performed by beginners, and on a regular basis in my opinion, with a wide sumo-style stance. This makes it easier to stay on your heels throughout the exercise which both takes pressure off of your knees and helps you better engage your powerful glute muscles. The wider stance also makes it easier to move at the hips without moving at your lumbar spine, something that will better engage your core stabilizers beyond alleviating nagging lower back pain.

That being said, the fact remains that the modern, mobile consumer spends the vast majority of the day as a desk jockey in rounded, hunched, almost fetal-like positions. This leads to poor posture and limited mobility of the ankles, hips, and upper back that requires further correction for optimal burpee performance. Here are two ways we can quickly do this:

1.) Use a stable box, bench, or aerobic step with adjustable risers to perform your wide stance sumo-style burpees as show in the video below:

This adjustable aerobic step set-up allows you to seamlessly adjust the range of motion as needed. Plus, I particularly like using an elevated surface for higher reps because it’s easier to maintain form in a state of fatigue. Also notice the progression of moving from one leg to two legs at a time in the down position.

2.) Regularly perform the 3 stretches shown in the video below pre/post-workout to open up your ankles, hips and upper back:

Perform each stretch for 30-60 seconds at a time and doing them during your rest periods is smart way to save time and accelerate your flexibility gains.

Now that we covered all that, here’s your beginner burpee bootcamp workout: alternate between 60 seconds of work and 60 seconds of rest for 5 total rounds for a 10-minute total body workout.

Phase II – Intermediate: I have been working out regularly for the last 3 to 6 months and I’m about 10 lbs above my ideal body weight.

Once you can successfully complete the beginner burpee workout pain-free, we can safely get a little nasty with it. The great thing about the burpee is it offers an endless number of challenging exercise variations that keep your training fun and fresh. You can perform on one-arm or one-leg, integrate dumbbells, or even add jumps. The video below shows some great high-intensity exercise examples:

Choose one of the variations shown in the video above (or alternate between each of them from round to round) using a 60 seconds on, 30 seconds off interval sequence for up to 6 total rounds. The combination of a more advanced exercise selection plus reduced rest periods will drastically increase the calorie burn and will blow-torch belly fat fast.

Phase III – Advanced: I have been working out regularly for over a year I’m within +/- 5 lbs of my ideal body weight.

Now it’s time to get real. If you’ve never used the TRX Suspension Trainer before, then you’re seriously missing out! It’s the advanced body weight training tool of some of the best athletes around like Super Bowl MVP quarterback Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints and it’s basically a portable gym in a bag.

What’s so unique about the TRX is that it places your body in a suspended environment which not only forces your body to engage and activate more muscles (particularly your core) but also activates your fight or flight response, something that’s proven through research to accelerate metabolism and speed up fat loss.

What’s the best part? The TRX also serves us up several ways to put the burpee on steroids as show in the video below:

For an incredible 10-minute TRX burpee bootcamp challenge workout, alternate between 60 seconds of work and 15 seconds of rest for each exercise in the order shown in the video above being sure to switch sides from round to round. Perform 8 total rounds.

Whether you’re looking for a minimalist’s approach to exercise or a cool way to mix up a stale training routine, look no further than the burpee. Just be sure to respect the process and do it right.

BJ Gaddour, CSCS, is a fitness bootcamp and metabolic training expert. He is the CEO of StreamFIT.com providing unlimited streaming follow-along workouts from the top trainers in the game. He is also a regular contributor to Men’s Health.

Like you, I’ve got a lot going on. We’ve got a number of rapidly growing businesses that I play a significant role in. I have a wonderful family that I am committed to spending quality time with. I have personal goals and things I enjoy that I need to have time for.

Because of those things I’m always looking for ways to be more efficient, more productive, and to make my time more valuable. So here are 24 productivity tips for the Fitness Business Owner that I think you’ll get al lot out of.

1. Plan your day ahead – I prefer planning it the night before.

2. Always work from a list. You should actually have different lists for different purposes. A ‘Goals’ list is for your big picture objectives. Your monthly list is a list you make at the end of the month for the month ahead. Your weekly list is for the upcoming week and your daily list is your weekly list broken down into daily tasks.

3. Planning a project will likely cut the time spent on the project by at least half. List every step from start to finish, organize by priority and sequence.

4. By now you know the 80/20 rule- 20% of actions account for 80% of results. With that in mind, get your most important stuff done first.

5. Think long term. Before starting a task or activity – determine what the long term benefits / consequences will be.

6. Set big goals. Be clear on them. It will make all your short term decisions much easier. Things either line up with your goals or not. If they do – act. If they don’t – omit.

7. Be willing to delay gratification and make short term sacrifices so you can enjoy greater rewards in the long term. Every successful person I know has taken that approach.

8. Average people do what gives them short term gratification. Great ones do what it takes to achieve long term goals even if it’s not as easy or fun in the short term.

9. Time is going to pass whether you use it to move closer to your goals or farther away. Only you get to decide how you use that time and where you want to be in the future.

10. Think about the consequences of your actions and behaviors. If you do that you’ll usually take the steps necessary to get where you want to go while those who ignore the ramifications of what they do won’t.

11. Review your list of tasks and projects regularly.

12. There will never be enough time to do everything you have to do. – What are my highest value activities? What can you and only you do, that if done well, will make a real difference? What is the most valuable use of your time, right now?

13. The things that matter most must never be skipped over for the things that matter least.

14. Continuous learning is a must for success. Make time for it. The need to grow and improve never ends.

15. Take responsibility and know that you and only you are the deciding factor in achieving your goals.

16. There is never the perfect time to get started, so start now.

17. Challenges are there to weed out the average. Keep that in mind when you encounter them.

18. One of the most powerful words in time management is NO! – You have no spare time, say no early and often to everything that isn’t high value.

19. If you don’t schedule it – that means you don’t see value in it.

20. Adding something new to your plate requires you to stop doing something old.

21. Do the most difficult task first, start it first thing in the morning.

22. Use time blocks. 25-50 minutes of no email, no phone, no distractions will get you to your goals faster than 8 hours of a normal workday.

23. Make every minute count. – Create a sense of urgency, an impatience that motivates you to get started.

24. Focus on getting things done now. Successful people get more done – and as you know…You Get Paid For Done!

There are 24 tips that have helped me and that I think will help you or any fitness business owner. If you have more to share – please add them below.

I had a coaching call with a fitness pro the other day and I gave him some advice that I consider to be the best advice that I can give someone – but it comes with a disclaimer: it is also advice that I’m hesitant to give because it could potentially give someone the idea that they don’t have to ‘do the work’ – which obviously goes against everything that we teach.
So the advice that I gave him and that I’m going to give you now is this:

Determine your strengths – then build your fitness business around them.

So let me back up for a minute…

The fitness pro I was talking with already runs a strong business and has enjoyed some success in his marketing efforts. He told me that he knew that I was a fan of public speaking and networking but he hadn’t really done much with either of those marketing tactics. Instead of telling him that he needed to dive right into those two – because they are two of the most powerful ways available to any fitness pro to grow their business…I surprised him and told him not to do either of them.

Did my thoughts about public speaking or networking change? Of course not.

But after talking with him a bit and discovering that he had some other real strengths that he could leverage to generate more clients – and would clearly enjoy more – it was obvious that the best solution for him wasn’t going the networking and public speaking route.

He needed to play to his strengths.

So why is this scary for me to give this advice?

Because given to the wrong person, it can be misconstrued as a free pass to be lazy.

This particular fitness pro has already used social media and his writing skills successfully to grow his business. Suggesting more ways for him to leverage his use of social media and his writing talents even more makes sense – because he’s already proven that it has success for him.

But put that same advice in the wrong hands and you get a situation where someone who’s never proven that they can write worth a damn and haven’t had any success with social media now think they don’t have to ever get out from behind their computer to build a six-figure business.

In fact, back in our old Personal Trainer U. days there was a guy on the forum that did just that…he got on the forum and whined about how he’d written 3 articles and submitted them to article directories, put up a couple blog posts – and he didn’t have any clients to show for it. The economy was to blame. There was no way that trainers could be successful right now.

My response was simple: “How many prospects are in your home office right now? If the answer is *zero* – then get off your ass and go where they are.”

Needless to say – he didn’t post anymore.

But that’s my fear when dispensing this advice – people mistaking their strengths for what’s just easiest.

But I’ve believed that this approach was the best way to go for quite a while.

When I was coaching baseball, it took me a couple years to quit trying to be a clone of the coach that I admired most. My strengths were different than his. Once I realized that, I became a much better coach and our teams got much better.

I followed this same approach when it came to dealing with our opponents too – instead of worrying about detailed scouting reports and trying to exploit opponents weaknesses, I wanted our players to focus exclusively on playing to their strengths.

Heck – we’ve built an entire franchise around this approach. Allowing fitness professionals to play to their own individual strengths instead of trying to churn out cookie cutter businesses.

Now you may not think that this advice is anything special – but here’s why it is…

Once you determine your strengths, buy going all in and leveraging them to the maximum you’ve done 3 things:

1. You’ve separated yourself from everyone else because you’re playing to your unique talents, assets, passions and skills.
2. You just made running your business a lot more fun because you can focus more on doing what you’re best at – and feel confident that it’s a good choice.
3. You just set out on the fastest route I know to build a powerhouse business.

Another way of putting this is ‘doing more of what’s working.’ Seems simple, right?

Well, most people don’t do it. They jump from one thing they’ve had some success with to something else that requires completely different talents or skills instead of finding more ways to utilize the strengths that led to the successes they’ve had.

To use our business as an example – one of our strengths is relationships. Really, everything that we’ve built has been founded on building relationships with fitness professionals and trying to provide the best solutions they need to build the Fitness Business they want.

So one we recognized that relationships were at the core of our business, we started to do things like:

• Hold more live events to spend more time in person with the fitness pros we serve.
• Do more coaching calls so we can learn more about the people we work with and how we can most effectively help them.
• Create a Customer Experience position on our team so we could make sure that we’re providing the best possible service to the people who trust us to help them grow their business.
• Build franchises so we could have a family-like relationship with a select group of fitness pros who shared the same values we do and what to work with us as closely as possible.

There are plenty of other examples, but you get the picture.

So how can you leverage your strengths to build your fitness business?

If you’re a relationship person, do more networking. Focus more on referrals. Create more complete solutions for the people that you already work with. Build a community in your business so strong that it attracts the type of clients you want more of.

If you’re great at writing, make sure you’ve got great copy on your site. Blog like crazy. Guest blog for local bloggers. Write a column for the local paper. Build out dozens of autoresponders. Send press releases every week. Send a great weekly newsletter. Write free special reports that you can get in the hands of prospects. Write direct mail sequences to send out in your area.

And that’s not even beginning to touch on how you can leverage your strengths as a coach to own a particular niche market.

So your goal should be this:

Figure out what your real strengths are. The things that you’ve proven that you’re better than the rest at – the things you’ve done well to grow your business. The things that you not only enjoy doing – but that produce results.

Once you’ve determined those strengths – figure out as many ways as you can to start leveraging them to build the business you want…and start implementing those ideas.

That’s how you can build a great fitness business that you’ll love owning.

I want to make sure you’re starting off the New Year right – in the right frame of mind, armed with the right information to be successful in growing your fitness business. So I’ve put together several of the most valuable, content packed posts that you can go back and review to make sure your stage is set to make 2012 your best year yet.  Enjoy!

Your Training Business Plan For Success

In this post I share your Championship plan for building a successful business. Consider it your cheat sheet for success.

101 Fitness Business Tips

It doesn’t matter what area of your business you want to improve, in this post I address it.  I’ve shared my most valuable 101 tips – and any one of them can dramatically improve your business.

Building A Personal Training Franchise: Lessons You Can Apply

As you know, we’ve built the fastest growing personal training franchise in the world – with over 105 locations in our 1st 11 Months.  Well, we learned a lot along the way – and those lessons can apply to your business too.  If you want to see dramatic growth, check this post out.

Fixes For Your Fitness Business

We all face points in our businesses where areas aren’t performing at the levels we want them to.  I put this post together to give you specific fixes to address the most common areas that get bogged down.

21 Days To A Better Fitness Business

We all work better off of deadlines, so in this post I’ve shared a 21 day action pan you can follow that will dramatically improve your business.

Building A Personal Training Business: The 10X Factor

One of my favorite posts ever – it’s basically the roadmap we’ve followed to build our own businesses.  If you want to build a business the right way – this is a must read.

The Best Fitness Business Blog Post Ever

The most popular blog post in the history of this blog and probably the most comprehensive fitness business building post anyone has ever produced. Over 6500 words of business and marketing gold.

So review these posts, pick out some strategies and tactics that you can use – and put them into action.

Also – if there is anything you want me to share more insight on or see more of on the blog this year, please share it below.

Dedicated to Your Success,

Pat

Each year I share my predictions for what I believe will happen during the upcoming year in the fitness industry.

Over the past few years the fitness industry predictions that I’ve made have proven to be pretty accurate, so my suggestion is to take them seriously when planning your upcoming year. With that, here are 10 predictions and 10 suggestions as to how you can benefit from them.  Enjoy!

Prediction #1: There Will Be A Thinning Out Of Fitness Bootcamps. There are already several thousand fitness bootcamps in North America and as saturated as it seems, more pop up every day.

As I predicted last year, we’re seeing plenty of health clubs offering ‘Unlimited Bootcamp’ for $39 a month and more poor trainers popping up and trying to cash in on the trend.

As with anything (see: real estate bubble), when there is too much of something, a crash is on the horizon.

What You Should Do About It: You need to do two things to benefit from what lies ahead:

• Be the best quality group training provider in your market.  There is always room for high quality offerings and they’re always the ones to thrive regardless of circumstance.  Focus on providing an extraordinary experience and delivering incredible results – the 2 things those who get weeded out in 2012 won’t be doing.
• Don’t be bootcamp only.  The best businesses have multiple streams of income – make sure you’re one of the best businesses.

Prediction #2: ‘The Experience’ Will Be More Important Than Ever Before. With more low cost providers than ever before in the health club market selling $10 a month memberships and Deal of the Day sites making bootcamps available for $29 / mo. anytime someone wants to join one, displaying extraordinary value will be more important than ever before.

What You Should Do About It: Don’t leave anything to chance when it comes to providing the best experience in your market.  Design the best programs. Deliver the best workouts. Develop the best community.  Cultivate the best relationships.

These are not only the areas where no low cost provider will ever be able to match you, but being great at delivering the experience will allow you to get low cost leads you get through Deal of the Day offers of your own to stick with you.

Prediction #3: Complete Solutions Will Lead The Way. It doesn’t matter if it’s offline or online, the leaders in the market will offer the most complete solutions for the people they serve.  People want to be led and those who take advantage of that opportunity will be the biggest movers in 2012.

What You Should Do About It: When someone comes to you for coaching to achieve their goals, provide the most comprehensive solution possible that will get them the results they want in the shortest possible amount of time with the least possible amount of hassle.Whether it’s running accountability groups, enrolling clients in Personal Trainer Foods, holding regular workshops to teach clients how to be more compliant at home or offering things like 7 day per week coaching – you need to be delivering more than just workouts if you want to take your business to the next level in 2012.

Prediction #4: Not Offering EFT Billing Will Actually Begin To Kill Some Businesses. Just a few years ago we were leading the way teaching fitness pros about selling membership based programming and using EFT solutions to handle their billing.  Now we’re at a point where some business will actually go under as a result of not using EFT.

Trainers that try to use Deal of the Day sites regularly without having an EFT based membership program to roll people into will not be able to survive on just the pittance that they get fro the initial deal they sell and won’t have the systems / infrastructure to convert enough of those leads for long term health. Trainers that try to be bill collectors each month won’t have the predictable revenue, will lose too much in the collection process or will flat just get burned out.

What You Should Do About It: If you don’t currently use an EFT billing solution – start.  Our recommendations are here

Prediction #5: More Quality Fitness Pros Than Ever Before Will Offer Information Products Our Online Solutions. We see many of the top fitness pros in the world at our events, in our Mastermind Groups and as part of our franchises – and that group has become more and more online savvy.  The more comfortable great trainers get with building their own niche followings online, the more of them will start to launch the proven training systems that are working for their local clients to the online market

What You Should Do About It: If you’ve got something great to share, get it out there. Blog, do guest posts, share videos on YouTube and get your information in front of more people.  There is always room for GREAT stuff.  Just be sure what you share is great. Once you have a little following, package something and sell it.  Worst case, you’ve got something to sell to your local list and a tool that sets you apart from the competition.  Best case – you’ve got an entirely new, lucrative business.

Prediction #6: Semi-Private and Small Group Training Will Continue To Boom. Not everyone wants to be in a bootcamp setting.  Some want more personal attention or a more personalized solution. Some want more flexibility in scheduling. Some want niche offerings.  One on one training is no longer the preferred option for those people – semi-private and small group training are. They both provide the benefits of one-on-one but are more cost effective for the client and more lucrative for you.

What You Should Do About It: Make sure you’ve got a couple of different offerings – large group / bootcamp at the low end and semi-private or small group at the higher end.  By having different choices you actually close more sales and you’ll appeal to a broader market.

Predictions #7: Business Plug Ins Will Be A Huge Revenue Booster. Businesses within businesses play significant roles in places like Target and WalMart – and with good reason.  They basically are leveraging their space and customer base to sell them other things that they’d want (i.e. – Starbucks).  Training business with any significant client base or email list will recognize that same opportunity and offer ‘plug ins’ of their own like youth fitness programs, nutrition coaching programs, online affiliate marketing programs and corporate programs.

What You Should Do About It: Find a plug in that fits for you and treat it like a mini-business.  If you already have a list or a significant client base – determine what would be the right fit for them and plug it into your business.  If you have parents as part of your client base, plug in something like Athletic Revolution.  If you have community business leaders – a corporate fitness side business might be a good fit.  If you’ve built up a solid email list, start selling affiliate products to unconverted leads.

Prediction #8: Deal of the Day Sites Will Continue To Benefit Only The Smart Fitness Pros. Right now Deal of the Day sites have become polarizing in our industry.  Some people will suggest that they’re bad for business, but the truth is that they’re just a high volume lead generation source.  Nothing more.  The smart fitness pros will use them as just that and if the leads they’re getting aren’t a good fit for their business, they’ll change the offer or find different lead sources.

What You Should Do About It: If you treat them like a regular lead source (except instead of paying for leads, you’re getting paid for them), then you’ll have a strong lead conversion process in place like what I cover here: http://fitbusinessinsider.com/making-deal-of-the-day-offers-work/.

Prediction #9: Specialists Will Continue To Thrive. The fitness professionals that take a quantum leap in their businesses will be specialists.  The internet will continue to educate consumers and they’ll seek solutions specific to their needs. Some popular niche markets in the fitness industry will be:

• Fat loss (for any specific population)
• Baby Boomers
• Moms
• Diabetics
• Youth
• Specific Sports
• Corporate Exercise

What You Should Do About It: With low cost fitness solutions like Planet Fitness & Fitness 19, 24 hour solutions like Anytime Fitness and Snap Fitness and at home solutions like P90X and the plethora of infoproducts available – your competitive advantage is doing what those solutions can’t – offer specialized solutions and personal attention.  If you’re not offering any specialized solutions you’re losing your biggest edge.

Prediction #10: More Business Owners and Fewer Hobbyists. The personal training world is still a very young field.  Because of that, we have a lot of people trying to just find their way without any real path or systematic approach to operating their business.  In 2012 we’ll see more and more entrepreneurial fitness pros commit to building their businesses around providing a great experience and being driven by strong systems.

What You Should Do About It: Do what it takes to build your business.  The status quo won’t be good enough for much longer.  We’re maturing as an industry and the way to stay ahead of the pack is to treat your business like a true business and to provide a better experience than all of your competitors.

There are my predictions for the upcoming year.  What do you think?  Am I missing something? Did I predict something that you disagree with?  Let me know below.

Dedicated to your success,

Pat

A Guest Post On Large Group Personal Training By Steve Long

Mastermind Member, Fitness Revolution & Athletic Revolution franchisee Steve Long just put together a great guest post on the differences between bootcamp and group personal training.  If you train in any type of group environment – this is for you. Thanks Steve!

The other day I was invited by someone to attend a bootcamp that they had been doing.  I gladly accepted the invitation because I saw that this could be a great opportunity to learn a little bit more about what is out there, and maybe have a little fun in the process.

Now as someone who has been running “bootcamps” for over 2 years and doing personal training for 8 plus years I know a little bit about how to execute group training.  I’ve never actually attended a bootcamp before I started my bootcamp, but I’ve heard plenty about other bootcamps and I wanted to experience the difference between the norm and what I was calling bootcamp.  This process has led me to consider not calling my bootcamp by that name any longer.  Here is why.

Bootcamp

My alarm goes off at 5 AM to wake me up for the workout, which is no biggie for me, I’m used to it.  Although, I would have rather done an afternoon workout, I can understand that a lot of people like to get their workouts in early so I was glad to join this group of go-getters for an early workout.

I show up early at the freezing cold park where the workout takes place to meet the instructor and fill out some paperwork.  I understand paperwork is completely necessary to get to know your clients.  I realized quickly however that I could’ve just slept in an extra 15 minutes because the instructor didn’t get there until about 5 minutes prior to the workout beginning.  The instructor gave me a sheet of paper to fill out.  Contact info, how I heard of the bootcamp, and if I’d had a heart attack lately were the depth of these questions.  I was a little upset to see that after I gave the instructor the sheet of paper I had just filled out he just said thank you and put it in pile along with the other new peoples sheets. He didn’t even look at it.  What was the point of the health history if you aren’t going to look at it, but oh well; I’m healthy, so lets move on.

By this time I’m already a little skeptical, but willing to put it aside to get a good workout on.  Ugh, I’ll make this quick.  The workout consisted of the following:

1. Running laps around the park for 10 minutes
2. Forming a line and doing random amounts of pushups, burpees, jumping jacks, squats, and lunges.  I love all of those exercises, but the programming left a lot to be desired.
3. Running laps and taking breaks to do more jumping jacks, jumping on park benches, more pushups, and more burpees.
4. We finally ended with about 20,000 sit-ups, crunches, and more mountain climbers.

Even better yet, I had a non certified trainer who was a drill sergeant want to be, yelling at me the entire time telling me to work harder.  Naturally when I started getting too tired to do the some of the exercises in good form I dropped down to an easier regression of the exercise. I wanted to make sure I didn’t get hurt, but that’s a no go in this bootcamp.  Work hard and do what everyone else is doing in bad form maggot!   That’s what it takes to get results.  Sure, if the results you are looking for is bad posture and injury.  This guy either didn’t know what good form was, or just didn’t care.

To give the bootcamp some credit however, everyone was working his or her butt off, and it was really cheap.

Group Personal Training

Leaving that bootcamp made me realize that I had to write this article.  I had to let people know there is a better way to train large groups, but still get people to work hard, and work smart at the same time.  I’ve been working hard over the last few years with some of the best in the industry like BJ Gaddour, Mike Robertson, Jared Woolever, Pat Rigsby, the people at FMS, and many others and have found a better way to train groups.

So what is the difference between “bootcamp” and group personal training?  It’s huge.  Lets begin.

Assessments:  Having someone fill out a piece of paper and throw it into a pile without looking at it is a disgrace.  Group personal trainers require some sort of screen or assessment.  I currently use the FMS screen to make sure I know what’s going on with my client’s bodies.  I will also go over the client’s health history and goals with them to make sure we know exactly what they want and exactly what they need.

Typically Inside: Workouts don’t have to be inside to be good, but it sure is nice.  It also allows you to be able to have access to lots of strength training equipment, which is essential in a well-rounded training program.

Exercise Progressions:  Everyone is different and everyone has different needs.  If you aren’t going to do an assessment (which is crazy) you at least need to have different levels of difficulty for each exercise.  At the bootcamp I tried to regress, but was yelled at.  In group PT you are praised for being smart if you drop down.  It’s about working as hard as you can at the appropriate level for your body.

Certified Personal Trainers:  If someone who can’t put in the effort to get certified is training you please run as fast as you can away from that bootcamp.

Well Thought Out Programs:  Random workouts that change by the minute may be fun, but if you want a real program that produces results it should follow some sort of training guidelines.  You get results by learning exercises and tracking your progress. If you are just doing random exercises you will get random results.  Programs should be based on your needs to get you the results you are looking for.  How is a random workout going to give the 50 different people in the bootcamp the same results when each person is different?

Less People in the Workout:  One coach can’t train 50+ people well.  Indoor group PT typically has less people to make sure the coach can correct your form so you can improve.

Nutrition Intervention:  I know a lot of group personal trainers and almost all of them include some sort of nutrition information or nutrition counseling in their programs.  If nutrition is forgotten in your bootcamp, forget that bootcamp.

All of the Benefits of Bootcamp Without All of the Negatives:  Outdoor bootcamps can be fun, low cost, and provide group support.  That is the draw of bootcamps in the first place.  Group PT offers all of these benefits without any of the drawbacks that I discussed above.

This article has been a long time coming.  Anyone who knows me understands my strong dislike for generic crap training like the bootcamp I attended.  It’s my mission in life to increase the quality of group training in America. I hope this article will make a small splash in that happening.   I know the readers of this blog will understand the importance, so if you know anyone that may like this article please share it with them.  If each person who reads this makes a vow to increase the quality of his or her bootcamps and/or group training I know I’ve begun to make the difference I’m trying so hard to make.  Thank your for reading and for going the extra mile to do what is right.

Steve Long