Trainers need to remember the 23/1 rule: the client can do a great job during the 1 hour they meet with you, but they have 23 hours to fuck it all up, hence, the importance of continuing education and nutrition coaching. If you are hoping to make a full time living just meeting with clients 2-3 days per week, and are not willing to go the extra mile, just stop now and go get a retail job or wait tables…this will be more dependable income. If you want to retain clients long term, you have to be willing to work really hard and go the extra mile for them.

My best advice for someone who wants to hire a trainer: look for trainers who have their own independent training business and who have made their FULL TIME living from training people for at least 3 years. If they can actually support themselves and their family through training, and have an established track record of doing so, you can pretty much bet they know what they are doing, provide some degree of value, and get people results more often than not.

Best advice for wanna be trainers? As Lyle noted, never stop learning. In addition to my full client load, I attend at least 2 in person seminars each year, visit a coach, trainer or gym each quarter, and read/view probably 50 fitness and nutrition related sites, blogs, newsletters, youtube channels etc. each week.

Also, if you want to make a go of it long term, add other trainers to your business, grow your business, develop other revenue streams etc., you need to identify a fitness business and marketing mentor and be prepared to pay for their help. I agree with Lyle that the internet marketing by fitness professionals is ridiculous and laughable, but, this being said, trainers do need to understand how to market on a budget, how to develop systems, how to train other trainers, etc. If you don’t know or want to know how to do this you are going to be limited in terms of your potential income. You have to have some business acumen.

Clients who pay, but do little else for there training is also a common problem. I often see trainers going through the motions with clients who are happy with a hopelessly easy session and no results

I train a very spry 83 year old woman who could never find a trainer that would work her as hard as she liked. She appreciates me because I am not scared to train her, and for the first time in a long time she is seeing results.

The key is finding a FITNESS PROFESSIONAL. I wrote a short article on my blog about finding a professional. It can be found at http://wp.me/ps8Qq-by

This article should be a big help to those looking for a quality trainer.

Read constantly. And I don’t mean marketing stuff which seems to be the key to internet success. I cringe when I read some online trainer brag that they spend most of their reading time learning about marketing; how about learning more about your actual field and how to train people more effectively. Make no mistake, marketing is important. But being competent in what you do as a trainer is too.

And just realize what you do and don’t know. A trap I see trainers fall into altogether too much is being unable to say ‘I don’t know’. A client asks a question and you don’t know the answer. Don’t make it up if you truly don’t know. Tell them ‘I don’t know but I’ll find out.’. And then you both learn something.

It’s taken me damn near 20 years to almost think I know what I’m doing. And some days even I’m not sure of that. As long as you never get complacent and keep studying and learning, you’re on the right track. As soon as you think you have all the answers, you’ve just fallen behind.

Shaun: I didn’t say ALL video on Youtube was shit. Just that most of it was. Rip is an exception.

Arthur: Addressing the whole online vs. in person training thing is an article unto itself. The basic problem is this: good coaches make modifications to training based on what they see on that day because you never know who’s walking into the gym that day. Training from a distance makes that impossible. At best you get a workout writeup after the fact and hopefully you teach your clients how to make adjustments to their own training.

But that takes LOTS of time to get across to people and most folks can’t/won’t be objective about their own training. They may be falling down exhausted and whereas, as a coach I might cut the volume and intensity by half, if the workout says to do triples at 90%, they will try to do every set.

Also, IME, and this is based on 20 years of experience or so, even trainees who say:

“I have good form.”
“I work hard”

Are usually incorrect on both counts. So you’re giving them a workout and making assumptions about technique and such and it’s invariably wrong. And 8 weeks later, nothing happens because you’re assumptions were completely wrong.

The one time I did online coaching, I did regular video checkups and the client came to visit me twice per year for 3 days of intensive hands on technical training. It still took twice as long to fix his technique (he had 20 years weight training experience and still did everything wrong) as it should have.

Which is why outside of the occasional generic diet writeup, I don’t do online training. It doesn’t fit the model of how I coach which is extremely hands on with constant feedback and modification day to day and minute to minute. I can’t do that online and nobody else can either.

It can probably work better for endurance training more easily than weight training stuff. But only because there’s usually less day to day variability and you can track metrics like HR, HRV, etc. from a distance.

For weight room stuff, that’s all impossible from a distance. You can’t see what’s happening in the weight room. Is technique falling apart and it’s time to move on, is bar speed slowing down and it’s time to move on.

Is there a technical flaw or weakness causing a problem that I might see if I were there? But won’t ever pick up on because I’m relying on the trainee’s flawed reporting?

So it’s nearly impossible to do well IMO. You end up giving these cookie cutter programs, making assumptions about what’s being done, etc. and they are usually wrong. It can work but it’s much harder than in person.

So I’m not going to waste time rating the various online coaching options you asked about. It’s not relevant, the problem in my mind is with the model in its entirety: not the individual folks.

It’s a cash cow for people which is why they do it (you can handle many times more clients online than in person) but I don’t think it works under most circumstances.

Again, this tends to be a reflection of how I coach people. Clearly others have different opinions or they wouldn’t do it. All of the things that I think a real coach should do simply can’t realistically be done in an online/distance training model.

Of course compared to getting an incompetent personal trainer in person, it may be a wash.

Whoever’s developing the standards for Fitness Australia and REPS NZ really needs to re-evaluate what they’re teaching, because it’s not cutting it – especially since they try to promote it as being a “standardized qualification so you know your trainer’s competent”.

The US system may be a mess but at least there’s no registration body making that claim, either.

Thanks for the great post Lyle, think I will send it to all my clients

Jo

Walk into my gym here any time of day and you’ll still see 60kg high squats with knees caving in and tricep extensions done on a Bosu ball. Being supervised and taught like that by “certified trainers”.

One even tried to discuss my front squat form with me one day and quickly found out I knew far more about it than he did. You can’t certify competence, even with the 4-6 weeks of coursework – and interning with someone half-competent only reinforces bad habits.

I’d write a letter, if I knew who to send it to.