Personal training is a potentially profitable, albeit competitive profession. Because personal training sessions are expensive, trainers must continually provide interest and motivation to justify the expense for their clients. Keeping your programs fresh and exciting prevents burnout for you and your clients. Marketing is also essential for personal trainers, especially for those who work as independent contractors.
Build Your Reputation
Marketing need not be an overwhelming expense. Trainers can build their reputations by writing a column for a local paper, creating a fitness blog or website, or by volunteering their services for local athletic events. Consider offering fitness talks to community groups, and remember to bring your business cards. Certified personal trainers should consider applying as a fitness conference presenter.
Take It Outside
Indoor exercise gets boring after awhile, but the great outdoors provides a fitness playground. Outdoor hill workouts offer aerobic and butt-toning benefits. Bring some resistance bands and set up a parcourse, which intersperses resistance training exercises with aerobic activity. If your client lives near a playground, the hopscotch board provides excellent agility training. Those who live in snowy environments can rent snowshoes for outdoor aerobic exercise.
Small Space Exercise
Don't let a client's tiny apartment prevent you from developing an effective training program. A bed or couch provides effective balance-training equipment. Have your client stand on the bed or couch in bare feet to perform squats or lunges. Ask your client to assume a supine position, with her feet on the bed, and perform bridging exercises. Add challenge to side-lying inner-thigh exercises by having your client lie sideways on the bed and bring her bottom, straight leg down to the floor. Tell her to contract her inner thigh as she raises her leg to the height of the bed. Personal trainer Jackie Berg suggests using a chair for tricep dips, plank exercises, half roll-back sit-ups and hip extension exercises.
Gliding Exercise
Personal trainer Ross Enamait, of RossTraining.com, suggests using furniture gliders. They are designed to glide furniture across the floor, but they provide multiple exercise opportunities when placed under the hands or feet. Place one glider under your client's foot and have him stand on a wood or linoleum floor, with his feet hip-width apart. Tell him to glide the working leg toward the other leg. Add a chest fly to a push-up by placing the gliders under your client's hands, and having him assume the push-up position. Tell him to bend his elbows to perform the push-up. Then, keeping his elbows bent, ask him to glide his hands apart, then bring them back together.
Member Comments