“More than just a Personal Trainer” – what am I then?
With the ever-increasing flooding of the market with Personal Trainers almost by the day, it has had me thinking. There are now well over 30,000 Personal Trainers registered Australia-wide! The vast majority of these have entered the field with the absolute bare-minimum standard and achieved a Certificate 3 and 4 in Personal Training. Of these the majority have been in the fitness industry for less than 2 years. So when someone asks me what I do and I tell them I am a “Personal Trainer”, I am way more than that. I offer way more than (by my estimates) 95% of Personal Trainers and have a 4 year full-time University degree in Human Movement and Secondary Teaching and 18 years experience as well.
So I am looking to pioneer a term that whilst the consumer may not yet be ready to understand but our current clientele sure can and that is something more of a Peak Performance Health and Wellbeing Coach. Again, I will state that I am not convinced on the title and need to give it much more thought but I am not merely a Personal Trainer and nor are my team – we are “more than a Personal Trainer”.
I went to see one of Melbourne’s longest serving Personal Trainers (Craig Harper) whom has set up an empire on Saturday and has moved into the same realm as he too offers way more than just Personal Training and he too is aware of this and trying to find a niche for his market. So what is “more than a Personal Trainer” you may ask? Well to spell it out and I see this way to often on a daily basis – here are a few traits of what to avoid if you really want to achieve long-term and sustained health, fitness and wellbeing benefits at the highest level and achieve value for what you are spending:
- A Personal Trainer that has merely completed a certificate 3 and 4 course and less than 2 years experience.
- A Personal Trainer that is more obsessed with how they look rather than how you look, feel and with a 100% focus not just on your fitness or appearance but more holistically looking at the bigger picture
- A Personal Trainer that is aligned to a supplement company (especially Herbalife, Isagenix, Arbonne, Avon, etc..) and tries to tell you the need for you to purchase these from them. I have never thus far and never will need to sell my clients supplements as I know that what I offer will get the results and that is through behaviour change, educating and steering toward a better way of eating, etc. Sadly many trainers are more focussed on lining their own pockets and will steer you towards things that will help boost their income.
- A Personal Trainer that turns up to a session with little or no equipment, program card or accountability devices/equipment.
- A Personal Trainer with no business name, uniform, brand or anything professional. This job is not a hobby it must be a passion!
- A Personal Trainer that subjects you to generic exercises or programming. Boot Camps and Crossfit are examples of this. Steer well clear if you want individual attention to your injuries, conditions, goals and the bigger picture stuff. You are an individual and require “specific” focus on you, your body, mind, soul and behavioural patterns.
- A Personal Trainer that tries to guide you to doing more sessions than you want or can afford. The real job of a Personal Trainer can be achieved in 1 hour a week and they then work on changing your habits and behaviour for the remaining 167 hours in a week -and get this – they steer you towards behaviour change and get results long-term! One session a week at $100 with anyone that is “more than a Personal Trainer” is worth way more than 2 sessions a week at $50 with a “dime-a-dozen” Personal Trainer.
- A Personal Trainer that gives you a really solid workout where you come out of it physically exhausted and/or work heaps of muscles but you go away with no direction and more of a “have a try of doing 3 gym workouts and I will see you next week”!
- A Personal Trainer that spends their time on their phone, disinterested, does not touch and guide you to perform exercises correctly and merely stands there and tells you what to do! Seriously what are you paying them for?
So what is “more than a Personal Trainer”? One of my long-term clients referred to me as his “Health and Wellbeing Custodian”. Whilst probably no-one will ever use this term and nor will I. It does essentially knock right on the head of what I and my team deliver in our role as a Personal Trainer. We strive to not only look at and meet someone’s physical fitness goals but go way beyond this and delve much deeper. Here are the essential ingredients of a “More than a personal trainer” and exactly what we do that stands out from the rest:
- Posture
- Injuries/conditions
- Health
- Mental health
- Fitness
- Nutrition/dietary behaviours
- Behaviour change
- Physical Training
- Work-Life balance
- Relationships
- Maximising their productivity with their daily lives
- Adrenal/Cortisol activity and understanding/education- we specialise in Type A people.
- Happiness and life goal setting
- Mindfulness
- Stretching/flexibility
- Injury prevention/rehabilitation
- Balance
- Helping deal with the aging process
Putting this in words or referring to the ingredients as I have above doesn’t quite give the entire breadth and depth of what we do but if interested in learning more and really getting a feel of what we offer and why I am so confident that we offer way much more than 95% of our competitors, click here for a link to a blog post I have done previously that will give you a clearer picture.
So, now I must go away and work on what way I can do to pioneer a term that will encompass more of what we do and if you have any suggestions and can help differentiate from a generic Personal Trainer, I would be most appreciative! I am also very keen to improve the standards of Personal Training within Australia and please feel free to click here on my recent post about doing so.
Kind regards,
Justin Moran
Just In Time Personal Training
0411 798 934
