Level Up your Personal Training Career | Why do 90% of trainers quit? | How can you become a respected fitness professional

Level up your career as a personal trainer

The fitness landscape is a battleground of myths and one-size-fits-all fallacies, and we're here to set the record straight. We take a hard look at the pitfalls of the fitness industry, including the underbelly of inadequately prepared trainers hiding behind their certifications. Our discussion isn't just a critique; it's a clarion call for genuine connections between trainers and clients, underpinned by education, empathy, and an ongoing pursuit of knowledge. Listen as we dissect the psychological intricacies of fitness, championing a more nuanced and client-focused approach.

Rounding off, the episode doesn't just challenge the status quo; it shatters it, proposing a new paradigm for personal trainer education and certification. I share insights on how vital practical experience and mentorship are, beyond the traditional NASM, ACE, and ISSA certifications. We also tackle the rampant misinformation in the fitness industry head-on, committing to science-backed education. By the end of our discussion, you'll be brimming with the know-how to craft a career in personal training that prioritizes client safety, satisfaction, and a relentless quest for professional excellence.

Want to ask us a question? Email email info@showupfitness.com with the subject line PODCAST QUESTION to get your question answered live on the show!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the Show Up Fitness Podcast. We're great. Personal trainers are made. We are changing the fitness industry one qualified trainer at a time with our in-person and online personal training certification. If you wanna become an elite personal trainer, head on over to showupfitnesscom. Also, make sure to check out my book how to Become a Successful Personal Trainer. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. Have a great day and keep showing up. Howdy y'all, it's your favorite trainer, the belt buckle. Today we're gonna be talking about leveling up your career as a personal trainer. We're gonna get into some programming more advanced shoulder actions. Talk about some workouts I've been doing with the pre-hab guys, working on mentorships and always be learning.

Speaker 1: 0:49

I have a client right now who training five times a week. He is a definitely in shape, conditioned individual. Our workouts are two circuits. We do a CCA and then we do a CAA the warmup. We hit all 10 checkpoints of movement ankle, knee, hip, lumbar, thoracic, shoulder, cervical, elbow, wrist, breathing mechanics. He has some dorsiflexion issues that he's going to a therapist for. So for the first warmup we really get into the ankle and then we do some calf raises to get the deep stretch. But the accessory for that first circuit is all ankle based stuff. He's been trying to improve his bench press. We start out with bench and then we go into chin ups and then we do ankle work. We do that for seven rounds. And this is always funny to me because trainers would say things oh, we gotta keep it new and exciting and always show my clients 30 new exercises. This guy pays a boat load of money per month, per session to work with the best trainer. I don't need to show off my wares and tears and do all this flashy bullshit. I get him results. He wants his ankle mobility to improve. He wants his shoulder mobility to improve. He wants to get his bench up there. He wants to be jacked, but he also wants to be functional with golf and skiing and that's exactly what happens when he comes in. So we do bench press, into chin ups, into ankle work.

Speaker 1: 2:19

Our first two rounds it's really just a warmup. We hit 185 for 10 to 12, then we went to 205, then we went to 225, back down to 205 and then Amrap on 185. So that was a pyramid set. The first two were warmups and then we hit 185, chin ups, ankle work. We rest for a couple of minutes and we talk about life, love, happiness, what's going on in the market? What's going on with politics? They say you shouldn't talk about politics and religion, but I'll talk about that if my client wants to, because I'm a chameleon. I make the session enjoyable.

Speaker 1: 2:51

After that first circuit then we moved into the second one. We did banded pushups into chest flies and then bird dart rows. We did that for five rounds. He had a total of 10 solid working sets. Chest flies we played around with the tempo slowing down, holding on the eccentric, making him chase that burn. We want to focus on heavier in the beginning for tension, get the volume, and then chase the burn at the end of the workout. He likes doing balance, stability stuff because he feels like it's really specific to skiing and golf. He'll send me stuff from different therapists.

Speaker 1: 3:30

I actually had Greg the ski therapist on here because he follows him on Instagram, showed him to me, so I sent him a DM. All things that will teach you on how to communicate with these professionals in the level two and he reached out to me. We brought him on the podcast and now we have a great relationship. I'd all stem from my client telling me he followed this individual. I think that's something you should ask part of the assessment who are people you follow on Instagram? Those are the little things, the professionalism, those people, skills that get your clients to keep showing up.

Speaker 1: 4:00

And it was funny because today we were having a conversation about trainers and he was asking me some great questions about our business and what we're trying to do online is. I told him we're getting. I'm always curious about different markets and ask him if he's been to London, if he's been to Asia. I want to grow our brand into the world's best certification and we're going to do that. It takes a lot of time, but having the results with the best trainers spread the word. That's what is going to help continue to do that. And I'm telling him well, you know what the average trainer does and he knew he's like, yeah, they just did a textbook and we laughed. I would never work with a trainer who had these simple certifications. And that's what I want to talk about today is leveling up. It blows my mind.

Speaker 1: 4:45

I get emails daily. There was a great one today. I got one from someone saying that I can just hear the passion in your voice and I've listened to your podcast all of them now. Lauren from Cleveland. Hello, thank you for listening. I could tell in her story and her email that she really wants to turn her passion for fitness into a career. I am that confident that if she wouldn't have come across show up fitness, the likelihood for her success is minimal. And that's what really crushes me.

Speaker 1: 5:14

As a trainer, as a teacher, I've been in the industry, I'm in the trenches 20 plus years. How many Lawrence are out there that did not get into the right hands, did not get into the right mentorship? Think about it for a second. What does the average trainer do? How do you become a personal trainer? They click on the first link. They get NASA, ace, issa. They study it. They get confused, they put it down. They come back six months later ah shit, I forgot to renew it. I gotta pay more money. Go on Reddit, go on YouTube, go somewhere.

Speaker 1: 5:46

How to pass this test, cliff notes, quick notes, cheat sheets. You come across show up. You come across. Someone else Maybe that's someone else is having you read the entire fucking textbook and memorize everything. So now you're a drone and you have a client in front of you. Let's do an overhead squad assessment because you're broken. Oh, you have an overactive. This and the client's like fucking hey, are you kidding me? That's what they're thinking. They don't tell you this, they're smiling. Oh, okay, great, my inductors are overactive. Let me foam roll and activate and do these stupid ass exercises where I feel like an idiot and then, when you present the package to them, they go let me think about it. Oh, that's really expensive. Let me talk to my significant other. I'm gonna try out a few other places.

Speaker 1: 6:27

Really, what they're saying there is they don't fucking believe in a single thing that you presented to them, because you don't have the confidence in yourself. You don't even believe in the product that you're pitching. When was the last time you hired a trainer? That is what we need to be prideful in leveling up the whole entire fucking industry. Nope, what we're doing is we're just gonna settle for the lowest entry standards.

Speaker 1: 6:48

Get a textbook certification, go specialize in this corrective exercise and tell all your clients they're broken. That's exactly what they don't need to hear. They need to go into a trainer who's smiling and looks the part, shakes their hand and says let's talk about your goals. What do you want out of today's session? What defines success? Today, three months from now, six months from now, I'm gonna help you get there. And then you listen, you take some notes and then you empathize with them. I totally understand what you're going through right now. That must be very challenging. Oh, you love carnivore Awesome, good for you. What do you think about it? Oh, you're vegan. That's so cool Awesome. Tell me more about it. I don't start telling people this is a bad diet or this is a bad workout.

Speaker 1: 7:32

The psychology behind fitness is fucked up. Everyone's an expert on social media and that's what they're being exposed to Toxicity. This person has 100,000 followers. Oh, they're a trainer. They offer business coaching. They know what they're doing? They don't. Trainers and coaches are probably more scared than our clients because they don't have to fucking clue what they're doing.

Speaker 1: 7:54

There are some, the one percenters. You can go out there and find them if you really do your research, if they have the background. Dr Isratol, you know Renaissance periodization. They got some great stuff out there. Brett Contreras, tony Genokor people who I highlight in my book. There are a lot of great trainers if you know how to find them. If 100 trainers get certified via a textbook, 90% of them are gonna quit Out of those 10.

Speaker 1: 8:25

A couple of them may just be really good looking. A couple of them may be really confident. A couple of them may be really great with people. So you have six to eight who made it just from that, but they don't know how to fucking train. So that's how a lot of this nonsense takes over. You got to do to the six pack or a girl with a big ass. They're taking train and antivar and all these crazy substance. They tell you I'm clean, I'm natural. I doubt it, and now they have a platform to tell you what worked for them. You know what just pisses me off more than anything when a trainer reaches out and says you know, I've been working out for 20 years. I know what I'm doing. Fuck you, you do, no, you do not.

Speaker 1: 9:07

Training yourself is easy, and that's the hard part for a lot of people. We don't have the discipline to do it. Look at Goggins. He's out there kicking ass every single day. If he trained everyone the same way that he trains, he would kill people. He'd be a mass murderer because people couldn't handle the shit that he does. It doesn't mean that way is right.

Speaker 1: 9:27

When you understand the human body, you can literally work with anybody. Chris, what's your specialty? I work with anybody. What are your goals? You have an injury. I'll help you with that. Oh, you're an athlete, I'll help you with that. Need guidance with your nutrition? We got you covered. We also have the best team therapists, doctors, who we consult with regularly, registered dietitians. We're constantly surrounding ourselves with the best and that's why I know we're the best. There's no doubt when I have someone in front of me if they need help. We got you covered.

Speaker 1: 9:59

And so, of the masses that are getting certified annually, most of them quit. And the ones that do make it, they don't know what the hell they're doing. And the unfortunate thing is they can't get hired at great gyms like Equinox and Lifetime. So they go to an LA fitness which will literally fucking hire anybody. You go in there and you write on the thing I wanna get hired here, they're gonna hire you. You gain some experience and then you wanna go to one of these better gyms. I know what I'm doing. You do not. I know it's a tough pill to swallow. I'm not saying I'm better than you, but I've been through the trenches internships, mentorships, work with the best paid the best. I know I'm the best because of that.

Speaker 1: 10:41

If you wanna become the best chef. You don't just make up your own recipes and do it by yourself. You go learn from the best. You wanna become the best hairstylist? You go to the best hairstylist school Paul Mitchell. You work with the best who are working with whoever is the best in your industry, and that's how you become the best Trainers. How do you become the best?

Speaker 1: 11:01

I read a textbook. I'm gonna put four acronyms in my bio. I'm qualified as your fucking a bocce ball. Now, don't think that works. I'm gonna foam roll everything. This is overactive. This is underactive. I'm gonna do an overhead squat assessment to tell you how dysfunctional you are for doing an overhead squat, which you would never do when you actually train them. And this message really stirs the bee's nest because you got a bunch of sensitive trainers who feel like I'm attacking them, and it's not you who I'm attacking. I'm challenging the industry. We need to level up.

Speaker 1: 11:42

Doctors are respected because they go through a tedious process. Trainers are not respected because our process is stupidity. You read a random textbook which is very esoteric. Sure, some of the people behind the textbook may have the credentials, but just because they have the credentials doesn't mean you understand it. If I learn from the person who speaks the best Spanish doesn't mean I can speak Spanish. I need to learn from that individual and then practice it with that individual telling me that is right, this is wrong.

Speaker 1: 12:17

And then I practice, rinse and repeat, and I do it over and over and over and over again and after three, four, five years of doing that, I am now a general practitioner and pretty damn good at what I do. If I wanna specialize, I do that next. But with training we get a textbook cert and then we go gain unsupervised experience. I just need to gain experience. That's what I get a lot from people. I'm like no, you don't. That's the last thing that you need. That's the blind leading the blind Cause. How are you gonna work with my client who came in today with an ankle issue and a left shoulder issue and he's trying to improve his bench? We're just gonna take bench out of the equation for a couple months and we're gonna do a stability ball press. He wouldn't work with you.

Speaker 1: 13:01

And then you get frustrated. I don't know why my client didn't sign up. She can't afford it. No, he just doesn't have the guts to tell your pretty little soul that you are not good at what you do. You don't have confidence, there's no conviction. Because if you had the conviction, here's my credit card. I need this. When people need something, they will invest. It's not money, it's not their significant other. 94, 96,.

Speaker 1: 13:30

I want to give some random numbers in there. Percent of the time that's not the case. You did not show the value in them working with you and I think you should be hard on yourself and don't always give yourself a hall pass. If you have 10 people that come in, if nine of them sign up, that one person I'll give you. Okay. That's probably a legit excuse that couldn't work with you. But if you had 10 people come in and seven of them had the same bullshit excuse, I'm willing to bet it's not the seven of them, it's you. This isn't baseball. Three out of 10 is a hall of famer. Three out of 10 in training I'm sorry, that is not a hall of famer.

Speaker 1: 14:07

Great trainers close. 80, 90, 100% of the time. I've been doing this for a while. You cannot compare yourself to me, but I cannot tell you the last time I didn't close someone pitching the rates that I pitch and they're probably four times more than what you charge. It's because I know I can help them. And if they were which I've never had to actually say, this is too expensive, chris I would have the confidence to smile and say well, what were you thinking about when you came to the best gym in Santa Monica? Well, what were you thinking about when you came to the best trainer in Santa Monica? I'm legitimately curious because you told me your goal A, b, c and D and I just told you I can provide that. So let's talk about that, because I'm really curious.

Speaker 1: 14:54

I don't do it in a demeaning way. What do you mean? You can't afford it. No, I do it at a curiosity. Imagine if you knew someone who had terminal cancer and you go to a physician and they have the cure. What it was terminal, but now they actually have the cure. You're gonna do whatever it takes to get that cure. You have to think like that when your client's in front of you. What did you think about when you came in for today's assessment? That's why, if you preface it in the beginning, you can learn a lot from your clients. Mind you, there will be some gyms that will sell these free consultations. In that way, you get a free session with the trainer. Go and do it. All right, I get that.

Speaker 1: 15:32

I had a conversation with one of our interns the other day and this is another difference between leveling up. This kid, blaze, went through levels one, through four. He's a rock star doing really, really well, but he isn't closing at the rate that he wants to, but he has the cognition, the ability to think and say you know what? I need to reach out to someone and have a conversation. He gets pointers and he's gonna go out there and implement those strategies. A lot of the people who are being sent to them are being delivered in that fashion. The membership advisors will sign them up with that lure. If you sign up today, we'll give you two free personal training sessions. That's different. I'm looking at the equinoxes, the lifetimes, who will celebrate 35% as being elite.

Speaker 1: 16:17

I challenge them to level up because if you have clients that are making $250 plus thousand dollars per year and you're only having three to four out of 10 sign up with you, your delivery, your confidence lacks, and so how do you improve that confidence? You put yourself out there. You get trained by the best. Why don't trainers have more trainers? I'm not talking about spending $50,000 on a mentorship. That's stupid. Anyone who charges that much and you're not a Fortune 500 company or making seven, eight figures. That is murder. There's no business coach out there that should be charging more than a couple grand per month.

Speaker 1: 17:02

I work with two clients that I mentor them and I charge my hourly rate and they get access to me two hours per week and that's 700 bucks. It's 2,800 bucks a month that they pay me and when I mentor them they get my full divided attention. If they want to divvy up the hour of my time, they can do whatever the hell they want to. One of them checks in four times a week, 15 minutes. One does it on Zoom, one does it via a call. How can I help your gym thrive? How can I help your business thrive? How can I make you a better trainer? I work with mentors who have access to team members and they're spending three grand a month. That is like a good mentorship and this is a team of coaches.

Speaker 1: 17:49

So it really just pisses me off when I hear about these vulnerable trainers, nutrition coaches that are going to these quote, unquote business coaches that are charging seven grand, 10 grand. I heard one that was 50 grand. I'm sorry. All they're gonna tell you is stop being a fucking coward. Put on your big boy panties big boy jockstrap, big girl panties whatever the hell that saying is and show up. Do the work. If you have a doubt, ask someone. If it's a stupid idea, ask someone. Get some feedback. Go, implement it. Fail fast, fail hard. Keep showing up. That's the most important thing you can do, though Mentorship shouldn't be a crazy process.

Speaker 1: 18:37

What's going on right now? What are you trying to develop? You should probably start a system over here. Make that happen. Get it done by next Wednesday. What do you want to improve? You want to have a stream of revenue. Okay, what do you do right now? Well, have you thought about this? Yeah, go try that. How many clients do you have right now, and how many of them are paying you X amount? Why not? Well, why don't you have them pay you more? Oh, they're not gonna do it. How did you ask them? What's your referral process right now? Oh, so you have 10 clients and not a single one of them giving you a referral. Have you had a celebratory dinner where you take everyone out to a nice ass restaurant and you ask for more business? No, do that. See how it works when they come back and go holy shit, I just got four new clients paying me my newest rate. All thanks to you. Now that mentorship's over, you got what you wanted. Now keep on showing up.

Speaker 1: 19:25

So when I talk about leveling up, the industry as a whole needs to do a better job of telling people how to become a trainer. The old way, or what we're now reframing at Chilfin, is level zero. We can help anyone pass a textbook certification and that's exactly what our level zero does. Nasa, ace, issa, nesta, whatever it is all of that stuff is the same. There'll be little differences between ACE and NASA and ISSA, nsca, acsm. The fundamentals are the same though. No oil muscle works, no planes of motion, no oil, this stuff. It's simple. If you focus on it, pass in a couple of days, a week, two max, and then you move into level one. That's how you become a qualified trainer.

Speaker 1: 20:11

The old way you go get your textbook certification takes you a couple years to do it. You go to a 24, a LA fitness and you gain your experience. You get mad at the big brother, and so then you move up into a better gym and then you build your book and then you leave. You take your clients and then you're gonna charge less and then about three years later you're gonna find a new career. That's for the 10% who make it, because most cannot stomach that process, the new way.

Speaker 1: 20:38

You don't need that textbook certification. You learn from the best company out there when it comes to surrounding you with the best therapists, dieticians, doctors, professors. You understand anatomy, movement, programming, regressions, progressions, pain management. And then you test for your certification in front of someone, even if it's in front of Zoom. That's superior than a multiple choice question test like what the hell Like? You literally think that you are a professional by taking a simple test. All of these tests are super, super simple. I know you may be like this is what do you mean? It was the hardest test ever.

Speaker 1: 21:18

Memorizing 800 pages is very challenging. When someone tells you oh, you can't get a refund for that textbook, focus on these 30 or 40, you're gonna do fine, and they give you the confidence to go pass it. And then you do and you're like, okay, oh shit, now what Exactly? Moving to level one? Actually no anatomy. Learn movement in programming and then go out there and do it. And then, as you gain experience, you're gonna start thinking well, I want some more streams of revenue, then you move into level two. If you have 10 clients, 50% of them should be paying you for nutritional services. That's what our Nutrition Coach program does. Don't go spend $1,000 on precision nutrition unless you already work at Equinox. Focus on getting that it's 200 bucks and then work on your online development. We have Danny. She takes care of all that stuff. So now you're building those streams of revenue.

Speaker 1: 22:09

If you wanna become a strength coach, you move into level three, advanced periodization. Level four is me with physical therapists. There are prerequisites to these. You need to know what the muscles do. If you're gonna work with physical therapists, you're gonna embarrass me.

Speaker 1: 22:25

If you're, what is the sub-scap? You peppers, peppa-parris. That's just Peppa-Parris. That's just Peppa-Parris. It's like come on. You need to know where basic anatomy is, but you need to tell me what these muscles do. The sub-scapularis internally rotates and stabilizes the glenohumeral joint. That's the main focus of that muscle. All you wanna learn about? The soleus, that badass calf muscle right here, bam is deep to the gastrocnemius, whereas the gastroc is a biarticulate crosses. The knee joint inserts into the calcaneus via the Achilles tendon. The soleus is really cool because that sucker absorbs about 6.5 to eight times the body weight during a run. So if you're running a lot, make sure to do some prehab exercise to strengthen that sucker up. Make sure we have the requisite mobility, address stability and then get strong as hell. And those are things that we talk about in the level four Leveling you up to become the best trainers out there.

Speaker 1: 23:20

When it comes to our industry, there's so much misinformation, really malinformation. It's bad information because there's no accountability, there's no checks and balances. Then you have people like Adam Minkas, who's a great physical therapist, lane Norton, who's a great nutrition coach. Why are you so mean and you pick on everyone? Because people who call themselves professionals are fucking idiots and they're saying stupid shit and they're hurting clients and no one is calling them out. We need more of it. Tag me on stuff. I'm not gonna get in a fight with a person, but we will educate you on the science behind it, whether it's nutrition and biochemistry. You can ask Mel during our calls with a dietitian. We have professors, we have physical therapists.

Speaker 1: 24:09

So when people say this exercise is the best exercise ever because this guy's jacked, well, actually, let's look at the anatomy. Let's look at what that muscle does. Oh, the fact that he has 25 inch arms. Yeah, he really doesn't know what he's talking about. He says that a supinated tricep extension is great for the long head of the triceps. That just sounds fancy, but he really doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. Now for me to go challenge a dude with 25 inch arms, I'm gonna get beat up. The best way to beat up a bodybuilder very, very simple Punch him one time and then run as fast as you can, because their cardiovascular sucks, dad joke of the day. Boom.

Speaker 1: 24:43

We need to do a better job of educating new trainers on what it looks like to become a qualified trainer. How would you like to own a gym? How would you like to have streams of revenue from being part of a gym? And that's what we're doing at Show Up Fitness with our gyms bringing on clinical directors who are therapists so they're able to build their book of business, where I'm trying to fix the cluster fuckery of physical therapy, because people will get their DPT to $300,000 in debt and then they go work and they're starting to get paid at 70 grand. Listen to the podcast I did with Idine. The reason he went and worked at Equinox is because he saw the potential in the earnings which are superior to beginning therapists. Mind you, he also had a degree in kinesiology. He went to the best school and now he's performing at that high level.

Speaker 1: 25:38

We are getting trainers to get their show up fitness, cpt, their level one. You don't need the zero. If you can't get a refund, then go and get the zero move as quickly as you can in level one because that's gonna fast track you into getting hired at the best gyms. You know, what's really cool to see is we're having trainers leave their jobs at crunches and lifetimes in Equinoxes and come to the internship in person, because those two months in person are gonna give you years of experience on the average trainer. If you can't make it in person, you go online and you ask questions to qualified instructors. We're gonna have more instructors teaching different times throughout the day because, as we grow internationally, we need to have classes at 5 am and 10 am, 4 pm and 10 pm, because we're helping trainers worldwide become qualified, confident but most importantly, yes, I get pissed off at the industry because no one has the balls to go out there and challenge it.

Speaker 1: 26:37

I'm the lone ranger out there with my belt buckle, drinking my whiskey, challenging people to level up and we're just doing the same bullshit, same process, you're gonna get the same results. 90% of textbook trainers are not able to turn their passion for fitness into a career, and so when you challenge that, you're gonna get pushed back. I want you to help people safely, number one, but to build a life for your passion, and if you think that's gonna happen by having 13 certifications after your name, you will learn that's not the process. If you found today's passion podcast valuable, shoot us a message. How can we help you? What is keeping you showing up? Where are you struggling? Do you need some help in areas of sales, of the assessment, building your own gym, building your own online business? How can I help you? Cause that's what I want to do. Pass the personality, the big biceps and the awesome calves and the belt buckle and my beautiful lies. I'm here to help you. Remember y'all keep showing up.