Ever wondered why some personal trainers thrive while others barely survive? Coach Lee Boyce joins us to reveal the blueprint for success in the fitness industry—a mixture of patience, real-world experience, and a strong educational foundation. Say goodbye to the allure of instant fame and discover why a tiered pay system could be the game-changer for trainers. We're peeling back the layers, uncovering why those who favor textbooks might be missing out on the vital hands-on experience that degrees and internships offer.
Navigating the fitness terrain is no easy feat, and this episode isn't shying away from the gritty challenges personal trainers face. We delve into the stark realities—from the perils of quick-fix certifications to the science of exercise progression. The conversation gets real as we compare personal training to skilled professions, emphasizing the undeniable value of rigorous education and practical know-how. Hear us dissect the market saturation and set the record straight on what it takes to not only meet but exceed client expectations.
Wrapping up, we switch gears to talk shop on maximizing revenue and professional growth. It's a candid look at the fitness industry, where the right mix of formal education, business savvy, and diversified income streams can lead to a flourishing career. We champion the unsung heroes who've carved out their niche, challenging the status quo and redefining what it means to be a successful trainer. So, lace up your sneakers, tune in, and get ready to elevate your fitness game to unparalleled heights with insights, laughs, and a touch of inspiration from Coach Boyce and yours truly.
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!
Ever wondered why some personal trainers thrive while others barely survive? Coach Lee Boyce joins us to reveal the blueprint for success in the fitness industry—a mixture of patience, real-world experience, and a strong educational foundation. Say goodbye to the allure of instant fame and discover why a tiered pay system could be the game-changer for trainers. We're peeling back the layers, uncovering why those who favor textbooks might be missing out on the vital hands-on experience that degrees and internships offer.
Navigating the fitness terrain is no easy feat, and this episode isn't shying away from the gritty challenges personal trainers face. We delve into the stark realities—from the perils of quick-fix certifications to the science of exercise progression. The conversation gets real as we compare personal training to skilled professions, emphasizing the undeniable value of rigorous education and practical know-how. Hear us dissect the market saturation and set the record straight on what it takes to not only meet but exceed client expectations.
Wrapping up, we switch gears to talk shop on maximizing revenue and professional growth. It's a candid look at the fitness industry, where the right mix of formal education, business savvy, and diversified income streams can lead to a flourishing career. We champion the unsung heroes who've carved out their niche, challenging the status quo and redefining what it means to be a successful trainer. So, lace up your sneakers, tune in, and get ready to elevate your fitness game to unparalleled heights with insights, laughs, and a touch of inspiration from Coach Boyce and yours truly.
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!
Welcome to the Show Up Fitness Podcast. We're great. Personal trainers are made. We are changing the fitness industry. One qualified trainer in time with our in-person and online personal training certification. If you want to 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 everybody, and welcome back to the Show Up Fitness Podcast. Today we're going to be talking about how much money you should and or can be making as a personal trainer. This one's controversial. People don't like what I have to say, but we're going to begin by dissecting a great post by Coach Lee Boyce.
Speaker 1:
My first job as a personal trainer paid me 17 bucks per session. I worked six days per week for an obscene amount of hours. On most of those days, 10 plus clients. On most of those days was a regular thing. This was how things went for the next four years. Add another decade plus that total and it likely nears a time when you may have first learned about me on your own. Maybe it was through some article, podcast, social media, news feeds. That's all, despite having content and circulation since 2009.
Speaker 1:
Truth is, what I've described as an easier come up story than most of my favorite trainers had, and any veteran trainer you look up to you probably has a similar story to relate. There's no coincidence. There's a point and lesson to the story. It takes time to earn respect and it should Remember that the next time you think spending six months in a box gym is a long enough weight for you to launch a successful PT business, gain wild scale recognition and bill $100 plus per hour. You can work to algorithms, do party tricks online, stir controversy, get jacked in tan and popularity can happen overnight, but respect can't, neither can legit accomplishments. Put your head down, put in the time patiently. Good, impactful things will come and happen in your career. If you look at some of the comments on that post, you have Luke Worthington who's saying preach and what did he do? A very similar story Degree in movement went out to Florida to learn from Tony Genokorn, eric Cressy, because of their background with PRI and their success.
Speaker 1:
Trainers and coaches who have made it. They'll tell you they haven't even made it, but they're popular online or maybe you come across them in your feed. They have stories that are significant, which consists of showing up regularly and working really, really hard. There's a funny post on Dana White walking out on the Howie Mandel podcast and he's just like it's random. I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't fucking do this. I can't do podcasts when it walks out.
Speaker 1:
That's how I feel when people ask me and tell me I just need to get this Nassim ASSA textbook, I need to start training. Well, guess what? Bucko? You're not gonna make it as a trainer because you don't have the foundation. You read a textbook. The greats have a foundation, usually via college or great internship or mentorship. I'm still waiting to see and meet all these successful trainers who learn by themselves via textbook. It doesn't happen. You need to go and learn hands-on. So I created this U-shaped curve. I didn't create the U-shaped curve, but I'm making this for pay, with trainers.
Speaker 1:
On one side the left side you have your textbook trainers. On the right side, you have your internships, mentorships, educated individuals with degrees, like Lee, like Tony, like Brett Contreras, erica Sutter, individuals who have credentials. And we're not getting political saying left is liberal, right as Republican. No, just just for reasons for analogy. On the left side, you have textbook trainers. That's gonna be NASA, some ASSA, there's a few other. I don't include NSCA or ACSM because those are scientific based and they're also used a lot in colleges. If you talk to anyone who's going through and getting their BS in kinesiology, their professors will probably suggest an NSCA or ACSM because those are actually good, whereas the textbook ones they're mostly for profit, pending on the organization you got to do your research. They have a main emphasis of just making as much money as possible. They don't give a shit about you, they just want you to buy their next specialization.
Speaker 1:
If you go that textbook route, you're on the left hand side. You should start out in the industry making minimum wage. If you go back to what Lee said earlier, he was making 17 bucks. This was 10, 15 plus years ago, so he was even making more than the average. I think trainers should start out at minimum wage California 15, 16 bucks. Anywhere else it's the same as any worker. That's not very nice.
Speaker 1:
Chris, I studied really hard for my textbook. I'm a professional, just like you. Give me credit. Look at my bio with these stupid acronyms. No, I'm sorry, you're not in the same wavelength and that's why we have that left side and the right side. The right side has the foundation of movement.
Speaker 1:
You're not going to find respected coaches highlighting their anecdotal evidence. I got my textbook cert and this is how I train. This is how you're supposed to train. There are charlatans out there like that. They do it for the gram. They're fucking idiots, but they don't actually or they may actually know what they're doing, but they just choose to sell themselves to the devil and get a bunch of likes and sell shit online.
Speaker 1:
And so the true coaches, the ones who are respected, their foundation is really, really, really solid. They go to seminars, they're learning from the best, they're buying stuff from the best and surrounding themselves with the best, and so if you were to go to a lifetime or an equinox, I would put you in that category. These are the most elite gyms out there. It doesn't mean there aren't smaller boutique ones. I'm just making a blanket statement for the states.
Speaker 1:
Equinox and lifetime, you're looking about four to 5,000 trainers, some of the best that are out there, mind you, are there dipshits that are training there. Absolutely, they get hired, they fall through the cracks or they just look the part, they talk the part or they know the part, but these trainers are going to be making more than the average trainer. But reference what Lee was saying six months at one of these spots isn't going to give you the respect you got to earn those stripes. We're showcasing trainers going out there with the foundation of a great certification shelf in the CPT as well as an internship and being able to move up into mentorship. They're expediting this process and doing what most coaches would do between five and seven years within one to two. We had a great call the other day from one of the top trainers at Lifetime and he's now moving into management. It's just really cool to see that process where you would normally see that within an individual three, five years into their career, they're doing it within 12 to 14 months.
Speaker 1:
So when you go back and look at this chart, where do they fall? They're significantly on the right hand side. So for those that are starting out on just the left hand side, you need to go to your LA fitness your 24 hour and you need to grind it out for a good year. You cannot come out of that saying it's not fair to take all my money. Take a step back and really use your noggin.
Speaker 1:
I get a bunch of shit because I'm the charlatan who's calling out the industry? No one else does this. Everyone's all hippity, hoppity, positive and everyone should love each other. I'm in the trenches saying why can't we take a look at what's going on in this market and call it out for what it is? We are looked at as fucking jokes amongst medical professionals because of this. Right here, left side, you learn to buy yourself. Right side, you have the mentorship and you can speak the part. We don't have a lot of trainers on the right side out there, the people like Lee's and the Luke's and the Tony's. They're doing great things, but we don't have nearly as much of them compared to the left side.
Speaker 1:
Think about where you learned how to become a trainer. I went on a forum and I asked people how do I become a personal trainer? Nassim Ace, I used to say go, look at this fucking business coach who's going to help you make six figures online in a year. Yeah, fuck off. That's not going to happen. If it's too good to be true, guess what? Goldilocks, it's not going to happen. And that's the industry. You, I'm not saying you as in you. I'm saying you as the consumer is sold on false expectations. What would you say about a doctor who's going to get their MD in six months. You're going to become a brain surgeon in half the amount of time. You're going to expedite the process. Or, even worse, what if a brain surgeon were to say you know, I don't want to go through all this testing in med school, can I just take the test because you know I'm really smart, I know what I'm doing, I got a good heart. I want to be a heart surgeon? No, but in fitness and nutrition.
Speaker 1:
Because people do it regularly, they think that earns them the right to discuss it freely, anecdotally. There is a science to this. Kinesiology is the study of movement. What is happening when you push and you pull and you do a squat and a hinge and a client has pain knowing how to regress in progress. There is actual science to it. But do you know how easy it is to get a textbook certification? When people say the stuff is hard, it's because they're trying to memorize the whole entire textbook and then they go out there and they're not used to standardized testing. These tests are so incredibly easy and I'm not calling you a fucking idiot if you failed it. You're just not good with those types of tests. But if you understand what you're going to be tested on. This stuff is super, super, super, three supers, now we're on four easy. You focus on movement. You understand the main muscles that are engaged when you have any organist, your synergist the terminology type one, type two you can pass this in a couple of days and then you're out there as a quote unquote professional.
Speaker 1:
And then what happens is you have a client who gets hurt because you don't know what the hell you're doing. They go to the doc, they go to a therapist. The therapist says well, what was your trainer doing? And they hear about all these stories. A trainer never reaches out to the therapist. They never reach out to the doctor or dietitian. They claim they can do it all themselves. They don't have teams and so this trainer is never held accountable.
Speaker 1:
He or she continues to train, train, train the way that they think they're supposed to do it, and they build quote unquote experience. If you were to have a hundred people that you train in a year and you're gaining all your experience and 10 of them get results, those 10 are now your evidence on why you're such a great trainer. And then another hundred people come to you and guess what? In six months, 10 get the results and then another hundred come. And now you're this master trainer, because you're getting all these people results. What are they doing? They're moving more. They're eating less. Oh my gosh, you're becoming more disciplined. It's not rocket science why they lost the weight. But the trainer becomes entitled, thinking that they got the results because of their magical training style, functional movement systems. What's this? I'm the best trainer in the world. And then they buy into it more and more and more. But what about all the people who failed, all the people got hurt, all the clients that didn't get the results? Because there's so much more to it than that you don't hear about them. And so now this trainer moves up in the realms of the personal training industry and they get pissed off at the educated folk. They don't know what they're doing. They have their fancy degrees and you don't need that. You just need to go get your textbook, certification and start training people, gain experience and take a step back and look at any other profession.
Speaker 1:
The audio right now is a little fucked up. On our podcast we're working on making it better, and I have my cousin who's a gamer and a nerd completely, but he's changing careers into he's becoming an electrician and I was talking about that process and he has to go through this apprenticeship. He has to thousands of hours. Right now he's like a junior apprentice and he has to show up at 5am and it's early from his bitch and I'll text him this morning Like, hey, bucko, how's it up? You know bright and early. Let's give him a ship. I mean, I need your great podcast stuff. So the quality is going to improve. He's going through this process to become a junior level electrician and that takes a lot of time. But he's putting in the work, whereas look at a trainer you take a test and you go out there and do it by yourself.
Speaker 1:
There's literally I am unaware of this. I want you guys to comment and correct me if I'm wrong, because I want to know. I want there to be awareness that is truly unbiased. But find me a career where you are able to just create whatever the hell you want to without any supervision. I don't know of any. You have to go. If you're going through college, you have to go and you have to pass all those tests. But you have professors you can talk to. You have people correcting your tests and getting you to think critically.
Speaker 1:
If you wanna become a beautician, you go through beauty college, you have to get your X amount of hours, you gotta go to your Paul Davis or Paul Mitchell school and you gotta learn and you have someone over your shoulder. Don't do that, don't do this. Make sure this. Why the hell did you do that? They're constantly correcting your every move for months and months and months. Personal training take your test. Go out there, post online. I just got certified. I'm not taking on clients. Holy fucking shit. This is gonna be the easiest assessment in the world because I'm educated, I understand movement, I'm gonna listen to your goals and I'm gonna give you a great and safe workout. And every single time after a client goes wow, I've never experienced that before. Yeah, well, no shit, because you were in that cluster fuckery, what we like to call the competitive market. The industry is so saturated. No, it's not. As I say numerous times, it's saturated as the fast food industry is saturated. Mcdonald's going against Taco Bell it's like that shit's not good for you.
Speaker 1:
You have all these textbook trainers that claiming this is the new way to work out. This is the new way. This is how I got shredded. The shred gotta train for your body type. All these charlatans look really, really good and they're confident and people buy into it. But I know you are smart because you're listening to this and you want to turn your passion for fitness into a career.
Speaker 1:
If you set realistic expectations, don't focus on the left bullshit more certifications, more textbooks, gaining experience it doesn't have supervision. You need to be in an environment where you can constantly ask questions. Hey, I have a client who's coming in today at 10 o'clock and they have this elbow issue, they have this foot issue and they're trying to lose fat. Here's my program. Can you give me some feedback? And I'm talking about daily.
Speaker 1:
If you don't have that, you are literally trying to navigate blind because you don't know if it's truly working or not. And that's why so many trainers experience which I think is just a fun word imposter syndrome, which is imposter phenomena, because they really don't know what the fuck they're doing. And it's unfortunate because if you would have done it the right way which is the right side and you learn from fitness professionals like a Lee or a Tony or an Erica people who I've interviewed in my book and you ask them questions Luca, cressy, boyle, internships that is how you build your foundation and you grow and then you can go out there and navigate in a way that is like this is actually really fun and we have so many cool success stories. We're gonna get Joe on here and talk about his success working with therapists. Then they say to him like well, I've actually never had a trainer reach out to me and, holy shit, you have a pelvic floor question on your assessment. That's the first time I've ever heard of that.
Speaker 1:
And you have conversations. The next thing you know you get a text back from them and say you know what? I was so impressed by you. Anytime you want therapy or wanna learn anything, it's free. You have full access to me. That's what the industry needs more of. If we wanna be respected, we need to be able to go toe to toe with the other professionals that got in the trenches and went to school occupational therapist, massage therapist, physical therapist, chiropractors, doctors. If we wanna be on their same level, we need to be able to speak their language. Trainers can't do that and they're scaring people with bullshit assessments and overhead squat. Oh, my God, you have this overhead and balance and you need to fix this. Nope, you just lost all credibility in that movement expert size. So if you wanna be able to talk to these professionals, you need to surround yourself with people who are doing what you want to do. That's not going into a Facebook forum group and asking them what's the next best certification to take? I was thinking about getting my corrective exercise specialist. What do you think about that?
Speaker 1:
If you're asking a bunch of trainers on the left side how to be successful, of how they define success is by having an avatar on their Reddit or their Facebook group, you don't know what they're doing. You don't see them training. Where is their evidence that they're even successful? Are they putting themselves out there? Are they making themselves vulnerable? Are they getting on a podcast talking? No, they're hiding behind shit, telling you what they think is the way. Oh, I make 90 bucks an hour. Fuck you. No, you don't.
Speaker 1:
You just throw a number out there because it makes you feel good as you're sitting in grandma's fucking attic and you're literally not training anyone. You think you are and I feel for you because you're pissed off at the whole entry standard. You really thought that you were gonna make this into a career and you passed your test and you felt great, even though you failed it three times and you're like I'm not a professional. And then people won't work with you because either A you're a fucking weirdo and people didn't help you with the people skills, or you'd be too scientific and people don't wanna hear that shit. They want results. Or you don't fucking look the part, and it's a tough pill to fucking swallow. I get it. I empathize with you. I really do.
Speaker 1:
But we need to be more transparent. You're gonna make six figures doing this. Oh, sign up on this and you're gonna start getting all these clients. You're not. You need to go out there and get in the trenches. But you can't get in the trenches if you don't even know how to shoot a gun. Shooting a gun is understanding anatomy, understanding movement. Why are you talking about guns, chris? Cause I watched that fucking World War II flying movie last night. Oh my God, it's amazing. I'm obsessed. I'm gonna binge watch that, probably the next couple of days. That's why I'm using that analogy Get your panties and jocks out of a bundle, come on and show up, get your mindset in the right place.
Speaker 1:
And if we really wanna be respected as coaches, you need to level up your knowledge. You need to understand what the rotator cuff muscles, do Understand how to regress in progress and program for all types of clients. You need to put yourself out there in being rooms where people are saying stuff that you're like holy crap, they're really sharp and in my experience and I'm giving you the best piece of advice that you can ever take from these podcasts you're gonna get that by being around physical therapists, not other textbook trainers who have these demons and they're bitter because they have 13 certs and they think they know what they're doing. You're going to be scrutinized as a qualified trainer. I know for a fact. I hear it all the time. Chris, I was doing an assessment with a trainer and they were really uncomfortable saying that huh, interesting, I've been doing this for 15 years and you're doing this for less than six months and you're already on my same level. I'm not calling that trainer an idiot. This is frustration over the process. So that trainer just made it. They're one of the 10% Most textbook trainers quit. They made it through. They trained a bunch of people who knows how many people they've hurt and maybe they had some business advice. Maybe they had a client who was loaded who helped them out, and they're one of the ones who are out there now educating people, which can be kind of scary.
Speaker 1:
So you always want to ask what's your foundation? Who'd you learn from? As Lee said, he now writes for men's health. He writes for top publications out there and guess what? He's a professor. Oh, maybe that's legit information. We need to be around more leads. We need to be around more trainers and coaches who are doing it and helping people, not by doing quick fixes. Let's just get online as quickly as you can so you can make six figures.
Speaker 1:
No great trainers have more than one stream of revenue. That's why our industry is so challenging is because we want consistency. Well, look at the entry standards. She took a test. If you want consistency, go get your degree in kinesiology and then go to physical therapy school or occupational therapy and you can clock in at nine and clock out at five and you will have consistency. Now, will you enjoy that process? That's another podcast, but I'll give you a little sneak peek. If you know the part, if you talk the part and you look the part, you can make exponentially more as a trainer and coach. Throw in the business side. You are literally deadly and next thing you know you're gonna have therapists working for you because in that world, there are components that are extremely toxic, like the insurance aspect, and so therapists are trying to figure out a way where they can generate more and not just be seeing patients every 10, 15 minutes. As I said earlier, I'll talk about that in another podcast.
Speaker 1:
So the take home from today I'm not calling you a fucking idiot, and if you took that from this, you're a textbook trainer and you're really really pissed off. Sunk cost fallacy because you wasted too much money thinking that you were gonna turn your passion for fitness and your career. You haven't, and now you're looking for someone to blame. And guess who's really easy to blame? The big nose, belt buckle trainer with giant biceps Pointed at me. If it makes you feel better and sleep better, I'll take that responsibility, because we are changing the industry by creating professionals, respected fitness professionals, who can conversate with doctors and therapists and get out of their comfort zone. It's not easy, but anytime something new comes along, there's gonna be pushback. I did it this way. Therefore, your way is wrong.
Speaker 1:
If you go and tell a trainer that you're going through a certification called shoving a CPT it's an internship, you learn the 17 muscles they're gonna say, well, that's dumb, you shouldn't do that. And then their mind thinking, holy shit, I wish I had that man. I'm struggling right now. Why are they so confident and I'm not? Well, that thing that you're doing is stupid. Oh, I heard about them and they don't know what they're doing because ABC and D, they're not accredited. Oh, okay, that's cute. Do you even know what accreditation means? You're really scared. You have this anxiety because there's not security in the fitness industry and we're trying to provide that. So right now, on the left side, you have this line trainers should get paid minimum wage. If you come into the industry with a textbook, certification.
Speaker 1:
Trainers reach out to me all the time. Can I work at one of your gyms? Say sure, get your shelf in a CPT and send me a program based on someone who's trying to lose weight or try to get stronger. And guess what? They never respond back. Interesting Because they're scared. Shitless because no one's ever looked at their programming and they know it's probably terrible. But when you go online, no one's going to challenge you. So that's the easy solution. Where it's easy, it's not going to lead to long-term success.
Speaker 1:
On the right hand side, how much can you potentially charge? I know. Trainers I did a podcast charge $300 per hour. I charge $350. I hold myself accountable that I need to train X amount of clients so I can pay myself and not take it from the company. So instead of just sitting back and drinking whiskey all night and doing whatever the hell I want to and just taking money from the company, I hold myself accountable. I have to train X amount of clients per week so I know that I can make X amount from me doing the work as we grow the brand, open new locations and create more ubiquity. That's the standard I hold myself up to. And so when you look at top trainers, they are charging between $150, $200 plus. And you're not there yet, and that's okay. But you can be by implementing the stuff that Lee is saying Getting in the trenches surrounding yourself with great people and train and train and, train and train and go through hypothetical scenarios and if you don't know how to train that person, learn how to train them.
Speaker 1:
Go pay therapists, go pay dietitians, get them on your team. Instead of getting a corrective exercise cert, you go and work with a therapist and you intern for them, or you learn and oversee. You are a fly on the wall, watching them work with thoracic outlet syndrome or medial epicondylitis and how they're working with that client. That type of experience is what's really gonna separate you from everyone else. But it's gonna take a long time to start making the quote. Unquote big bucks 100, 150, which you're actually taking home when you go to an equinox. In a lifetime you're gonna get about 25, 35% of that hourly rate. Charge them 150, maybe you're bringing home 50 of that. Don't leave that gym and charge less. You need to leave those gyms with the confidence that you can charge more because you are leveling up. Great trainers leave an equinox charging 150 and now they're charging 175 because they're leveling up their brand. And then they have streams of revenue and they're making three, four K and number two, three, four K and level three.
Speaker 1:
You're going out there and you're giving presentations. I know trainers who get paid 5K for a one hour presentation. You have awesome coaches like Kyle Dobbs. Listen to that podcast. He has the foundation learn from the best, and how many streams he has I don't even know, but I bet you it's close to 10. And he's doing really, really well. But, most importantly, I know he's successful because he's still doing it and that's ultimately what we want.
Speaker 1:
When people say they're passionate about this, you're passionate if you can see yourself in your 50s and 60s still doing this. If I won the Lotto tomorrow, guess what? I'm still training, I'm still doing this. This is what is getting me up early and lights a fire under my ass to get on here and ramble on about helping trainers, because a lot of you are gonna be pissed off. I don't give a shit. It's the ones that are gonna listen and implement what we say. And then you have the success stories that you know what. I networked with this therapist where I got my first $150 client within six months of training and I go holy shit, that is bad ass. It took me 10 years to charge that and I owned gyms and I wrote a book and I've taught trainers and I've done all of these things within the fitness industry and I have students that are doing this in a tenth of the amount of time that I did. That's what fires us up to keep on moving along, showing up.
Speaker 1:
So look at that U-shaped curve. Where do you wanna be? Do you wanna be a minimum wage trainer? It's not gonna make it. Focus on those textbooks If you wanna be a trainer that stands out, because you are a true fitness professional. Focus on the right, surround yourself with people on the right, challenge the left. Then you're gonna learn how to do it in a way that doesn't offend everyone. I don't do it the best. Everyone gets all offended today, but I just like to sit back, watch my World War II movies, drink my whiskey and have giant biceps and beautiful eyes. If you look at my eyes really closely, you see this yellow ring. It's literally like a Liger Napoleon Dynamite. They're beautiful. Maybe one day you'll check them out. In the meantime, keep showing up.