Become a Personal Trainer in Latin America w/ Jorge

Embark on an inspiring odyssey with us as Jorge, an NPTI graduate, takes us behind the scenes of his trailblazing journey in the fitness industry across Latin America. From his eye-opening stint at Bay Club to spearheading a personal training revolution in his native Ecuador, Jorge's narrative is a testament to the transformative power of dedication and vision. His quest to elevate the local fitness landscape led him to found a personal training school, a venture that has since flourished in Panama and Colombia, challenging the status quo of textbook-only certifications. Our discussion reveals the grit and innovation required to transition to online platforms amidst a global pandemic, ultimately achieving an elevated status for personal trainers as recognized professionals in their communities.

In this episode, we shed light on the audacious steps personal trainers in Quito are taking to turn their fitness expertise into viable business ventures. Amid the struggles of low wages and independent work settings, we explore the burgeoning trend of in-home personal training, which has emerged as both a lucrative and transformative aspect of the industry. Jorge's insights into the economic context of the region provide a vivid contrast to the pricing standards of other services, underscoring the potential for financial independence among fitness professionals. The conversation pivots to the indispensable role of continuous education, social media savoir-faire, and hands-on experience in carving a successful career path—crafting a blueprint for personal trainers in Latin America to thrive as respected entrepreneurs in their own right.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the Show Up Fitness Podcast, where 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 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. Hola, hola, hola, mi nombre es Cristobal. Podcast numero 104,.

Speaker 2: 0:36

I think 104. 104. How are we doing, jorge? Everything all right, thank you.

Speaker 1: 0:44

Thanks for having me here. This guy is a ball of energy and today we're going to talk about the life of a trainer in Latin America. And so we met over probably about 10, 12 years ago and you were going through the school at the time where I taught MPTI. And then you have a cool journey because you went to Bay Club. You were training there with Jay. He was one of our students as well. I remember we were having some vodka, maybe some tequila, at a graduation party we cheers. Next thing, you know you're training and then you segued into owning your own school. Let's talk about that. And now you're in Ecuador and you're doing big things and you're changing the landscape of personal training at a country level. So that's really cool. Let's talk.

Speaker 2: 1:33

All right. So, yeah, I was at Bay Club around probably it was like six, seven years, I believe and then I did a huge trip here in Ecuador. I already I was tired to live in the US, my parents were getting older, so I tried to come here, do a little trip, kind of like, to find out what the industry, what the fitness industry, will be here in Ecuador. And I was shocked because, like, it's nothing compared to the US. I don't know how it's in Europe, but in the US it's very aggressive in terms of sales, in terms of, you know, like creating and getting people sign up for classes and stuff. And I was telling you the other day it was like we used to have like sales meetings and you know all this kind of stuff, like every week, once a week at least, so we can sign clients and learn how to sign clients. Here they don't have that like there's like, um, nothing like that. Um, most, most gyms have like one trainer for the floor and they just basically there for people not to hurt themselves, you know, in the machines and stuff like that. But they usually make like minimum wage, so they don't, they don't make by hour. So it's very and I don't know in many countries. I know in Colombia it's a little bigger, the industry is a little bigger in Brazil, in Argentina, but in general, like we're far behind from the US and Europe in that terms.

Speaker 2: 3:03

So the idea for me was just to create something and begin in that journey, Like how can we change this? How can we make an actual impact in the fitness industry here in my country? So that's when I decided to bring my own school. Like, I purchased a franchise from MPTI. Now we have in Ecuador, Panama and Colombia. I purchased a franchise from MPTI. Now we have in Ecuador, Panama and Colombia and we've been operating since 2016.

Speaker 2: 3:32

And we had to close for a little bit while the pandemic hit us. It was really hard, so we had to move everything online as well. But you know, since then, like we were the first personal training school that there was in the country and now there's like four four of four schools and it's becoming something, something really big. Like people actually start seeing this as a profession, kind of like it's in the US and, you know, in Europe. So that's the whole idea. You know to to create an opportunity and another way of making money and something that you love, you know, because we're passionate about fitness, we're passionate about exercising and sports and training, all that kind of stuff. So so what better, you know, option to make it make it in in the things that you love? So that's where we are right now, and right now, now we're, we're doing like everything with show fitness and we're discussing big ideas in order to create, you know, a bigger impact in in the fitness industry here in in Ecuador and hopefully, in Latin America.

Speaker 1: 4:37

In the whole world. There's so much opportunity and we're talking about competition, and I think competition is exciting because it shows that what you're doing is good, and when you first started, there was just you, and now people are starting to catch on and they're going whoa, look what they're doing. And so NPTI, national Personal Training Institute that's where I first started teaching a while ago, and it sounds like it's still a little different in the States how they do it versus the program you have. So people go through your program. It's hands-on learning. You have a physical therapist who you work with, and when you're done with your program it's 220 hours. And then talk to me more about what you get from that.

Speaker 2: 5:17

So basically, the idea is a lot of the courses that you know, you see often, especially NASM A lot of people recognize NASAM, even here in Latin America ACE it's another one that people recognize a lot. But it's just a sense of. It's like I always tell my new students it's like trying to learn carpentry by reading a book. It's like it doesn't make sense. It's like you need to know how to, how to actually perform the exercises, how to teach the exercise, how to program the. You know a routine, not only one routine, it's like the whole program, like a whole month, six months. You know, like know exactly what's the difference between each client.

Speaker 2: 6:01

And I always see trainers, like you know, usually in different gyms or whatever, and I see clients performing the same routine with all their four different clients.

Speaker 2: 6:11

You know it's like they just change the weights and stuff like that. So that's something that we're trying to change, you know. So with this is like just understanding the basics through the platform and doing like everything, um, in terms of the theory and whatnot, and eventually getting to the gym and being in classes with us where we actually teach. You know, biomechanics, kinesiology, program design, all that kind of stuff that actually is useful for people to actually, you know, teach their new clients, their athletes. So we had an incredible success, success like people. We have clients or students that are actually teaching in europe. We have students that have gone back to the us and are working there, people that have opened their own gyms, people that are working for different gyms and start changing their own culture, and you know, it's just a whole range of things and a lot of people that are working independently, which we actually prefer that our students do right, because they will make considerably more money, and that's what's fascinating.

Speaker 1: 7:15

So if you look at what the average person does here in the States, they want to become a trainer, they want to help people and I would say for the most part about maybe 70%, 80% will go to the big four. The big four would be Equinox, lifetime, 24-hour, la Fitness. There's also Crunches and Planet Fitness and numerous other ones, eos, xos but for the most part they're going to go gain that experience and then they hit this fork. And that fork then is well, what do I want to do next? I want to make some more money and maybe do stuff more on my own. So they branch out and go to an independent studio. So, like I have my own gym, I would say, jorge, you can come rent my gym per hour for 10 bucks or you can pay a monthly fee and then that is usually what you would see a lot with personal trainers.

Speaker 1: 8:03

Obviously, small group training is a little different, but I was fascinated when you told me what it's like in the gym environment in Ecuador. So if I were to go to one of these gyms, how many trainers would you see? Like this morning I was at Equinox and it was 5 am and there must have been 15, 20 trainers working with clients. They're getting paid maybe 30 percent of that hourly rate. Here in the States you would charge 130, 150 at these high end gyms, trainers taking maybe 35 to 50. Talk to us about what that looks like in Ecuador, sure.

Speaker 2: 8:41

So, for example, doing like, for example, a couple of big gyms here in Quito, they will have, probably during the peak hours they'll probably have tops two to three trainers Right and maybe one of them is working one on one Right or maybe a group session or something like that. So, but the rest is like just people working on their own. So you see, you know a lot of repetition interval exercise, accumulation of people in certain places, like you always happen. But you know, when you have trainers you actually kind of diversify that environment in different places of the gym. So here's very it's very mellow. Like I said, it's not very aggressive in terms of sales. People don't even get asked if they want a personal training. You join a gym and how much money could gyms bring if they apply all these you know sales techniques and all that to trainers and, you know, engage with their clients.

Speaker 1: 9:53

So do you see trainers making a living in that environment? You know what does a trainer make in a month and is that sustainable? And the interesting thing that we learned or I learned from you is that trainers start to go into the traveling route where they're going to go to people's houses, and that's a lot more lucrative.

Speaker 2: 10:15

Right, and that's what I do right now. Like I usually work in the mornings doing that and in the afternoon I work in the teaching for show up and mpti. So but uh, yeah, I mean certainly, and like I was telling you, like here, uh, minimum wage in Ecuador it's about 450 bucks, so small gyms will pay you that for for an eight hour, you know, monday through Friday, the whole month, which is very little. You know, if you put a, you know training is hard, like you know being in contact with people and you know being enthusiastic, being. You know all that kind of stuff it takes a lot of you, so it's a hard work for little money.

Speaker 2: 11:00

So what I teach for my students is like trying to be independent, and that's what we do. Like trying to teach them how to perform routines, how to work from their homes with the equipment that they have, you know like, or with little equipment or no equipment or whatever, but like the idea is for them to get moving and understand how the body works and you know what are the variables. They can work in their own independent environment. So here's like, and that's the difference between, like what I've been teaching my school and the other schools what they teach they usually concentrate on, just like you know, these are the reps, this is the exercise, how you perform and this is what you should do basically.

Speaker 2: 11:43

But you know, having a one-on-one client where you can charge for example, I charge 30 an hour so and I have usually from six to eight hours from monday to friday so if you put into the balance, is very different from you know, it's a lot of difference from 450. So and that's the idea where we're trying to get like to for people to to make more money with that and see, it's a profession, you know, like I have students that are moms, you know, um, that are, you know, just working a couple hours in the morning and a couple hours at night and they're making a lot more money than than actually trainers that have been working for 10 years in the same gym and making, you know, half of what they make. So that's the idea, that's where all the grow and what we're trying to bring to the table in terms of the fitness industry here in Ecuador.

Speaker 1: 12:35

For more explanation for those that may not see or maybe think like 30 bucks, it's not that much. Let's pretend like you and I were to go out and have lunch and grab a couple beers, you know, and have some good food. What would that look like? How much would that cost?

Speaker 2: 12:54

okay. So if you go to something like, uh, executive lunch, as they call it, you know, basically a normal lunch here is uh, you can find it from two dollars and fifty to six dollars, which would be an expensive lunch, right. What about some beers? You put in a beer, it's like one, one dollar more, one more dollar or whatever, and so basically with five bucks you will get lunch. You know, a physical therapist here is from 20 bucks to 40 bucks, usually from 10 bucks to 40 bucks, usually From 10 bucks to 40 bucks, I would say a physical therapy. So $30 an hour is quite well for a personal trainer here in Ecuador, and especially if you compare that to pesos. For example, in Colombia it's like 4,000 pesos, it's 120,000 pesos for an hour, I think. The minimum wage in Colombia, I believe it's 900,000 pesos. So it's a huge difference.

Speaker 1: 13:55

I took our trainers, Megan and Tom, to a nice restaurant in Santa Monica for lunch the other day. We finished getting the studio done. It's called Hillstone. It's a swanky spot. They got burgers. I got a burger, we all got three burgers. We had a sushi roll for an appetizer, I think I had three beers. The total was $165. $165. You're looking at there it'd probably be $10, 15 bucks. So it's all relative cost of living and so it's not to say that again, don't confuse 30 bucks over there versus 30 bucks here. It's not the same. But what does a trainer make at a gym? How much do they bring it in?

Speaker 2: 14:43

Like a regular trainer, you mean Like the one from the floor I was referring um. They usually make like 450 to. I'll say a good one will make a thousand a month and that's you know.

Speaker 2: 14:54

A thousand bucks is livable yeah, that's, and that's a big, like, that's a good gym, like they make like a thousand dollars a month, um, but you know smaller gyms like 450. So think about it like, if you divide that by 30, I don't know how much that, but it's, it's not many hours that you have to do to to make 450. So, like I said, like we're still in diapers here in latin america in many of these, um, in the scene of personal training, comparison to, in comparison to Europe and the US, which is why it's so important for us to be part of that change and be innovative and creative with this time.

Speaker 1: 15:39

So what are the trends that you see now? Latin America is one of the largest emerging markets in the world. Taiwan is up there, china is up there, brazil these are India. India is a ginormous country, but these are some of the fastest growing emerging markets in fitness. So there's a ton of opportunity.

Speaker 1: 16:02

When you think of emerging market, think of you're in line at a grocery store and there's eight people and the person next to you sorry, the cashier next to you says we're opening up this line. So if you're the first one in line, you're ahead and you're going to beat the trend. And those are things that you want to look at from like. For example, now if I were to open up a small group gym in the United States trying to have circuit training and doing high intense stuff, that would be behind the trend, because we have thousands of F45s and orange theories and now we're even specializing in the cardio classes and so forth.

Speaker 1: 16:45

The trends right now would be getting in front of the trend actually would be recoverability, and we will never know when it's at the peak. We only know when it's behind us. And so like they'll say like we don't know when we're in a recession or in depression. It's usually a quarter or months later that we actually realize that we're in it, and the same with being out of it. And so in the States, if you're open to open up a facility, getting into that rejuvenation, holistic wellness stuff is huge right now. You probably don't see a lot of that in Ecuador, right?

Speaker 2: 17:21

No, not so much. Like, for example, we don't have 45s on Orange, we don't have that yet. Here there is like small gyms that are trying to concentrate on that, but I think the biggests. When I was 17, there used to be two running races here in quito and we're the capital two running races, that's it. And right now there's like multiple, you know, uh, races for running, like, I don't know, every weekend, every, you know, saturday, sunday, in different places. We have mountain biking, we have triathlon, like we have all of this. So and and with that, you know, with that mindset, what happens is like what I actually being able to to grasp is that people love to do that stuff, but you know, we don't have the background in that sense, and so people don't concentrate mostly in strength training or they don't see the benefit of it. And now, since it's been like probably 10 years, that is booming with that, people are becoming more and more aware about, like, the positive aspects of strength training. So that's where the culture of training is growing. Because of the races, a lot more people need to be, you know, capable and ready for those races. You know they see a lot of injuries and stuff and they know they can prevent this, prevent this with. So that's the trend, like I think is is bringing those athletes that want to perform well in the races back into the fitness industry.

Speaker 2: 19:12

Here and as well. You know it's like becoming very popular in general, like just to look good. You know it's just more and more we're more sedentary. After the pandemic, I'm gonna say like 20% of, let's say, from my clients, at least half of them still work 50 to 60% from home, right From my clients, from my personal clients so, and I imagine that will be an average for the rest of people. So I guess the more sedentary we are, like working from home don't even need to change, don't even need to walk to the office, go upstairs, go downstairs. So I think it's going to be more and more need of not only gyms but just this philosophy of training and working out and all that kind of stuff. So I think what the trends are is between the races and this entire lifestyle that came after the pandemic.

Speaker 1: 20:10

From a perspective people don't know where it is, yeah yeah, just to give people some perspective on where Quito is with population you're looking at over 2 million people, the broader area looking almost close to 3 million. So it's not like it's a small royal city. This is a metropolitan. It's very, very large and so now you're getting caught up with the racing and stuff. It may be a good business opportunity to look into some type of small group training or private training, the thing I would be interested with the business plan. So in the States here I think it's fair to charge X and then give the trainer 50%. If they bring in their own client, I think they should get some more, so say 60%, and that's actually really, really good. Now if you were to do that there, let's say I open up a show up and I charge $30 per session, would you consider $30 per hour for a one-on-one training session borderline, too expensive, or would that be competitive?

Speaker 2: 21:14

Oh, that would be expensive. Consider expensive. I mean you have to be specialized, you have to be well-known in the industry for you to charge that, because there is like people that will charge you five bucks, you know. So I mean you have that range.

Speaker 1: 21:30

you have trainers that will go to your house for five bucks if you had a very high-end facility, could you charge 30 and would a trainer train for you if you were paying them 15 bucks per hour?

Speaker 2: 21:46

hell yeah, of course. Okay, definitely, that's still a lot higher than most places or where they can actually find um, you know their own clients and stuff.

Speaker 1: 21:56

So 15 is it's a good price for you for sure, especially if you look at the work ethic. You know americans were fat and lazy and we won't even do a 40-hour work week anymore. So you know, I'm sure that working 40 hours, training 40 hours, wouldn't be a big deal for some trainers home oh, yeah, of course.

Speaker 2: 22:17

I mean if, like, imagine, you're working already 40 hours an hour, like for 450 bucks, you're working eight hours monday through friday and you know you don't see any, any prospect of getting bigger or growing or anything like that. So with this, at least, if you, if you want to work 10 hours, you could, because you, you know, even the gym gives you the, the clients, or you, you know, bring your clients but you can work and make more money. If you need, you know, in the next six months you have something you need to pay, then you work more. And you know kind of, if you need, you know, in the next six months you have something you need to pay, then you work more. And you know kind of like the hourly rate and how it works in the US. If you need more money, you get a second job and you know that's what you do. You're like just thinking about personal training. So I will say, gladly, when people you know make $15 an hour and you know work 8 to 10 hours a day, for sure.

Speaker 1: 23:14

For sure, if you're bringing home $4.50 at the gym, and let's say you want to work the weekends as well, so you're doing 45 hours times that by 15. You're looking at in a month bringing home almost $3,000, whereas before you were making $4.50, $5.00. That's a six times increase in pay and that's pretty significant right? Exactly.

Speaker 2: 23:35

Exactly, it's huge. It's huge and that's the thing. Like people, for example, when I talk to people and everything, what I guess our industry is still considered a very sketchy sort of you know you don't know what to do, you like fitness and you're going to become a trainer. You know, I still. I know a lot of trainers as well Sorry for the cursing A lot of trainers that you know they've been training for a couple of years and they consider themselves trainers, you know. So we have a lot of that as well. But you know, probably if they go to your house, they're going to charge you five bucks, and if I go to your house, I'm going to charge you 30.

Speaker 2: 24:24

So the idea is like, how do we turn this profession into? You know an actual business and you know make it professional. So people understand that this is your business and you know you deserve to be treated well, but you also have the you have to perform. You know to their, to what they want. So I think that's important. You know, like, just as we were talking, like you know being that's important. You know, like, just as we were talking, like, you know being capable and you know not only being a certified trainer, you know. If not a qualified trainer, you know, uh, continue education, all that kind of stuff that is so important nowadays. Like so my clients. I think they see the value of me going to their houses because they know I'm constantly, you know, learning, not only learning, but teaching, which also helped me learn a little bit more every time. So all those things make a huge difference in what people think about your job right.

Speaker 1: 25:23

I love that. So there's a ton of opportunity in Latin America, the in-person you're doing a great job with. We will have a seminar over there, maybe our first international one. But I think that's exciting just to hear that even in emerging markets, that there's tons of opportunities really, how you focus and look through your lens no-transcript a school by getting an internship and that your program is exactly what we would call a level one. And that's where we want to interview more people.

Speaker 1: 26:20

For now we look at a level zero, which is a textbook certification NASA, mace, issa, nsc, acs and so forth. But your program is a level one because you're getting the hands-on learning. You're in an environment with a physical therapist, with yourself, with other instructors. That's what the industry needs more of and it's unfortunate that I'm curious to see and I'd love to talk to one of the owners at NPTI, even though they may not like me, but I wonder why they stopped growing, because when I was teaching there was about 40 locations and it's almost 10 years later and they're still at 40. So that's an interesting phenomenon to me.

Speaker 2: 27:03

I don't know if they put a lot of emphasis in opening worldwide. So I know they have a few locations. I think in Peru there is one Well, we have three of those but also I think there was an opportunity for Mexico. I think there was like in Israel, and I think there was a couple more. I don't know why in the States, because it's like you know, you have plenty of States and a huge population, so, but I'm not sure. I never actually asked that question before, so I don't know exactly what happens. In that sense, there's always a great opportunity. I don't know what to tell you.

Speaker 1: 27:46

Well, there's a great opportunity for MPTI and show up to you know, put down our past and come to terms with you know. What is the market doing? The market is leaning towards textbook certifications. Well, you guys are a level one program. You should sync up with other level one programs to continually provide and create these great trainers and, ultimately, the best trainers out there. Have some sort of hands-on learning, weekend seminars, supervision from a professional like yourself. So, you know, put it out there to the higher ups, send them this, this podcast, that we're always trying to grow. And it's not just show up fitness, first the world it's. We need to educate the world on what and why we're not respected as as professionals, and that's the idea.

Speaker 2: 28:43

That's what we're trying to change right like again, not being just certified trainer, being a qualified trainer. That's that's what it's all about. You know, I think it's a great profession. It has many multiple aristas, so there's plenty of work to do, plenty of potential here in Latin America, like you say, there's plenty of already developing. You know countries and territories, so it's a lot to grow.

Speaker 2: 29:10

So the more we actually push this change of you know just a training from you know reading, certification from hands-on. You know learning with actual professionals that you know. Teach you anatomy, program design. You know regressions, progressions, like everything you need to do, or just the simple things. Like you know, I think a lot of people have a harder time, like how to connect with your own clients that's so important how to make a sale, how to all these things are. You know how to become influenced in your social media and stuff like that.

Speaker 2: 29:48

Those are key aspects right now in terms of training and none of that get discussed in some of these textbooks. You know, I think we show up like some of the NASA and you know I never read a question about like you know all those kinds of things. So I just don't know why, and I think that's where the lack of that is, a great opportunity for the rest of us to grow. So I hope we can connect with MPTI and show up and, as well, make something. You know, a level one, level two, that we can, you know, make this biggest growth, you know, in the good sense, more opportunities for showing up.

Speaker 1: 30:32

Well, thank you for your time, my man, looking forward to seeing you again in person. Until next time, ¿cómo se dice, keep showing up en español.

Speaker 2: 30:44

This one is a hard one in Spanish. It sounds so much better in English. But tienes que aparecer. Tienes que aparecer, but it's like how you say it.

Speaker 1: 30:55

I like how you say it. That's great. Well, thank you for your time, my man, we'll be seeing you soon.