The Show Up Fitness Podcast

ATLANTA Personal Training Internship SUF-CPT June 9th | SWIFT May 2025

• Chris Hitchko, CEO Show Up Fitness • Season 2 • Episode 216

Share episode

Send us a text if you want to be on the Podcast & explain why!

Do you live in Georgia or on the east coast? SUF-CPT and 2-month internship is now being offered at Stbil Fit Life with SUF instructor Josh Ortiz and wife Ki. You will become an ELITE trainer within 2-months with job placement at the best gyms in the world!

Ready to transform your passion for fitness into a thriving career? This episode dives deep into the SWIFT analysis framework that's revolutionizing how personal trainers build sustainable, six-figure businesses without burnout.

Unlike the traditional SWOT analysis, SWIFT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Improvements, Fears, Trajectory) provides actionable principles that translate directly to professional growth. The framework emphasizes building on strengths rather than dwelling on weaknesses, with practical strategies for implementing multiple revenue streams using the 60-30-10 rule: 60% from your primary service, 30% from a secondary service like nutrition coaching, and 10% from supplementary offerings.

We share the exciting evolution of Show Up Fitness, from our partnerships with premium brands like Lifetime and Equinox to our new Atlanta internship launching June 9th. These collaborations aren't just name-dropping – they create concrete pathways for our certified trainers to secure positions commanding $150-300 per session, making six-figure incomes achievable in the first year. That's a stark contrast to the $40-50K typically earned with traditional certifications at entry-level positions.

What sets our approach apart? We've completely reimagined the certification process with hands-on learning and practical assessments. Rather than relying on textbook knowledge and multiple-choice tests, our candidates demonstrate their abilities by training actual paying clients, designing programs on the fly, and showing deep anatomical understanding. The result? Trainers who deliver exceptional value and command premium rates because they produce premium results.

The sobering reality is t

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!

Our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/showupfitnessinternship/?hl=en
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@showupfitnessinternship
Website: https://www.showupfitness.com/
Become a Personal Trainer Book (Amazon): https://www.amazon.com/How-Become-Personal-Trainer-Successful/dp/B08WS992F8
Show Up Fitness Internship & CPT: https://online.showupfitness.com/pages/online-show-up?utm_term=show%20up%20fitness
NASM study guide: ...

Speaker 1:

So we're going to be doing an in-person internship to get your show up in a CPT June 9th. That's two months. It'll be three days a week with Josh and Key. You get to see what it's like to be a business owner. You can shadow Josh and his wife what they're doing within their facility, their classes. Hell, you may be even more than work there.

Speaker 1:

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. Howdy y'all. Welcome back to the Show Up Fitness Podcast.

Speaker 1:

Today we're going to go over a swift analysis it is May 1st 2025, and it's all about analyzing performance, where you're doing great, how you can improve things that you can implement to grow your fitness brand, and we're going to review the stuff that's been going on with ShowUp. So if you are new to the ShowUp family, becoming that qualified personal trainer a SWOT analysis is similar to a SWOT, where a SWOT is strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, but unfortunately there's not much action-based principles behind the SWOT is strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, but unfortunately there's not much action-based principles behind the SWOT. So we created the SWIFT. Strengths and weaknesses are the same. Remember, with the weakness it cannot be greater than the strengths. So if you have two strengths, you only can have two weaknesses. You cannot have five weaknesses in one strength. Focus on the strengths. We want to turn our weaknesses into strengths, but we do not let the weaknesses paralyze our action. Most importantly, then we get into the action-based I's. What are things that we can improve? What can we implement? What are things that we can innovate?

Speaker 1:

The F stands for fear. What is holding you back? Address it, become better, level up. And then the T has three as well when is your trajectory? Where do you want to be a year from now? Who's at your table? Who are you hanging around? That's making you a better trainer. And then your threats. What is again holding you back? Similar to a fear, but a fear is more internal. That's going to be those automatic negative thoughts when threats are going to be something that is more external, something that's holding you back could be a competition, something along those lines.

Speaker 1:

So when we reflect on show-up fitness in the month of April, we are four months down, coming up and rounding the halfway point for 2025. Time, freaking, flies. At the end of June, that's going to be the end of quarter two, moving into quarter three. Before you know it, we're going to be putting up Christmas ornaments in early November, like I like to do, and then, what do you know? 2026 is here. Time flies. You need to have action-based principles, be disciplined but have accountability, and that's really what the Swift does.

Speaker 1:

So our strengths show up fitness. We have a great community. We have the best certification for personal trainers, guaranteed to pass any textbook cert. If you cannot get a refund because you came across us too late, you will get our certification for life. And then we have our soft tissue and nutrition certification Hands down. Our soft tissue is the best hands-on learning course that you could ever take because you are around like-minded one percenters.

Speaker 1:

We partner with Lifetime. We are working on Equinox. We should be in Chicago here soon doing a seminar with them. We're really excited about having two of the best gyms in the world be exclusive partners with Show Up Fitness. No other certification has that People like to ask are you recognized globally? The answer is yes. That's why we partner with the best gyms all 180 plus lifetimes 110 equinoxes. With our partnership with Lifetime, we're the only certification that guarantees you an interview with the manager. So if you've gone through show up and you have your show up in a CPT, we will help you with your resume development, get you in contact with a recruiter and then you're going to be given an opportunity to work at the best gym in the world.

Speaker 1:

I don't know of many gyms where you can start out in year one. You can make six figures. Not many gyms offer that. You go to YMCA or Anytime Fitness. You're looking at maybe 40 to 50 grand. Maybe Most trainers need to do that for a year minimum when you have your textbook certification and then you can try to level up and work at a lifetime. But when you have your show up in a CPT, you're going to get hired on the spot because they want qualified trainers.

Speaker 1:

We did three seminars last month and one of them was in Roseville, sacramento. It was really cool to see how we implemented our SWIFT through the years with our seminars. We did our first one, coral Gables in November of 2023. So almost a year and a half later. Where're at now? At that time, there was one lifetime trainer. When we were at sacramento last year, there was three. Then we implemented this swift, aggressively. How can we make this better? How can we provide more value for these trainers? That's why we came up with our soft tissue certification, our our nutrition certification, ceus, our certification for life. Don't pay into NASM, ace, issa and maintaining their certification when it doesn't do anything for you. It's a money grab from these certifications. If you want to level up and truly become elite, you need to master anatomy programming, be able to think on the fly, and when we were at Lifetime, there was 25 trainers who showed up from Lifetime. We had roughly 15 from our own.

Speaker 1:

It was really neat to see what the management there is now doing. They highly recommend all of their trainers to get their show up in a CPT. Joe you've listened to our podcast with him started out as a CPT one of the fastest to get that 10,000 mark Average trainer gets there six to nine months. He did it in less than two. That's unheard of. And now he's opening up a lifetime Arden and he wants the trainers to have their show up in the CPT. Really interesting conversation. The quality of the candidates they're not the greatest, but when you have your show up in a CPT you are an ocean by yourself. When I say that ocean terminology it's referencing the book Blue Ocean Strategy, where trainers today are in this red ocean, where they're competing for the acronyms behind their name but they're not making ends meet. They're burning out. They're frustrated with the big boxes pointing fingers, being the victim, like we like to do.

Speaker 1:

But when you ever show up in the CPT, you look at everything that's going on and say you know what? I'm not going to be like them. I want to turn my passion for fitness into career. So I'm going to level up my anatomy. I'm going to level up my programming. I'm going to reach out and connect with physical therapists and registered dietitians. So when people bitch and complain, ask them who's on your team? They're going to say nobody, it's just me. I'm a corrective exercise specialist. When was the last time you did a hands-on learning seminar? What is your certification? They're going to tell you one of the big three NASA, mesa, issa. So it's self-taught, textbook based. They don't have hands-on learning. They were never given critical analysis on their program. When you have those things checked off, the path towards success is a lot easier. It's not easy. It's easier when you're gonna have trainers spending three, four years to try to get a job at Lifetime, five years maybe to become a manager, but then you have someone like Joe who does it in two years.

Speaker 1:

We're allowing for trainers to skip worlds a reference I use from Super Mario Brothers. You don't have to go to level one, two, three, four, five, all the way up to nine. You learn the fundamentals. That's what we teach. Show up in a CPT level one, but you can skip to level four. Level five it doesn't mean you're not continuing education, but you're given the confidence to sell at a higher percentage. So when you put out $150 personal training sessions, the client sees the value in working with you, so they sign up and then you hit that 10,000 if you're at a lifetime, which is their number.

Speaker 1:

One goal is to get trainers at that level because it's a win-win for everyone. So our seminar in 2023 was based strictly on programming. Now it's strictly around soft tissue with a little bit of programming about 75% soft tissue, 20% programming, 5% business development with the Swift analysis that we do at all the in-person live seminars. Next we're going to be June 13th and 14th, parker Aurora, which is outside of Denver. 27th and 28th back at Florida, coral Gables. So when you look at the Swift, the cool thing is what are things that we can improve? So we went from programming-based now to soft tissue what are things that we could implement to make it better? And then innovation.

Speaker 1:

So when the innovation part comes in, I ask trainers all the time where are you struggling? They don't have streams of revenue. In my book I talk about the 60-30-10 rule. 60% of your revenue should be coming from your main passion, what you enjoy the most. For most of us it's one-on-one training. 30% from another stream nutrition coaching that we help you with, and then 10% from something else. Maybe it's supplement sales or swag, whatever it is. So, worst case scenario, you get a little bit of a dip in the Junes and Julys, which is common, but your streams two and three pick up for it. So you don't have these crazy high months and then these low months. I asked these trainers last weekend how many of you have streams of revenue. None of them did. They just have one. They didn't have a show up in a CPT. They're continuing their education, which I give them a lot of credit.

Speaker 1:

But you have to understand you are the professional and when you give nutrition advice, that needs to be a separate stream. And the clear expectations that you state from the beginning is how you develop that. Most trainers are not confident in the beginning, so they throw everything at the wall. It's a hundred dollars per session and they go well, let me think about it. I'll throw in nutrition, I'll throw in programming, I'll give you an extra session. We just give so much and then now that's the expectation moving forward. So then you hear me saying you should be making 250, 500 is the most that we have someone charging for nutrition coaching. If you have an RD on your team, you should be charging that. You have 10 clients paying you 500 bucks a month. That's an extra five grand per month, 60 grand per year. You can absolutely catapult past that 100K per year marker. 150, 200, that's not unrealistic. This isn't just all about numbers, but it's setting trainers up for success, because burnout is extremely high for the textbook trainers. So you have to do something different.

Speaker 1:

So, when it comes to an innovative part within Show Up Fitness, we are now launching our in-person internship in Atlanta with Josh's Gym, stable, life Fit, and it's really cool to see that he's going to be running an internship out of his gym. We have one running right now in Santa Monica. We will have one running every single month for the two months. That's the best way to level yourself up hands down. Month for the two months. That's the best way to level yourself up hands down. But I get it, people can't commit to two months in a new town, or maybe they're working to make ends meet, so that commitment is tough. Well then, you do the online. You get to a couple of seminars, that's the equivalent. So we're going to be doing an in-person internship to get your show up in a CPT June 9th. That's two months. Be three days a week with Josh and Key. You get to see what it's like to be a business owner. You can shadow Josh and his wife, what they're doing within their facility, their classes. Hell, you may be even go to work there. They're looking actively for candidates to come part of their program. That's what we want to have and I talk about that in my book as I project into 2030 plus.

Speaker 1:

We want to have gyms all around Lifetime and Equinox, one to two of the gyms high-end training 150 minimum up to 300 plus. And when you are in that environment with a physical therapist, you are different than the competition. We just brought on a physical therapist in Santa Monica. We have a trainer that we just hired and we did something that we've never done before. We looked at what Equinox and Lifetime are doing for their interview process, did a swift analysis when could we improve to make it the best, the most superior hiring process out there? So we implemented that. We beta tested on a candidate and now we're bringing her part of the team.

Speaker 1:

The first thing that she had to do is train one of our clients. One of my clients was paying $250 per session and then we got feedback from the client. What were your thoughts on the programming? How was it? Were they engaged? Were they professional? Were they on time? What do you think? Did they have bad breath? How was their hygiene? What was the interactions like? Was this someone who you feel would be a great candidate for show up fitness? I want the clients to tell us.

Speaker 1:

And then she had to come back and do the same thing on a guy. You need to be able to train a girl and a guy. And that's exactly how we set up success within our certification. You have to go through the 17 muscles the shoulder, 20, the lower body, eight core movement patterns. Design a program in the spot. So when she came in and did that first workout, I just said client is 40 years old, she's a lawyer, she wants to lose some weight, she has some QL issues. Take her through a workout. You better wow her, because if you hurt my client, you're never going to work here. I'm going to blacklist you from the industry. And it was a really cool experience to get that feedback for this trainer.

Speaker 1:

So then we brought her in for the second part and that's going to be thinking on the fly. Are you able to design a program and then throwing a curve ball? Okay, I want you to be able to do that same workout over here. Take this down, move this up. We are testing her, we are drilling her on the ability to maneuver and that's exactly what I think a qualified trainer can do Be the best on the spot. You're not studying for 15 hours on a textbook and then answering a multiple choice question. No, she passed all that. Then we drilled her on anatomy. What are the rotator cuff muscles, which one externally rotates, which one internally rotates? If your client were to be having some shoulder issues, what are those four screens? Your client has low back issues. What would those screens be? If she's flexion intolerant, what would the programming look like? You need to be able to do that on the fly, so we project that you need to go to a lifetime or an equinox a year minimum to gain the confidence and competence in that environment and then you'd be eligible to apply to a show up fitness. Those are things that we're implementing and we're going to improve it as we grow, but it's really cool to see the evolution from day one when I first started this in 2011 to now we're 2025, the growth.

Speaker 1:

We're getting a lot of qualified trainers out there. People are sending us emails. I found your book. Someone recommended it. Oh my God, this is exactly what I needed in the beginning. Just talked to a manager in Mansfield, outside of Dallas in Texas. Never met him. He's never heard of Show Up. Someone recommended my book to him, volume two he read. It, reached out to me. We hopped on a call and he is now going to start requiring his new trainers that come in or applicants that they get to show up in a CPT.

Speaker 1:

That's what our goal is. When Lifetime has 500 gyms, every single one of those trainers has their show up in a CPT. Same with Equinox, because the best trainers who are qualified will have that. And we're doing it one qualified personal trainer at a time. So a year ago we did seven seminars. Now, with our partnership with Lifetime, I told them I want to start doing two to three per month. We did three last month. We're hoping to start working closely with Equinox, so ideally we're going to have a seminar per week with qualified instructors. We're always looking for the best instructors to be part of the team.

Speaker 1:

Now what that means is you better be sharp as hell. I'm looking at the 17 actions of the shoulder right now. You sure as hell better be able to tell me what those actions look like, but what are the muscles that are involved with it? Because if you're in front of a bunch of lifetime trainers, you better be sharp. You got to have that confidence. You have to have fun. It's like a show. You are on stage. If you don't have that confidence to teach other trainers, you're not going to be on the team. It's no offense to you. But those are things you can work towards. I want trainers to see fitness as a career, but not when you're training 50, 60 hours per week.

Speaker 1:

I just saw someone the other day on social media Megan and I were talking about this. He was prideful that he was making $200,000 a year, which sounds like a lot. But you looked at his schedule waking up at like three, getting home at 11. You're not going to be able to do that as a father. You're not going to be able to do that with a family at home Well, you can, but you're not going to be able to have a happy life. You're burning the candles at both ends. So what can you do to level yourself up to make enough?

Speaker 1:

But you have other streams coming in and as we open more gyms, there's going to be an opportunity for gym ownership. And Megan's a Megan in San Diego, the Megan here in Santa Monica, as we're running and beta testing how fast we can bring on clients for our new trainer here, how fast we can bring in patients for the physical therapist. That's going to set the stage for the future. So when we open a gym, we can get an internship there ASAP, as we're beta testing right now with Josh in Atlanta, get at least 10 people in there and then we bring on the therapist network market in the area to have people come in who are in pain. The therapist addresses them and then hands them off to the trainer. That's the environment we want to have and we're going to have it.

Speaker 1:

There's no doubt in my mind. It's just figuring out the little tweaks. What's the most efficient way to get clients in? What's the most efficient way to get students in to become trainers? There's a lot of legwork, but I absolutely fucking love this. You're looking at this map and you're trying to figure out which way to go. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The tweaking and the long hours it's all fun and that's what passion is really about.

Speaker 1:

I can only imagine trying to do this as a lawyer or nine to five or who doesn't like their job, and you just show up and you're like this sucks, I'm dying inside. I wake up every day and my mind is fired up. How can I become better side? I wake up every day and my mind is fired up. How can I become better? I got to train a couple of clients. I'm quizzing them, I'm asking them how would you bring on trainers. How would you get clients? I'm learning from them with different perspectives, because they have a different sense of experience, whether if it's in law or the medical field or business entrepreneurship.

Speaker 1:

What are some suggestions that you have? How would you run this gym if you were me? And they give amazing nuggets and then I take them out to happy hour and dinners and say you know what? We're going to need 15 clients to go to the physical therapist and go to the new trainer. What are some things that we can do? And do you know some people who can come in and they're working alongside with us because they want us to succeed, and you need to replicate that with your current book of business. Your clients should know how many sessions a week you're doing, per month you're doing, how much you're making per hour, how much you're making per month and how you want to grow.

Speaker 1:

People love that stuff and then they appreciate your ambition and the audacity to be able to say that confidently. They go. You know what Damn. I wish I could do that. I'm stuck right now. I don't know how to progress forward, so you're moving the needle constantly. You're going to have those fears and I recognize them.

Speaker 1:

It's the profit organizations NASA, my SSA. They have so much freaking money, but the problem is they're so big it's hard to maneuver quickly like we can. So we have the best certification for personal trainers, hands down. We have the best seminars, but people just aren't aware of us. That's why we ask you throw it into your story. Leave a five-star review.

Speaker 1:

The podcast just got 500 reviews all five stars. What do you think? We just retire? Yay, we're done. Nope, I go. Okay, now we need a thousand. Let's get there faster. Then let's get to 2,500. Let's get to 5,000. Let's get to 10,000. Let's keep on moving the needle, because every time someone new comes across this, we're changing their perspective. We're going to help them become successful, because 90% of textbook trainers quit within the first year.

Speaker 1:

It makes sense. You're not given these tools. These big organizations just look at you as a cog part of their system. Get this next shirt. Get this next shirt. This poor soul the other day posted in his Instagram I can't wait to be a trainer. He had nine certifications. He signed up from NASA. I will bet you my belt buckle he's not a trainer a year from now. I know for a fact he won't, and I'm not calling him an idiot, but he's not the first person to do that.

Speaker 1:

How competent are you when you read a textbook and they give you four actions of the scapula? Well, there's eight. They don't even have the size principle in there. It's fear-based. Your client has pes planus. You better fix that. Then you tell your client that you're squatting wrong because you have abduction and you have knee valgus and we're going to put you on a stability ball. And the client in their head is thinking this is stupid. I want to have a great workout, I want to feel it, I want to get out of pain, but they can't help them and so then their confidence drops and they can't get the business. They can't sign people up. So you need to be surrounding yourself.

Speaker 1:

That's the T, your table with the best of the best, and that's pain management physical therapist working alongside trainers who are charging twice as much as you, who are confident with their programming so you can learn and adapt within your own swift. You may be working with a trainer. You're like I don't like the way he programs and that's all right. But then you hear his presentation at the end you're like, wow, that was really neat. That's something that Nick took from me. Help, nick, that's what we talk about in my book.

Speaker 1:

But the manager at Roseville he's one of the top trainers I've ever seen Confident, good looking. We did a great workout. The guy's an absolute monster, like 230 pounds, probably at 4% body fat, a smile that's so contagious. He has the people skills. We were working out and doing a crazy giant set, military press into lateral raises, into front raises, into reverse flies, and he asked the person next to him if we could use the T-bar row. Excuse me, sir, do you mind? If we hop in with you, we won't be a problem at all. And the guy kind of hesitates oh, don't worry, don't worry, we'll come back. Thank you, have a great workout, professional as can be, and he charges a lot at that location. But he took a nugget from what I presented at the seminar.

Speaker 1:

When it comes to your presentation, don't tell them your price. Let the client guess your price. So I tell people all the time. We have a certification, I teach trainers. I go to Lifetime and teach their trainers. You want me to say charge at Lifetime? Yeah, there's some trainers that charge 175 plus. I wrote a book. How much do you think I charge? And then I get that from them and then that's where I start my negotiations. It's a fun process, as I talk about in my book, my goal is to be able to charge 500 bucks per hour, because I don't know any trainers who charge that.

Speaker 1:

When I originally moved down to Santa Monica in 2014, the reason I came here? Because I wanted to be in a market where the best trainers were we opened a gym. Our gym has been around for 10 years. The average gym 81% fail within the first year. Nine out of 10 out of five years. It's unheard of to keep a gym for 10 years. The fitness industry gyms, restaurants the failure rate is astronomical. So we came down here and we're thriving. There's highs and lows, don't get me wrong. During COVID, we pivoted and we stepped aside from the gyms and we focused online because we had a pivot. And now we're coming back around and we have the buckets for the certifications. So now it's time to triple down on the gyms and get those so successful with a great team that you can mirror that and scale it so we can become international.

Speaker 1:

We talk about 500 gyms, a thousand gyms. That's the capacity. Because they're smaller. We want them to be one to 2000 square feet. Keep it lean, have a rack, have some dumbbells. Don't need all the bells and whistles. If you want those, you can go to the higher end gyms or boutiques. So we're entertaining. Maybe we're going to switch the name. So that's the trajectory of where we want to be a year from now. Maybe there's show up fitness clinics or show up clinics. Wellness is a huge, sexy term right now. So that's where we're at today.

Speaker 1:

As of 2025, may 1st, I want to hear your swift Get into your story. If you have my book, go through that pledge on one of the first few pages. What are you going to do throughout May to level yourself up? What's going to make you uncomfortable? How are you going to get more clients? How are you going to provide value? More importantly, how can you become irreplaceable? You can't get fired because you're that freaking good. Some people will say everyone's replaceable. I don't know. If you bring in a ton of value and you're constantly delivering and thinking bigger, your value is going to be there for a long time. I love our team at Show Up. I love the instructors. Everyone here in Santa Monica going through the in-person online. Show Up is where we're at because of you, but now it's time for you to get uncomfortable.

Speaker 1:

Talk about your swift analysis. Level yourself up. Look at those strength standards. What's your mile time, your plank, your blood pressure? How many pushups can you do? Your pull-up grip strength, your dead, hang your goblet that's what on the wall here in Santa Monica I'm looking at right now. And if you're not hitting that 730 mile in May, get after it hunk, hunkette. Get to that seven minute marker and then look in the mirror and say, holy shit, look what happened these last 31 days. I turned into a hunk, a hunkette. That was super cool. Next month, I'm really going to focus on my pull-ups. Next month, I'm going to work on my back squat. You're always chasing being better, becoming significant. It's not all about looks, but that is part of our profession. Help Nick, read the book, throw it into your story, remember you? First someone to one of our certifications. We're going to give you cash 200 bucks. That's our thank you for helping that trainer have a statistically higher chance of turning their passion for fitness into career. Big biceps are better than small ones and keep showing up.