The Show Up Fitness Podcast

The BEST DPT's to Follow on Social Media SUF LIVE PERSONAL TRAINING MENTORSHIP

• Chris Hitchko, CEO Show Up Fitness • Season 3 • Episode 298

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If raising your rates feels risky and networking with clinicians feels out of reach, this conversation hands you a clear, repeatable plan. We break down a month-to-month pricing shift with language that keeps trust high, then show how a simple referral incentive and forward-dated 2026 pricing can stabilize revenue without drama. You’ll hear the exact empathy-led negotiation script we use, plus a five-minute IG Live format that warms your audience and surfaces new clients you didn’t know were watching.

We get honest about nutrition noise and why cutting carbs often “works” for the wrong reason—calorie reduction. Instead of demonizing foods, we focus on energy balance, behavior, and training quality, so clients lose weight without losing their minds. From there, we dismantle fear-based corrective exercise and posture myths. You can’t isolate the VMO, and labeling clients as broken helps no one. A better path: use soft tissue to reduce threat, choose positions that calm symptoms, and load with confidence through graded exposure.

The growth unlock comes from your clinician network. We map a simple, professional outreach: pay for an assessment, learn their lens, and demonstrate your programming so therapists trust you with post-discharge strength. You’ll hear practical ACL rehab priorities like quad and gastrocnemius loading, a quick knee hyperextension screen to guide early choices, and a short list of credible physios to follow for continuing education. Tie it together with a pricing strategy that funds learning—transparent increases, client sponsorship options, and small thank-yous to referrers—and you have a business that compounds trust into opportunity.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a coach who needs a push, and leave a quick review so more trainers find these tools. Your next client may come from the message you send today.

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SPEAKER_04:

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 showupfitness.com. 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. And y'all, welcome back to the Show Up Fitness Podcast. We are coming at you live, 30 days of podcasts. This is one of our live classes. This is our level two, where we talk about soft tissue mobilizations as well as nutrition coaching. We're going to go over great people to follow in the physio space. But before we do that, we had a question talking about pricing. And one of our students, Mr. Hunk Marcus, was a trainer at Lifetime. Now he is independent and he's done a great job of implementing the nutritional strategies that we suggest within the nutrition coaching certification that we have. And he is generating a stream of revenue through that. But he doesn't like his current pricing model. He was doing six months. Now he wants to go month to month. So there's a little bit of angst coming with that change of price. And could the clients potentially push back? And so one of the suggestions that we had, go through and let them know that moving forward in 2026, my pricing is going to be$300 per month. And that's that. And worst case scenario, a client says, ah, it's too expensive. I like the 225. So I totally understand. And that's when you have to use that feel-felt found negotiation and empathy approach. Now, if I was able to get you at the 225, would you continue working with me? Get her to commit. And then you can use a referral process. So the first month will be 225. If you give me a referral in those first 30 days, then I'll keep you at that 225. I'll even give you a commission on the back end for every person that signs up. So let's schedule weekly Instagram live. She only has 93 followers, but that's 93 more opportunities that you have getting in front of people that don't know you're an online coach. So five minutes, you talk about the successes. Maybe you you write out some questions for that she could ask you that are just generic, like, why aren't carbs bad, Marcus? And then he can do a little five-minute segment. On you know, carbs are the bad boy in the industry because we eat them on a regular basis. For breakfast, we're having smoothies that are filled with a bunch of sugar, and we're having lunches that have a ton of bread and calories. It's not that those foods are bad for you, but they're extra calories. So if the average American is getting 3,500 calories per day, which we are, and we are more morbidly obese than we are overweight today, which is a crazy statistic. If 50 to 60 percent as high as 70% of your diet is coming from carbs, and then you cut back on carbs because you have a trainer or coach that say, fruit's bad for you. Any type of carb is bad. You're gonna die if you eat it. So now you're scared of carbs. So then you take out 50% of your diet. What's gonna happen? Well, you created a calorie deficit. And what comes with a calorie deficit? You're gonna feel better. You're gonna be losing a bunch of weight. If you have any type of skin issues, nail issues, hair issues, gut issues, you will start improving those. Your inflammatory markers are significantly gonna go down. So then we associate carbs with all the issues that we had before, but it was actually the surplus of calories, which the first law of thermodynamics states, energy can either be created or destroyed. So we are storing those excess calories in our fat cells. And our fat cells are this amazing hormone, sorry, this amazing organ now that acts like an endocrine gland, which is nuts because fat is not an endocrine gland. So we're producing all of these hormones because of the excess adiposity. And that's where we're in this tailspin right now that everyone wants to blame it on one specific thing. You know, 20 years ago we were blaming something different. Now we're blaming seed oils, we're blaming uh the Red 40. It's like, what's the new thing that we're gonna blame so then I can sell you something? So hopefully that helped a little bit, Marcus. Did you have a follow-up question on that or an approach or some ideas that we would like to implement to try to get some clients from her?

SPEAKER_03:

Uh no, I think that was very helpful.

SPEAKER_04:

All right, anyone else have any questions before I pull up some stuff on physios, talking about the life of corrective exercise and so forth? Any questions? Life, love, happiness? All righty. So we're gonna go over great physios and physical therapists to follow on social media. It is a very toxic world. And if you're new into the industry, you may not know some of the iconic names. And you know, I've been to so many seminars. Well, I'll name drop like a Chad Waterberry or uh Brett Bartholomew, Tony Genicore, and people just who's that? I've never heard of them. He's those are like the goats of the day where you have your, you know, your Michael Jordans and your Larry Birds. But when it comes to fitness, it's all about who has the most followers and who has the flashiest stuff. Joel Seedman has almost a million followers. He has a PhD, he's also squatting with a blindfold on. So there's a lot of people that are producing fuckery out there, and you don't know if it's right or wrong. You have the foundation with the certification when you went through our program. So you can wean out a lot of the BS via overload principles, the size principle, anatomy. And so when someone's saying something that doesn't align with that, you know it's probably not the best person to be following. But Dr. Wang, he is a great ACL rehab specialist. When you see PT, that means physical therapist. There are people, you know, 20 years ago that would go through school and they would just get their master's in physical therapy. So they would just be called a PT, but now we go through a three-year doctorate program. So DPT is doctorate of physical therapist, even though lifetime may disagree with their dynamic personal trainers. Do not put that in your bio unless you are a doctorate of physical therapy. In the UK and Canada, you will see stuff like physio. That's just their designation for that term. So PT is not personal trainer, it's going to be physical therapist DPT would be a doctorate. And so he has some really great stuff. And I love his recent post about I'm not sure who needs to hear this, but you cannot isolate the VMO. Who could tell me what the VMO is? Vastus medialis oblique. And that is a NASA term that they like to put out there because in their corrective exercise model, you're going to foam roll the overactive muscles. So in this case, if your knees buckle in, you have knee valgus, it's your vastus lateralis that's overactive. So we got a foam roll and stretch. And if you don't do that, you'll die. You need to activate the VMO and you need to do a stability ball squat curl press. That's their whole corrective exercise model. And there's people out there that really even believe in that, which is a whole nother story. But when it comes to actual medical professionals, this stuff is extremely outdated. So you're not going to be isolating your VMO, even if you have more medial rotation of your foot. You can't isolate your biceps femoris, the posterior side hamstring muscle, by having external rotation. You can isolate your semis by having more medial or internal rotation of the foot because the insertion points. Whereas the quad muscles, there's four of them, the vastest group, lateralis, medialis, intermedius, and rectus femoris, they're going to go into one common tendon. But on the posterior side, the semis, as do the biceps, they all separate and they go into different insertion points. So that's why you cannot isolate. It's just a great, and if you see here, I made a little comment on here saying, but you know, being facetious, I said, but I wasted thousands of hours on my NASM certification and I'm a corrective exercise specialist. It's superior than your DPT. I'm right, you're wrong. And that's scary because there's trainers out there that are force-fed this BS, and that's what they tell their clients. It's just a fear-mongering approach. And this is 2026, people, and we're still making these just insane fear-mongering posts and saying stuff to your clients like, Oh, you need to fix this because you're broken. So, Dr. Wesley Wang at DPT is a great person to follow. He had another great post looking at um some rehabbing. I like this one. Reality check in the PT world, the majority of patients don't care about how many letters you have after your name. This is coming from someone that wanted to be Wesley Wang, PT, DPT, C S C S O C S, that's orthopedics, L O L E B C making, you know, is making a little joke here. I think I made another comment on here as well about um trainers today. I always kind of make a joke. And again, I'm gonna offend people, but that's that's the way it is. When you put your acronyms in your bio, all you're doing is trying to sound special to other trainers because your clients don't care. And actual medical professionals like therapists, they'll look at those and kind of chuckle at you. There's a hierarchy in the sense of, yeah, if you have your CSCS, you put that on there because that means you're a strength coach. If you have your MS, which is a master's, then you're gonna put that. It just shows higher education. You're not going to put, you know, NASA CPT, NASA CES, NASA WLS. All that shows is to actual people who understand movement that you're fighting in that saturated space. Because if you're prideful of having, and again, these are tests, and I understand that it could spend you could spend a lot of time studying this, and it's like a huge monkey off your back once you pass it. But that credential doesn't show much to the actual fitness world. Again, I had one of the most iconic professors in the world, Dr. Kramer, he wrote the book with Zatorsky, the third edition of strength training, uh, Kramer and Zatorski. And my when I was at Connecticut, I came back to Chico and I reached out to him. I was like, I'm at a gym right now that they're requiring me to get this thing called NASA. This was in 2005. I've never heard of it before. He's like, Neither have I. It's just that's how it is. The space is gonna have some player who's gonna come in and they're gonna try to sell you something. But so in the actual in the trenches professors, they don't even they're not even aware of these certifications. The NSCA is backed by science, the ACSM is backed by science, they're nonprofit. Where when you have your NASA mACE ISSA, they're backed by billion-dollar companies. And because of survivorship bias, people are going to say, Well, I got my NASA, and therefore that's what you should do. So this isn't a podcast on, you know, just making fun of NASA, but it's trying to educate people that what's your end goal is. Where do you want to work? What do you want to do? If you want to help people move better, the first thing that you can do is not scare them with something like an overhead squat or an FMS. You're gonna listen to them and you're gonna find out the solution within the programming that you're gonna provide as the expert. And if someone comes in with shoulder discomfort or they blew out an ACL 18 months ago, you need to know where you can go to learn more about that. I did a podcast with another great physio that you can follow is the prehab guys. They're our partners. Dr. Mike and I talk about the common muscles that are very underloaded post-ACL. And that's gonna be your gastrocnemius, which is a biarticulate calf muscle. It does have an impact on your knee with knee flexion, but then also your quad group. So when they're doing their ACL rehabbing for their patients, they put a big emphasis on strengthening those muscles. Another great person to follow is Dr. Farnsworth. He and I have consulted numerous times. I would anytime something comes up and I want to reach out to him, he's always great with getting back to us. And I think that's so important for coaches to have. Great. Doc has 32,000 followers. He's taught over a hundred seminars. Yeah, he's very noteworthy on social media, but he's also just a really, really good coach. I'm not saying you have to find someone with a lot of followers, you just need to find someone in your community who you can network with. And so, what networking means is when I've been to now 20 plus lifetimes in the last two years, and when I ask these trainers, how many of you have a physical therapist on your team? It's less than 1%. And what that looks like is you have a client who comes in and they have an issue. So, for example, Megan, she is one of our instructors and she's our top instructor, she's our director of certifications. And she has three torn ACLs, left one first and her right one. Now she's back on her left one. And she is, you know, I think 15 months, 18 months post-surgery. And I was in here with her last week. We're doing some filming and we did the live podcast. But I was looking at something that Doc posted right here, which was a really, really awesome post. And that was the one I wanted to share of him going into two to three degrees of hyperextension with clients and patients who have knee discomfort. So this test that he's doing right here, he has a client in a supine position. So they're on their back looking up, and their feet, their heels, really their Achilles is on a foam roller. And he's talking about how he wants to have two to three degrees of hyperextension and the knee that does not go into that hyperextension more times than not, that's the patient who has knee discomfort. And so the recommendation there would be to do this for five or 10 minutes for a stretch. And he has a bunch of citations in here from the British Medical sort of um uh journal and muscular distortion 2013, talking about quad strength and is one of the strongest modifiable predictors of knee pain and knee function before and after surgery. And that's something that I was just discussing earlier. And so what I wasn't quite sure because he was talking about patients who came in with knee pain, not with specific patients who have ACL um reconstructive surgery, which she had. So I sent him a message and within an hour, he sent me a three-minute response. That's what I'm talking about with having someone in your network who you can literally get back to within a day's notice, ideally a couple hours. When I have a client who comes in and they have a shoulder issue, knee issue, a back issue, whatever. And if it's something that, as I on our in tank form, I see something where it's like, you know what, I'm not 100% sure. I will reach out to my therapist and say, I have an assessment today at two o'clock. Are you going to be around in that window? Because I'd love to potentially hop on a call if something comes up and I'm not comfortable working with my client. Oh, yeah, absolutely. So then when I'm going through the assessment, if a red flag comes up, I say, would you mind hopping on a quick call with my therapist? And I'll get on a FaceTime with them. And that just shows so much valuable information to the client where we are now super, super credible because we are outsourcing to that professional, knowing that trainers don't have physical therapists on your team. So that's how you really separate yourself. So Dr. Farnsworth is a great person to follow. Another one is Taylor, so T-A-Y-L-A, Canon C A N N O N Physio. She is an Aussie trainer that is currently living in Austin. And she just has some really great stuff on here about back pain. And this was one that I liked. Acute back pain, don't do this. Great clickbait because she's doing a Jefferson. So people would look at that, like, oh, see, you shouldn't load spinal flexion. And then when you click on it, she says, first thing is rest. Do not rest if you have low back pain. And she's doing a pigeon with some rowing, she's doing some Turkish skit ups, showcasing movement. Now, with social media, you can misinterpret this. And you know, you're a trainer who's maybe not that competent. And you see, oh, my client has back pain. I'm going to start doing these. And obviously, that's not what she's saying. And it's unfortunate because trainers don't have the competence to with the foundation when they come into this industry. So she's a great person to follow. But I feel for those new trainers who don't have that foundation, they don't understand anatomy, they don't understand the core movement patterns and knowing how to progress and regress. If you had a client who was very fearful of spinal flexion, and then they come in, oh, let me show you this really cool exercise. And you do some of those ones that she just did, it could hurt the client. So that's why when you go through our certification in the soft tissue, there's a process. You need to listen to them via the par Q, that biopsychosocial aspect of pain, the psychology, letting them talk about it and building up their confidence and slow exposure therapy with overload, but letting them know that that MRI is not your diagnosis. You could have a disc protrusion or herniations or whatever it is, but that's not your end sentence for movement. You can listen to them, show them exercises that are more appropriate, find out where that discomfort is. Is it more flexion base? Is it extension base? Is it lateral flexion? Is it tension? Those are the tests that we teach you. So then you can avoid that for the time being. And you could be like, well, she just said you have to move. Well, yeah, you need to move and we will move, but I don't want to move through that discomfort at this moment because your guard and your brain, so your central amplification is higher than normal. So we want to lower that by giving you exercises that don't irritate it or put that flag up or that guard. I will come to Chris last. Dr. Tom Waters has an amazing book. I have definitely read through this a few times, uh, Rehab Science. I would highly suggest for trainers to get that. He's out of Santa Barbara, he's an orthopedic physical therapist. So when you see OPT, that's someone who I would like to reach out to because that means they're they're really in the trenches more with specific surgeries. And typically they'll have a background with uh sports science, which I like even more. When I see a therapist who has OCS, when they have CSCS, it just means they're a lot more pro-movement and and like Doc Farnsworth, they're going to use the barbell or overload as the rehab and prehab. Great person to follow. And then we have Dr. Technically not a doctor because he's out of um Canada and they don't have a DPT. I've had him on our podcast, Noah N-O-A-H, Mandel, M-A-N-D-E-L physio. And he's done a phenomenal job of just educating people. There's Dr. Q right here. He's a physical therapist. I've had him on the podcast as well. And he's just getting into a great one he did right here. Who told you that your hip flexures causes your back pain? Who told you that? And he says, posture is the number one cause of back pain. And he's laughing, saying, like, okay, who told you that? And then you have people saying, Wait, you think you're not supposed to feel deadlifts in your back? Who told you that? Oh, it's your core, right? You have a weak TVA. Okay, and he's chuckling the whole time. You have an anterior pelvic tilt. That's why you have a little back pain. And I just love this because you have, you know, Bradley Blair osteopath, he's commenting, and he's a great person to follow as well. And I commented on here twice because it's like this is what I see on a daily basis from trainers who get their corrective exercise or they go through NASM or they go through ACE, and that's what they're force feeding you. That you are broken, and that they simplify it by saying the reason you have low back pain, because you have an anterior pelvic tilt, your hip flexors are pulling you down, your glutes are weak, or you have glute amnesia. And we just simplify low back pain by saying we got to strengthen your glutes and stretch your hip flexors. Now, if you had a hundred people do that, 20 of them could get results because go back to what she said earlier. And when I said she said, I'm talking About Taylor, movement is the best thing. So before you had someone who didn't move when they had low back discomfort. Now they go to a trainer who's confident in this malarkey and they say, Oh, you just got to stretch your hip flexor, your psoas, and we got to strengthen your glutes. That hope that you just gave them, that's the psychology part of pain. So their guard is coming down because they feel like there is hope. And so that's it could work, but it's not the optimal way to do it. That's fear-mongering that, like I said earlier, NASA and ACE, these certifications will put out there to simplify it. And then the last person who I highly suggest following would be Chris. Dr. Chris, he's a physical therapist, he's the host of E3 Rehab. Did a podcast with him at E3 Rehab. So E, and then the number three rehab. And this is going to be just the probably your best one right here to go to for coaches to follow. Talks about Dr. Q, so Coach Q Physio, Stephen Munt, Valid V A L D, Performance and Valid Health, Nathan Carlson, Chris Jensen, Chris Johnson, my apologies. Mohammed Jem. And he just goes through this huge list of great people. So Adam Minkez, Barbella Medicine, they have a great weekend seminar you can get to. You have Wesley Wang, um, Quinn Hennick, Tom Goom, Steph Allen, Ben McCormick, C-O-R-K, I-N-E-T-I-C. He has a great pain page and he has you know 72,000 followers. He's what we would call a pain science, a pain scientist. And he's just a great person to, he has a great book out there, and he just really gets into the deeper um methodologies behind pain. He talks about no susception, does it come only from tissue damage? He talks about the biomedical approach, uh, the level of placebo. So Ben is a great person to follow. And I just think that when it comes to your continuing education, I did a post recently talking about how we should be going out, trainers who are not making$100,000, the common things that I find that we we don't have a team. We only have a baseline certification. And that's one of those five textbooks. And then we don't go to weekend seminars. And someone was saying, like, I don't have the money right now to go out there, which I totally get. Well, you can learn from these physios and maybe they offer some free CEUs, but that's how you could get creative with your own book of business. So you bring on a client and you let them know that here's my pricing. 2026, it's gonna be$75 per hour. Every six months, I'm going to increase my pricing 10%. So when it comes July 1st, my pricing is now gonna be$85. I just want to be very, very clear with you that I'm increasing my pricing not just because I'm taking advantage of you. This allows for me to continue my education. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but the average trainer reads a textbook and then they go out there and they gain unsupervised experience. And that's why 90% of trainers quit. They don't have the confidence to competently help their clients get the results, retain them, keep their business. And so they're not able to turn this into a career. So I'm going to increase my pricing, which allows for me to go to seminars. Now, if you want to sponsor me for a seminar, it typically the ones I go to every quarter are$2,000. It's going to be$1,000 for the ticket and then the flight and the hotel. You could sponsor me and I will keep you at that price for the next 18 months. I just wanted to be very, very clear and set those expectations so you don't feel like I'm just slamming this on you and all of a sudden you're like, you just blindsided me. When you have that conversation with your clients, they will respect you. And there's going to be so many opportunities that present themselves. There could be trainers right now rolling their eyes, like, oh, my clients would never do that. It's because you haven't asked. So you're telling me that's impossible to do. Well, then how is it possible that I've had trainers come to Santa Monica? We've had trainers go to Atlanta, do our two-month in-person, and that's$2,400 for the in-person. And they've had their clients pay for them. They've invested$5,000 because they did like a charity event. We are going to do a fundraiser so we can get Vaughn to go to Santa Monica and level up his skills. And he was able to produce that. I have numerous cases of that. You could go to family members, you could go to friends. Your level of thinking is what's holding you back because you have that negative victim mentality because you're thinking that you wouldn't do that. If someone came to you and said, hey, can you give me$200? You're thinking about your bank account. I don't have$200, so I'm not going to give it to you. So that means no one would do it. But you got to look through the lens of the person who's trying to help you. I have a client right now that pays me$3,500 a month and they train with me roughly 10 times per month. So how is it possible that they're paying me$3250? If I think of my bank account, like, oh my God, that's so much money. I could never pay$32,500 over$40,000 per year in personal training. If I'm looking through my bank account and my lens, and that's not a possibility, then you are not allowing for these huge opportunities that will present themselves. You got to hang around that 1%. And when you go to these seminars, you're linking up with people who are thinking bigger. And you're going to learn how to come up with more creative pricing models, and whether if it's a package or if it's a monthly plan, but you are in an environment with people who are thinking bigger. And I love this because everyone in here on today's call has gone through some type of hands-on learning experience. And when you take someone like, you know, I'll talk to you, Paul, for a second, because you you got a textbook certification, but then you also went to a seminar and we talked about it on our podcast. But if you could like summarize the value add that you got from interacting with other fitness professionals, could you put a price on that?

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely. The interaction, the background skill that they possess just working with clients day to day is and be able to ask questions around that versus just reading through text and taking a test to see if you remember uh the information versus real practical applications night and day. Night and day.

SPEAKER_04:

You could go to a Facebook group and type in, I have some thoracic stiffness. What will be some suggestions? And you have 25 trainers give you 25 different solutions. Whereas when Paul was there, we were talking about golf. And I know one of the people who contributed a lot to TPI, which is the major golf certification out there, Dr. Waterberry. And you know, Paul demonstrated some movement competencies that could be optimized with some mobility drills. And I just very quickly showed him and he was like, wow, I could just see the light bulbs going off in his eyes. Like, that is so much quicker and more effective than hearing 25 random people that I don't know their background because it's just uh an avatar and I don't follow them or they don't post. So how do I know this is even correct? So again, you got to surround yourself with a community who's leveling yourself up. Most trainers don't do that. And that's why I encourage you to go to Reddit and go to Facebook and look what people are saying and ask yourself do you want to be that trainer who's pointing a finger at everyone else? It's so hard to make money in the industry because the gyms take all of your money. Well, maybe it's an opportunity that they're giving you to level up your skills, and you're now around people who can afford$100,$150,$200 per session, and they could potentially invest in you. You're not gonna find that when you're going to LA Fitness, and there's nothing wrong with LA Fitness. But when you surround yourself with a higher level thinking clientele base, opportunities are gonna present themselves to you, and that's what we call luck. But all it is is you just being in the right place at the right time and using action to move forward, not fear and point blame at everyone else. What are some questions or anything that you would like to chat about on top of these people who you should be following? To you know now you have a source that you can go and check out their pages, learn from them. I highly suggest the prehab guys their exercise video library. I think it's you know a couple hundred bucks for the year, and you are gonna just have a 4,000 exercises that you can go into, utilize for clients that have certain injuries, prehabbing, rehabbing. And then the cool part is you send it to them. So like you're almost acting in that capacity as a therapist. Obviously, we're not, but it's it's really cool to know that you have this option where a client comes in with ankle issues, knee issues, shoulder issues, elbow issues, and you send them four or five exercises that they're learning from a physical therapist, they're just going to be very, very indebted to you. And that's ultimately why we got into this to help our clients. So the rehab prehab stuff is very prevalent. And for those that are training on a regular basis, I know that uh, you know, Teddy, you have uh a lot of clients. And would you say a lot of your clients have discomfort? Wendy as well. I know you have a full book of business. Do you you guys have a lot of, and girl, do you have a client who experiences discomfort?

SPEAKER_03:

So for me, I've been uh fortunate. Uh I've had one client, he comes in with a little bit of knee stuff, but you know, I do the soft tissue mobilization on the on um on the adductor and it pretty much goes away. Or I'll do some like internal and external rotation, I'll like lay him on his back, put his knee up like 90 degrees, and um do some like isometrics where he's like going internally and externally rotating. So I'll do some of that. But usually like I've been fortunate, I've been sort of lucky, but some because you know I do a lot of Olympic weightlifting. So like this past weekend, there was a guy in the gym that I'm close with, and um, I worked on his back and I also worked on his adductor and I got him out of some pain, which was cool.

SPEAKER_04:

That'll be interesting for you to implement what Doc Farns really was talking about with the foam roller. And you could even take a photo of that or a video. Your client always asks permission before, but have them lay on their back and see if there is a discrepancy with hyperextension. We should be you know parallel and at two to three degrees of hyperextension there. And if they're lacking it, you could let them know hey, come in 10 minutes early, do this stretch, and then when the session's over at 60 minutes, do the stretch again for another 10 minutes and see if that helps overall. The soft tissue is going to give that immediate reprieve. The soft tissue techniques aren't like, oh, that's how you get out of pain. No, what it allows for you to do is calm down the nervous system so then they can train. And now they're they're moving in a pain-free um opportunity for that 60 minutes. And then ideally, if you're a great coach, which you are, you can implement the the correctives and the barbell training that you're doing to get them stronger. So in the future, that discomfort significantly goes down.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. I'll definitely try that next time with the uh with the foam roller.

SPEAKER_04:

I had someone ask about how do you reach out to a physical therapist? And I have an entire chapter in my book, the how to get clients to 10 hours. And one of them is reach outs and reaching out to a physical therapist. Give them props. So if you were to reach out to one of those individuals, they have a lot, they have a big following. I would suggest finding someone within your three to five mile radius. And it doesn't mean this is the only way to do it, but I would suggest reaching out, going into their practice, paying their hourly rates, getting an assessment done in yourself. This is essentially continuing education. That's a write-off as well. I'm not a tax advisor, but you're investing into healthcare, and that's something that you can write off. And then you let them know that you're a competent coach. You have clients and you're always looking to refer people to a competent therapist. My spots over here, I'd love to bring you in one day. My pricing is 150 bucks per hour. I'm gonna comp that session because I'm sure you have a stigma that trainers are just doing a bunch of crazy exercises and they're hurting people. That's not me. I'm based my programming off of core movement patterns and overload, and I'm always making sure my clients are safe. And when it comes to pain, if I'm not able to implement a couple quick fixes that are within my scope, I'm gonna refer out. So you can send a reach out that lets them know that you know, don't write this 10-page thing because they're not gonna read it. Give a quick little, you know, way to go, coach. Kudos. I love your page. I specifically like that last post. Be specific, don't make it generic with AI and don't send an AI with hi, blank name. I get so many emails, and that stuff just pisses me off because it just shows you you're lazy. You go to A, you go to Chat GPT, give me a prompt for reaching out to physical therapist, and you forget to change some of the inserts, and then you send it like that. That just shows you're sloppy and you're gonna be doing the same thing within your programming as well. So address their name, doctor, whoever they are. Great last post that really resonated with me. I'm a trainer, I'm in the area, love to come in for a session. I'm sure that you are aware that a lot of trainers are out there that are not very competent. They read a book and they're out there hurting people. By saying that, you are letting them know that they're the expert and that you're not trying to compete with them. Because I know for a fact they've they've heard and they've seen trainers saying stuff and the trainers acting in a way that's like, oh, I know more than therapists do, because trainers say stupid shit like that. So by letting them know that you are basically saying that you are the authority source when it comes to movement, we could work together. And if you don't want to pay their hourly rate, you could offer by, you know, could we maybe grab a cup of coffee or go to Happy Hour, My Treat, and see if they're interested. And if you do that to 10 people, you're gonna get people who are interested. You're gonna have some that just don't respond. You're gonna have some that have maybe negative things to say. There was a girl on the call the other day, and she said that she reached out to a therapist in her area and the therapist charged like$250,$300 per hour. And he said to her that I would never refer my clients to a personal trainer because trainers don't know how to assess and program properly. And I'm 100% in that coach's favor because he's been in the trenches and he sees it. So that's what we're trying to overcome that toxicity, that negative viewpoint, how people look at trainers. And you're doing that by being in a community that's leveling up with thinking critically. Notice how I don't tell you that, oh, this is how you program for a client who's overweight. You have to do this squat exercise, you have to do this push exercise, and you have to do this specific CCA. This is the show up way, you have to do it like this. No, we're giving you a template that's plug and play because you have the ability to say, you know what? I have a client and they're more capable. I'm gonna do a back squat and I'm gonna do loaded chins, and I'm gonna do a lateral raise here because it's appropriate for what their goals are. Whereas another trainer could say, because of my environment, I don't have barbells, I'm gonna do a goblet squat, and then I'm gonna do a banded row, and then I'm gonna do a plank because that's what I have within my economy here. That's what great trainers can do and great coaches, they understand the human body, the average trainer understands their body. And you could even put that into that reach out. I just want to be very, very clear that I'm not your average trainer. And especially if you were to reciprocate and you send them business, even if it's someone who doesn't necessarily need it, that could be a Christmas present. You go in for a session, pay for a session for a family member. 200 bucks. Yes, that's out of pocket, but that therapist is now wow. This person came in and saw me for 200 bucks. And then they also sent someone in that, they just gave me$400. Going back to what I said earlier about the client who pays me$3,200 per month, that was from a paid session that I did with a therapist who cost$750. If you look at that ROI, that client has been with me for three years. I spent$1,000 essentially to network with a therapist. And that therapist has sent me over$100,000 in return. That's significant. And it's not like I just take the money and run. I network with this therapist, Ray Groo, and we go out. We go to nice restaurants, I pay for everything. I give them envelopes and say, hey, here's a little Christmas bonus for you. Just I want to say thank you for our relationship. And he's very grateful because other therapists and other trainers don't do that. What are some thoughts or some questions? I know, Tori, you recently had a great uh similar situation with a therapist in your area. Why don't you talk a little bit about that experience and how that went?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that went really well. Um, I was not shocked, but just excitedly caught off guard with the fact that it went so well. Um, I've had some hip and knee issues on my left leg for probably like the past two years, and she was very quick to respond. And she wasn't very like she was she had a guard down, which is nice, so we can have like an interaction where I feel comfortable sending my clients to her. And I mentioned sending my clients to her, and she was like, Oh yeah, I'd love that. And she was like, even vice versa, I have clients that I can send to you. And it just it made me happy. I was like, Oh, thank goodness. So now I'm like, my first session is tomorrow. So now I'm just waiting, like, okay, I'm ready to send my clients, you know. But I have to get my first um session in. But yeah, it was really, really good.

SPEAKER_04:

The biggest complaint that a lot of trainers have, I don't know where to get clients. I don't want to go to an Equinox for Lifetime because they're taking half of my paycheck. I want to find clients and do it myself. Great. How are you gonna get those clients? This is a methodology that you can implement. If you were to do this to 10 therapists, you may be thinking, oh, that's a lot of money I'm investing. But all it takes for her is to send you one who's training with you three times per week. That paid for itself right there. The ROI on that is literally five to sometimes 10 plus. In my case, it's a hundred times. That's nuts. You can't be thinking like, oh, it's expensive. You have to be thinking this is an opportunity to do what other trainers are not doing. And all it takes is one good therapist, and they just start sending you a bunch, and you're like, holy crap, oh my God, I got some good issues now. I have so many people coming in. I got to hire a trainer. I better start thinking getting my my ducks in a row because I need to put an ad out there and I need to have someone who's gonna be working with me. Oh, oh shit, you got to have your SUF CPT because I don't want some random trainer working with my clients. I don't want you hurting these people because you're gonna mess up that brand that I have established with this therapist. So you need qualified coaches working with you. That's big thinking. Trainers, in my experience, don't think big. So start doing that. Put that on your vision board. How much money do you want to make? It's not all about making money, but you want to be able to have a living doing this. And you don't want to be scraping by where, oh I don't know if I'm able to make rent this month. You want to have good problems. Like, I need to hire two trainers and I have to hire a therapist. That's pretty crazy. I never thought that me, dumb old trainer over here, is gonna be hiring a physical therapist. That sounds crazy. Tori, that's something you're gonna be able to do. You're gonna be able to hire a physical therapist. How cool is that to think about that you will be interviewing someone whose credentials are significantly superior than yours?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, it's very exciting. And it's funny because I was thinking, um like she charges$185 a session. And I was like, if this goes well and you know, my cli it's successful for my clients, I'm like, I have to increase my prices like yesterday because what trainer that my my client told me that she was like, what trainers do this? Like that's so weird that you have a physical therapist, you have an RD. And it I it like kind of set in, and I was like, Oh my gosh, it was like an aha moment of like no, I have to, you know, increase my my my prices, I have to just level up my game, and it's just funny to think like your clients recognize it, but you know, it's just a cool experience.

SPEAKER_04:

It's almost like I know what I'm talking about. Yeah, huh? Yeah, yeah, because you also need to think about the other side where that patient with that therapist is paying 185. They see the value in that. And if you're charging 50 bucks, the clients can then be like, oh, that's it's kind of cheap. Well, maybe I should be charging low end 100 bucks, and my pricing now is 125 to 135. But if you invest 40 sessions, I'll give it to you for 100. And then out of that hundred, you take 5% and this 100 sessions, and you you bring it to your therapist and say, Hey, here's a little thank you for that last referral. And they're gonna be like, Wow, you gave me cash. That's nuts. Well, you know what? I'm gonna start sending you a lot more clients because I don't know where to send them after I'm done getting them out of pain.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. And I actually have a question. She has packages, so you can do like session by session, but she has packages of six um sessions and then packages for 10. So I guess how could I incorporate that her sessions into my packaging? So could I do like if you get 12 sessions per month, add one physical therapy session in there?

SPEAKER_04:

No, I think that I would just keep it as is. Your pricing is gonna be different just because the fact that people expect when you go to rehab, it's short term. And so that's why they have packages like six, 10, 12, usually not more than like 18, especially for cash-based. And so you could let your clients know that I highly, highly suggest for you to go to you know, Jackie, whatever her name is, to once a month. And it because you sign up for my packages, you know, you could have a conversation with her, take her out to dinner, you know, they get 10% off or they get 20% off. Whereas before, that client who's now with you, they typically wouldn't go back to that therapist. Therapists are typically trying to get new business. So now that they're with you, you make it like it's this is part of my retainer. I tell my clients once a month you need to go back to her. So if you have 10 clients that are all going to her every month, that's 10 people. That's another two grand essentially that she's making because you're pushing it. And it's not like you're pushing it in a sleazy way. We all know that if we went to a therapist regularly, I mean, look at you, Tori, perfect example. You've been bad on this for for two months, sorry, two years almost. Imagine if you were going to a therapist regularly, how much faster you'd have been out of pain.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, for sure. And that's what she said. She was like, I'm surprised it's been so long. And I'm like, Yeah, I've been kind of laying back on it, but now that I'm more focused on getting myself together.

SPEAKER_04:

Trainers and our ego, we're all there. We all have that discomfort. And but if you look at like seeing a therapist as like part of your expenses, and you just do it regularly and you know, go to different ones. It's fun because then you know this is a different technique over here. Oh, that's pretty cool. This is a different technique. I've met with some of the best therapists in the world, and every time I go, it's expensive, but I learn so much, and I come out of that with networking opportunities, and it's more of just like a hangout, it's not like there's pressure, like I'm saying you got to send me business. It's like, no, you know, my back is still a little jacked up. Can you? I want to see what you what you have to say. They give you some cool stuff, and when they're speaking their language, it's really cool because you can interpret it. When someone's talking about DNS dynamic neuromuscular stabilization and how they took this course and how it kind of helped them, but some of the stuff isn't 100% accurate, but you can take little pieces and you're like, oh, that actually made sense what you just said. That's pretty cool. And I want to try that. So the learning is fun, and it's interesting to me because the trainers who are struggling were not learning all the time. If you take that approach with what they'll say, like, you got to listen to the founders podcast. I love that one because it's just it's entrepreneurial. And if you take the approach that the first 10 years of your career is just learning, your mindset is just different because what trainers do now, you pass your textbook cert. It could be hard, it could be easy. If you listen to us, it's super easy. And you came across as too late. So I get it, you have to pass it. But then you go into an environment and you start training. Well, what are you currently learning right now? Oh, I'm just so busy with my clients. No, you got to schedule out on a Saturday or Sunday where you're when you're not training and be learning. And if you want to learn for free, go to those people I just talked to and take out words that you're not familiar with. I didn't, I don't, I don't know what those quad muscles are. Well, then you go and you type in what are the four quad muscles? And you write it down and you put it on a flashcard. Okay, what do those four quad muscles do? Where are they? Oh, I didn't know one of them was biarticulate, the rectus femoris. If you don't know how to say it, type it into the Google machine and then type in pronunciation and then learn how to say it. Oh, the semimembranosis is on the posterior side. The vastus lateralis is on the lateral anterior side. Wow, that's pretty cool. And you're building up your skills. 10 years of learning, the next 10-year block is when you're really gonna start earning. You learn, you earn, and then you get back and you return. That methodology, that process of getting into this career is gonna set you up for so much more success. Then I got to get the next textbook start, I got to get the next textbook start. What are some other things going through our mind? Questions? Anything?

SPEAKER_03:

Um, you know, I just got I had just got uh um connected with a personal trainer, like maybe like right before December or a little bit after. And uh I was telling him like what we've done in our shell fitness and that you like the scour test for the shoulder, and he was like really surprised that I knew that. And he was like, Yeah, trainers don't know that at all. And so he was like really happy to see that uh I I know my lane, and which was cool. So I haven't uh made an appointment with him yet, but I plan on doing it. Just I just haven't done it yet. But yeah, that's great. So that's been cool.

SPEAKER_04:

Awesome. Any other questions, Wendy?

SPEAKER_01:

After you do get in with uh uh PT um for your initial assessment, which I think is a great idea. Um how do you what what is your advice for trainers on how to get the most out of working with excuse me, working with the PT?

SPEAKER_04:

So Wendy, you're independent, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Correct.

SPEAKER_04:

And you have us you pay per hour or do you pay per month for your spot?

SPEAKER_01:

Um month per month.

SPEAKER_04:

And how much do you charge per hour?

SPEAKER_01:

65 in the new year.

SPEAKER_04:

So I reach out to a therapist, you go, you network with them, and you ask them and you say, Hey doc, who's your trainer? And what do you think they're gonna say?

SPEAKER_01:

I don't have one. I don't have one, great.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, you know, I just want to, it's the holiday, so I want to give you a complimentary session. Normally my rates are 75 per hour. We're not gonna be doing, I'm not gonna annihilate you. I just want to, it's almost like you're an amazing chef and you are great at making Italian food. I'm great at making pizza. So I want to show you how I make my pizza just so you have an idea of what my training is like. So then potentially in the future, if you have a client who you're seeing weekly, but they can really benefit from more, you know, strength and strength and conditioning and so forth. If you feel comfortable sending over to me, now you've tasted what my product is. And I know a lot of therapists are probably hesitant because they think trainer, they think bosu balls, they think rhabdomyasis, they think you're hurting people. I just want to show you that that's not me. It's gonna be a great session. What are some of the goals that you're working on right now, doc? I know I'm trying to grow my glutes. Awesome. We'll make it like a lower body specific workout. And worst case scenario, you don't want to work with me. That's fine. But at least you you know my style and you have a really good idea of what I'm producing out here.

SPEAKER_01:

I like that. I'm also going to do a PT internship with another clinic, and they already have training coaches there. Um, so what would you say? I think most of the people or all of the interns there are going to be um prospective uh PT clinicians. So, what would you say in terms of getting the most out of that sort of situation?

SPEAKER_04:

Blow away their expectations. So if they say you can shadow from you know eight to four, get there at 7:30, bring them coffee, just be a fly on the wall. Listen. If you need me to clean up anything, if you need me to do a load of laundry, let me know. Just go above and beyond because the the people who are there that are doing it for free or you get not getting paid enough or that much, they're gonna take a very minimalistic mindset. I'm gonna come in, I'm just gonna watch, and then I'm gonna leave. So if there's 20 people there or five people, whatever, you are doing so much more than everyone else, and they're gonna see you as like this is this is a this is a huge star right here. And I know a lot of these interns are gonna be going to DPT school in the fall. So I'm gonna start feeding you clients and maybe we bring you on the team. And you know, we we start thinking about a model where we start doing group classes because people can't afford the therapy long term. So if we get six ACL patients who are paying 25 bucks a month, or sorry, 25 bucks a session, and you are leading that, of which the therapist is giving you the playbook. Well, now that gym or that clinic uh is now generating revenue off of you. And that's that whole innovative strategies that you're bringing to the team. Because I guarantee you these other trainers are not doing that.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. Yeah, I like that big thinking. That's awesome. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04:

Anything else? Any other questions you guys have for today? If this is one of your first times here in the podcast, we always love it when you throw in that five-star review. If you've never sat in on a live class, now you have an idea of what it's like. So we have our videos on. Some of us do, some of us don't. But it's just uh, this is what mentorship's about. You get to ask questions. And here's an idea I have. What are your thoughts? And then we can help carve out the process so you can tackle those ants because a lot of us won't act on it. We have an idea, but we don't know who to talk to. So when you get involved in this community, you're able to ask questions while you're learning with the on-demand videos. Whether if you're getting your CPT and getting certified for life, you're doing your soft tissue certification, or if you're doing your nutrition certification, you get access to live calls. We have RDs in the new year. We're going to bring in a lot more therapists, so you'll get access to them as well. Just being in an environment that's getting you to think bigger, that's how you're going to set yourself up for success. Don't have any other questions, then I'll call her a day. And remember, Tori, big biceps are better than small ones and keep showing up.