Best Gyms For Personal Trainers to work at | Life Time vs Equinox

Picking a gym is not a vibe check, it’s a career decision. We build a March Madness bracket of the best places to get hired as a personal trainer in the United States and tell you what the bracket is really measuring: income potential, quality of clients, coaching “reps,” interview standards, and how fast you can grow from new trainer to highly paid professional. If you’ve ever wondered why some trainers struggle to break past low session rates while others climb into premium training fast, the answer is often environment. 

We compare budget-friendly, high-volume gyms like Planet Fitness and LA Fitness with higher-end clubs where clients expect more and pay more. We talk real numbers on session pricing, why 30-minute training models (EOS, Anytime, and similar clubs) can sharpen your coaching quickly, and why improving brands like Crunch can be a strong stepping stone. Then we put the two giants head-to-head: Lifetime versus Equinox, including how scheduling and weekly hours can impact your first-month income and your ability to stay in the industry long enough to build a book of business. 

We also share a practical challenge: aim for the best gym you can realistically access in your market, especially in major fitness hubs, and surround yourself with strong trainers so your standards rise. If you’re serious about turning fitness into a profession, hit play, share this with a trainer friend who’s job hunting, and subscribe and leave a review so more coaches can find the path faster.

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Transcript

Welcome And The Gym Bracket

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Howdy all welcome back to the show of this podcast, helping you better determine where you should go and train if you want to turn your passenger fitness into a career. We are listing the top eight gyms. March Madness, baby. We are going to help break down the best places for personal trainers to get hired. SUFCPT has helped thousands of trainers get hired across the globe. This is specific to the United States. You see a little blue asterisk over here. These are high volume, low price entry points. So the training is not going to be nearly expensive. Planet Fitness anytime, EOS as well as LA Fitness. Ones that just missed a cut the last four out. Orange Theory, Texas Fit, Good Life, Genesis. Genesis would be more Midwest, Good Life, more South and East Coast. Orange Theory is everywhere. Super easy to get hired there with a small group base, though. Let's start off by breaking down the bracket. The number one seed, Lifetime Fitness, 185 plus locations. Number two seed, Equinox. Very close competitor. Maybe 10 years ago, Equinox would have got that one seed. Number three being Crunch. Number four, anytime Fitness Five EOS. Number six, 24 hour. Seven, LA Fitness, eight, Planet Fitness. So for the first matchup, one versus the eight, rarely do you see that eight seed showing up. Lifetime is gonna blow them out. Lifetime fitness, just a better environment. People can charge up$200 per hour as a person. That means you're taking home over 50% of that. Whereas Planet Fitness, you're looking at maybe$25 to$50 per session. You get a lot of reps, sure. But as the trainer, you're not gonna be taking home a lot. Let's move down here to the two and the seven. Kind of the same thing with Equinox and LA Fitness. EQ is going to blow them out of the water. Nothing wrong with an LA Fitness, but as a trainer, you're gonna be bringing home a lot more. Interesting note when we look at a Planet Fitness and also LA Fitness, you are gonna be getting hired there super, super easy. You just got to show up, bring your resume, drop it off. They don't check anything, they just need bodies. You can gain a lot of experience in that first year, and then you could apply to the equinoxes and lifetimes, unless you have your SUF CPT because you can get hired on the spot because they want competent, qualified coaches. Moving in number three, Crunch versus 24. Now, 10 years ago, 24 would be on that three line, but 24 is going down significantly. Just the quality of the gyms, not the best. You have a better opportunity at Crunch to make more money. Crunch is going to move into the Final Four versus Equinox, and then that dreadful matchup, that four versus the five seed Anytime versus EOS. Anytime has over 2,000 gyms worldwide. EOS north of 200. These eight gyms on the list all have at least a hundred gyms nationally. In the case of anytime worldwide, EOS is the up-and-coming team. They are doing great. Love their gyms. They're buying gold gyms. They are growing significantly. If you have an opportunity to train at EOS, they are 30-minute sessions, as is Anytime and LA Fitness. You're just gonna get a lot more reps, a lot more challenging to program. So you're gonna have to use a CCA, probably two rounds, maybe not three full circuits. It's a lot more challenging because the clients are paying anywhere from 50 to 100 bucks a session and they want to get their asses kicked. You're just gonna learn different skills working at those gyms as a trainer. Lots of opportunity to get those reps in, but we're gonna move on to the final four: the one versus the five. This is gonna be high-end training versus 30-minute training, and lifetime is gonna move into the championship game. Kind of similar down here, we have an Equinox versus a Crunch. Crunches are great, high sales environment. They are improving significantly. As I said, when you compare them to like 24, I would put Crunch in the top four best gyms to work at in the United States as a personal trainer, but Equinox is still going to win. The gyms are nicer. I believe the clientele is better when you look at lifetime in Equinox when it comes to that final championship game. Very, very similar. 185 gyms, over 110, 15 gyms. They're primarily in the US. We got a couple in Canada, we have a couple in the UK. Very high-end feel. Memberships cost about$200 for that month. Training is very similar, about$150 to$200 per session. The max at Equinox is that Coach X. You got a coach, Coach Plus, and then an X trainer, they charge about$180. Lifetime, you can charge whatever you like. That's why I prefer Lifetime. And lifetime is going to win the best place where you can be get reps as a trainer and really turn your passion for fitness into a career. Am I a little biased? Yes, I don't work for lifetime, but they have better gyms. The trainers are overall better as well because of the interviewing process. At Equinox, they're going to do a phone interview, and then you come in. Hi, how are you doing? Oh, you look great. Do you know how to program? Sure, let's bring you on. Lifetime, they're at least going to put you through the ringer. You have to train someone. So, my challenge for you, if you want to really turn this into a career, you want to go work at the best gyms. Lifetime has the best gyms, they have the best trainers. You're going to be surrounding yourself with the elite of the elite. Yeah, we have a partnership with Lifetime. We do two, three seminars per month. Upper body soft tissue, lower body soft tissue, help trainers level up so they can go from that 130, 140 to 180, 200 plus. We do have a partnership with them, but we're not getting paid yet. Maybe one day we will be sponsored by their amazing company because they got great supplements and they got a lot of money to throw around. But Equinox is going down, lifetime is going up. If you had a chance to interview it both, I would go at Lifetime. But if you do not have a lifetime around you, Equinox is fine as well. You can really grow up there. We've had the number one trainer at lifetime. Ready for more? The number one trainer at Equinox, the number one trainer at Crunch. We've helped hundreds of people get hired at any time. EOS, you start out as a level two trainer there. So you really just have to ask yourself, what is around me in the biggest cities in the nation? You're looking at Dallas and Austin and Houston, San Diego, San Francisco, LA, New York, Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, all of those big hubs have a lifetime. I would go there. If you get your SUF CPT, you go to the top of the list. We will set you up with a recruiter. You're going to get in for that interview and you're going to be fast tracked to a career where you start getting paid more. Another negative thing with Equinox, you only get about 10 to 15 hours per week. At lifetime, you're getting 40. So that first month, which is usually the worst month, you're not going to be making nearly as much. At Equinox, you're going to get maybe 500 bucks, maybe. At least at lifetime, you could be making a couple grand. So you have that foundation to really take off. You got to remember 70,000 new trainers enter the workforce every year. Most of them get a textbook certification. Stay tuned for the next bracket buster, the best certifications for personal trainers, so you can stick around for a year and turn your pastoral fitness into a career. And remember, big biceps are better than small ones and keep showing up.