How to network with a DPT | Personal Trainers building TEAMS

A physical therapist can be the difference between being “just another trainer” and becoming the coach doctors actually trust. We kick off with a real question from Wayne in Alaska: he found a promising DPT partner, but he’s early in the relationship and doesn’t have clients to refer yet. So how do you grow that connection so you’re the first trainer they think of when a patient needs strength training, return-to-sport work, or long-term accountability?

We get blunt about why most PTs hesitate to refer to personal trainers: they hear injury stories tied to messy programming, and they see coaches who can’t speak basic anatomy or pain science. We walk through what “competence” looks like in the real world: knowing core movement patterns, understanding common shoulder and knee issues, and communicating like a professional while staying in your lane on diagnosis. If you want premium personal training clients and a serious referral network, you have to sound safe and credible.

Then we share the exact outreach approach that consistently opens doors: DM over email, reference their work, follow up with a call, and show up with coffee. We also explain why paying for a PT assessment yourself can be the smartest “networking” move you’ll ever make, plus how to offer shadowing, bring thoughtful questions, and even train the therapist to demonstrate your program design. The bigger takeaway: stop asking for clients and start building a team of trusted pros around you.

If this helps, subscribe, share it with a trainer friend, and leave a review so more coaches can build better PT relationships.

Want to become a SUCCESSFUL personal trainer? SUF-CPT is the FASTEST growing personal training certification in the world!

Want to ask us a question?  Email info@showupfitness.com with the subject line PODCAST QUESTION to get your question answered live on the show!

Website: https://www.showupfitness.com/
Become a Successful Personal Trainer Book Vol. 2 (Amazon): https://a.co/d/1aoRnqA
NASM / ACE / ISSA study guide: https://www.showupfitness.com

Transcript

The ROI Of PT Relationships

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I've invested$700 per hour to work with some of the top physical therapists in the world. I've gotten referrals from them that have generated more than$100,000 worth of business. I laugh because when you look at that, it's like, okay, you spend maybe$2,000 and that's your return? Holy shit, that is a no-brainer. Double down now. 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. Howdy, y'all. Welcome back to the Show Up Fitness Podcast. Today we're going to help you get a physical therapist, the real DPTs of the world, on your team. This comes from a comment on the qualified personal trainers community within the Facebook group. Make sure to join that sucker. Great conversations, linking up with qualified trainers all throughout the globe. Mr. Wayne, he's in Alaska. I have a potential PT to bring on my team. I've already talked to him and we're going to start working out together and referring clients to one another. But the relationship is still at the beginning stage, and I don't have any clients right now on my own to refer to him. So everything is very mutual. How have some of you all grew and developed that trainer to PT relationship so that when the time comes, I'm the first person he thinks of at the right time? Great initiative right there, Mr. Wayne, by showing up and linking up with the DPT. And I know for a fact that he linked up with you because you are a smart cat. You have your SUF CPT. We've been to over 25 lifetimes, 400 trainers we've helped coach with our level two seminars. We're going to be in Chicago, we're going to be in Toronto. We'll be in Austin, Miami in the months to come. Our partnership has grown to two seminars per month. And I survey trainers, and these are some of the best trainers in the world. 4,000 at Lifetime, 4,000 at Equinox. And I've interviewed a lot of them. At lifetime, 10%, less than 1% have a physical therapist on their team. These are trainers that don't have the confidence yet to be charging 150, 200, 250 per session. That confidence will come when you get a physical therapist on your team. You need to be competent first off. One of the first things we do during the seminar soft tissue, tell me the 14 muscles around the knee, 17 muscles around the shoulder. The reason we're doing this is I'm mioging you. Wax on, wax off. So when the time comes, you know how to perform. I'm not saying you go and link up with a therapist and say, hey, let me tell you the 14 muscles of the knee, but you need to have your bearings of anatomy because they are well versed in it. And if they say something like a slap tear or a torn labrum or your client has adhesive capsulitis and you go, What is that? I thought upper cross syndrome is bad. They're going to look at you and be like, in their head, you're a fucking idiot. I'm not going to refer people to you, but they're just going to smile and say, oh, okay. And then they're going to explain it to you, but they're never going to send you clients. Most therapists look at trainers in a negative regard, rightfully so, because a lot of people get injured and have to go to physical therapists. And they tell the therapist how they got injured. Oh, I was doing a clean impress followed by a front squat at 80%. I had a client come to me and tell me that. I was like, wow, why the hell were you doing that? Most trainers have never had their programming analyzed by a professional. And they use their experience as a badge of honor. I've been a trainer for 10 years at this gym. I know what I'm doing. I'm not on my high horse over here saying you don't, but we are not competent in the basics. Physical therapists have to get an undergrad in kinesiology, biology, some type of medical aspects in science, and then they do a three-year internship to get their DPT. That's three years where they're learning from professors in the trenches, working with patients, but they have someone observing them saying, first off, this is how you do it. Now let's practice it. And then when you work with a patient, I'm going to show you first, and then you can do it while I observe. That's the process with beginning your petition and becoming a hairstylist. You have to go to a school and you learn and then you practice with supervision, with personal trainers. Reread a fucking textbook, and now you're excited to put your now some CPT in your bio thinking that you're qualified. All that shows me is that you are new to the industry and you are fucking clueless. And I'm sorry, a bunch of people probably got pissed off of me saying that, but it's the truth. If we want to be respected, we have to mimic what the respected professionals are doing. Internships, hands-on learning, mastering the basics, core movement patterns, being able to say, oh, the rotator cuff muscles, superspinatus, infraspinatus, terris minor subsapularis. I had a client that came in, they couldn't get their hand overhead. Now I can't diagnose because that's not in my lane. I suspect it's probably some type of rotator cuff tear because they can't lift their hand off their low back, but that's why I referred them to you. And that's why I showed up today because I want to make sure that my programming is appropriate and there's no contraindications. Hey, Doc, I'm sure you're aware that most trainers read a simple textbook like NASAM ACE ISSA, mind you, who are owned by billion-dollar investment companies. They're just marketing to get in front of people and they just train doing stability ball squat curl presses. They don't have the background that I do. I went through a great internship. I have my SUF CPT, my test. I had to talk through programming, name muscles of the body, 17 muscles around the shoulder, 20 of the lower body. And I had to do it within a respected time period because that's exactly what I have to do when I'm training people. You may be thinking, I just gave you a script. Why is he just saying these random things? Because that's how I start my conversations with physical therapists. Because I know in their head they're thinking, this trainer has no idea what the fuck they're doing. So I need to nip that in the bud by letting him know that one, I'm reaching out professionally. I don't say, yo, yo, what's up? How's it going? So hello, Dr. Name. You had a great last post talking about A, B, C, and D. For example, I just reached out to a physical therapist. He was talking about a meat approach and how it's superior than ice and rice, because we've heard of rice, rest, ice, compressed eleven. I really liked what he was saying. So I reached out to him on social media, Dr. Name. I really like your page. Awesome stuff specifically to this post. My name is Chris. I teach personal trainers. I would love to get you on our podcast. It's one of the top performing podcasts in the fitness industry in the 1%. What times would work for you, Doc? I will work around your schedule. I will pay you your hourly rate. Trainers don't offer that. So if you're looking to link up with a physical therapist, DMing is probably superior than sending an email. That's the new trend today. People are more likely to look at a DM than read an email. After this podcast, I'm going to look at my email. I'm probably going to have 20. And I will delete 19 of them really, really quick because I don't like having a bunch of numbers in my email. Most professionals will probably do the same. So reach out on social media and then you follow up with a call. Hello, my name is Chris. I'm a trainer in the area. I send a message to Dr. Whoever. I would love to stop by and introduce myself and bring the office some coffee. When would be a great time to do that? I would suggest doing that, but also going a step further and paying for an assessment. Yes, it's going to be a couple hundred dollars. You can use your insurance if you would like, but you got to go to your doc to get some issue that's wrong with you. So if you pay and do a cash-based approach, you are investing and they're seeing that you are paying, but the intent isn't to network. Yes, it's in the back of your head, but it's to show that you will invest. So you go through the assessment, you showcase that you are competent because there's going to be a conversation that comes up. What do you do? I'm a trainer. Oh, wow, that's pretty cool. Do you have a lot of trainers reaching out to you trying to network to improve their skills? Maybe there's an opportunity for me to shadow with your clinic. I would be more than happy to dedicate 10 hours per week. You do not have to pay me, but I just want to be present around movement experts and pain experts such as yourself. Give them compliments. And then I would go out and find a family member or a friend and send them to the therapist. So that's two investment opportunities. So let's say it's 200 for the initial assessment, and you get someone else to go in, another two on ours. That$400, oh my God, it's so expensive, will yield so much in return because trainers don't do that. That's exactly why it will. A, trainers will not go with their clients to observe a session. B, they won't reach out to therapists. But if they do, C, it's going to be take, take, take. I want some of your clients. But when you look through their lens, I cannot, I literally cannot tell you how many therapists I've communicated with that will say, most of my business comes from personal trainers. Let that fucking sit in for a second. There are thousands of trainers, millions in the world. More than 70,000 new ones come in every year in the States. They read a book and they train people how they think they're supposed to train. Anecdotally, what worked for them. They don't know movement patterns. They sure as hell don't know the biopsychosocial model of pain, how to assess clients who have pain, what's going on if they can't get their arm above their head. That's the things that we teach you within show up in the soft tissue cert that we offer, but how to link up with therapists. Because it is a gold mine. When you have that initial conversation, the therapist will look at you and be like, Oh, you're pretty sharp. You knew what this muscle was. I'm impressed. And then you say, Hey, doc, who's your trainer? They don't have one. If you're a trainer at Equinox for Lifetime, get them a day pass and take them through a full hour workout. Normally I charge 150. I'm not going to charge you. Because really, what I want to do is just make sure that our relationship is going to work and we mesh. But number two, I want you to realize that I'm not your typical trainer. I have a system behind my programming. And more times than not, the therapist makes, oh, that was a great workout. I really liked your program design. Where'd you learn that? And they're going to want to work with you and they can afford working with you, but you can use that as a barter. And at the end, you sit down, you have coffee, take them to lunch, happy hour, and you find out where their pain points are. Because we are professionals together. We're in the front line of defense, helping people move better, get out of pain, and lose weight. Doc, what are some of the struggles that you find as a physical therapist? What's your biggest stressor? Where do you want to be three to five years from now? If it is insurance-based, it's probably not at that spot. And they're going to tell you, I want to open up my own clinic, but right now I have so much in student debt. I have a fear that I'm going to fail. You're just going to learn that a lot of these other professionals have the same fears that you do. And that's why we do our breakouts during the seminars, day two, we do a swift analysis. Because what that does is it normalizes the natural fears that every person has. Fear of failure. I'm going to disappoint my parents. I'm not good enough. I can't do it. What if I fail? Those are all things that you're going to hear. And now you have a therapist saying it. Maybe they do have the money, but they don't have the confidence to do it. So they say, you know what, you're really smart. You're asking great questions. I saw you train. Holy crap. I have a client right now, Beth, and she has a jacked up shoulder. She's finishing up her treatment plan with me. I'm going to send her to you and I'm going to touch base with her in a month from now. And if she liked the whole process, I would love to open a business with you. I would love to start sending you more clients. Without a doubt, those are the conversations that are going to come up. And the more that you give, give, give to the process, take them out to lunch. Let them know. I want to learn more about adhesive capsulitis, frozen shoulder. I want to learn more about the rehab process, the prehab process when it comes to ACL injuries. What are some of the contraindications when it comes to an Achilles that is 14 months post-op? So you ask some of these questions, they're going to give you the information and let them know I'm not going to start treating patients. No, but I just love to learn and I don't want to go get a stupid fucking corrective exercise certification because they don't do anything. Follow Doc Farnsworth. He's been doing a lot of great stuff, kind of slamming corrective exercise because it's not optimal. He got into the whole history behind FMS and how we are under-prescribing load and we're essentially doing more harm than good because our clients aren't moving and feeling better. Pain is not going down, it's increasingly getting worse. So when you have that conversation with the doc, they're going to be like, you know what? It's actually really enjoyable to talk with you. It's like, and you're going to hear this a lot too. They'll be like, you know, you're smarter than a lot of my coworkers. Or I've met with a lot of therapists, and then, you know, you're not giving yourself a lot of credit because you are really, really great. I always say, doc, I'm just a dumb trainer. And I they kind of look at me like, no, you're, you're like really, really good. And I would actually trust you with a lot of my patients, whereas I wouldn't trust a lot of my coworkers. That's understanding the game. And you have those conversations, but you let them know that they're the expert with that and you have a lane and you refer out. Soft tissue helps with downregulating the nervous system. It's not an end-all cure all. Well, all of a sudden you get an infer spinatus and pain is gone. No, we're not simplifying it. It allows for the client to come and train because we can do a lot as competent coaches. So when you start taking that therapist through workouts, like I said, they could start training with you regularly, but you could leverage that as a barter. If you come to my gym at lifetime and I get you in a day pass and I train you once a week, when opportunities present themselves, I would love for that mutual referral. And then you work with them for a month or two. And if nothing happens, you find another one. And you just keep on going up the chain. I've invested$700 per hour to work with some of the top physical therapists in the world. I've gotten referrals from them that have generated more than$100,000 worth of business. I laugh because when you look at that, it's like, okay, you spend maybe$2,000 and that's your return. Holy shit, that is a no-brainer. Double down now. Find a cool strength coach, physical therapist. Find a physical therapist who works more with prenatal, postnatal. Find one who's more running specific. Get four or five on your team. That's thinking bigger, not going in saying, give me clients, give me clients because it's so hard. You know, Doc, I'd love to have monthly meetings. We go to dinner, my treat, and we just brainstorm on how we can better improve the industry and how we can better serve our clients. And then you bring great thought-provoking questions. They're gonna enjoy being around you because you're smart. You've gotten through this podcast. You haven't turned it off. Now, belt buckle trainer's an asshole. I'm a great trainer with my NAS on CEO, BES, and all these stupid acronyms in my bio. No, you are smart. You are leveling up your career by surrounding yourself with the best trainers, therapists, registered dietitians, massage therapists, psychologists. Build your team and you will become successful. I guarantee it. See y'all in Chicago, Toronto, Texas, Austin, Miami, Los Angeles, the 15th and 16th of May. Remember, big biceps are better than small ones, and keep showing up.