Will AI Replace Personal Trainers? The Honest Answer

In this episode of the PT Launch Lab, Callum and Ryan tackle a hot topic: Artificial Intelligence in the fitness industry. From automated workout plans and chatbots to AI-powered coaching tools, is tech making trainers better—or replacing them?

We explore how AI is being used (and misused) in personal training, what tools are actually worth trying, and how real coaches can leverage tech without losing their personal touch.

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Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqp9Grs1rF0

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to the PT Lawrence Lab podcast. Make sure you like, subscribe. New videos coming every week, usually on a Saturday. So, this is sort of going to be a short one. We've got a couple of things that we want to talk about. So, first one I want to talk about is covering what's coming to us in terms of different options for the courses and some new CPD courses that might be available to you, and also what you might like to see. So, over across all of the courses that we've got going on right now, our payment options have changed a little bit. We're now offering Kleiner as a payment option. This is for you to do what you will and be able to get on the course with no trouble whatsoever and make sure that you can come with us and learn with us and grow with us. And from that, we're going to go on to the CPD courses as well. So we're looking at developing now CBD courses to follow on from your PT course and your PT Launch Lab course. This is going to be working in terms of client nutrition and programming and client programming for exercise. So all your different disciplines of exercise inside the PT Launch Lab and also client screening and consultation. These are all mini courses where you can pick up all the good details, all the good information, and how to plan and structure for your business.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Sweet, sweet, sweet, right? So let's go with the fun stuff then. So you've been waiting to talk about this for ages. I've asked him like since podcast one, if we can talk about AI. AI and how it's changed in the fitness industry, how it's already changed it previous to this and and what it's doing now and into the future.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Yeah, and it's a really interesting topic because obviously AI now is everywhere. It's in the front of everyone's faces, it's on the TV, it's taking over social media. And I use it every day. I use ChatGPT every single day as a tool to obviously refine the business. I might have questions that I need answered to learn and stuff like that. But there can also be a little bit of a downfall because what social media doing it is doing now is selling you stuff to try and say AI is going to take over all this and you've got nothing to worry about. And it's taking over the fitness industry quite a lot. And I think it's important just to go over these topics because as much as AI is going to be there as a tool, it is not going to replace in-person personal trainers and online coaches. Because again, as an in-person and personal trainer, the personal pit is the most important bit. I think emotional intelligence is important, but I think I'll let Ryan fire off with this.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Yeah, no, listen, I think I think AI is going to have good and bad things to the industry. I feel like, like you said, to be on hand all the time, especially if you're a new PT, the information's there for you to study, to research, and then to put to your clients. That being said, it's also available for the client itself. Whether how they interpret it could be different, and how you use information could be a lot more beneficial to them. So there, you've got a good and bad point for the same thing, uh, essentially. My main thing would be again, I know I I always refer back, but you've really got to be on top of it with your clients now more than ever. You've got to build a community and a relationship, something that they can't get with a computer. If not, if you're not at least trying to give them some sort of time limit on when you're trying to reply, again, human error or just life getting in the way can obviously deter where that time gap. But what I mean is if I'm starting work at five in the morning, right, and I wake up at three and I thought I had more oats left. If I if someone messages me to ask, oh, what can I have instead? I've only got these ingredients in my cupboard, I won't be awake. AI will. Yeah. AI doesn't sleep, right? So that's the thing that you we're competing against now. So there needs to be structure. There might need to be more options available. So where on my plan, I might have uh an alternative one. So even anything as small as that can sort of stop you hitting these stumbling blocks. Whereas the AI is always going to be on hand, it's always ready, it's it never sleeps. So that's the one thing we're competing against, it's smarter than all of us. The personal interaction and that human connection is what separates us from the machine.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Yeah, and I think what separates the PT business as a person to the AI. The I AI is really good at, you know, might be able to build workouts or refine nutrition plans, and it's very specific and it uses a lot of calculation. It takes a lot of human error away in terms of what we could do, and it takes a lot of time away. That's the bit where it can be really useful. So if I said I'm working with this client, they've got X amount of issues, here's a client consultation form. Can you build me a four-week program? And then you take away and modify it. Fantastic, done. What it doesn't do is when a client has some emotional and psychological barriers. So if they come to you and say, I'm, you know, I'm not really feeling this workout today. I've had a really rough day at work and stuff like this, and I don't really feel like I want to come here. It's not as if AI is going to be there to go, look, let's talk through this. You're that's what you're there for. And I think as a personal trainer, I think the biggest part of being a personal trainer is you are a part-time therapist in a way. Yes, your advice that you're giving is purely about bringing yourself to the gym and getting it done. But also they look to you to give them the answers to want to make that happen. So, again, going back to that example, if a client's got a particular issue with motivation that day, maybe they have had a little bit of a body image issue, maybe they wore something for work or wore something to go out and they felt really crap and they felt like nothing was gonna work, and all this is a waste of time. This is where you come in and where AI can't, because you are the emotional stronghold to that client saying, look, you're on the process, you've made this progress, you did really well last week, you're on the track, right? You're gonna have dips, peaks, and troughs. But this is the hard part. This is where a lot of people give up. This is where not to give up because the progress is there. AI can't do that, it can't be your emotional, you know, your emotional friend, your emotional therapist. What it can do is give you all logistics, you know, diet plan, stuff like that, like we mentioned. But I think that's where the split's gonna be. And I think everyone's worried about AI taking over everything, but there's a lot of stuff that it's not capable of doing.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

I believe the online PT, which is not involved, is which is gonna feel the crash the most. The ones that are selling you the courses that where you never need to interact with a client, you never even even need to meet them, and you can be making six figures. That part of the industry will crumble, I believe. Yeah, because without that personal connection, there you're only the same as the AI, yet less information. Yeah, I think the the floor PT lives on forever, long and prosperous. I think they always win. People who want that that personal tweet, people want to come in and someone don't want that accountability, they want you there to watch them lift that weight. No matter what, that AI cannot see you pushing the weight, pressing the weight.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

Yeah. I think if you're already an established online coach with online floor PT experience, I think you're gonna be okay. Anyone that's established in the industry is gonna be alright because people look to you as a brand, as a person, as a voice. If you're somebody who's got a social presence and you build up a little bit of community, I don't think you're gonna be touched that much because people like you. And I think with personal people want to work with you, not just your knowledge. And I think that's important for everyone to understand. How you build your personal brand is not about what you know up here, it's about who you are. People want to purchase something from you because they like you, and that's where AI is going to struggle for all these new coaches coming through now. And I see this all the time, you know, no one's really going through a certification process anymore and jumping straight onto online PT, and they think that's great, that's fine, but they've got no social presence, they've got no connection with these people. That is where, like, usually AI is gonna whiten.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

And and again, let's go from the flip side. I believe that AI will do a better job than some PTs. Like, and and and I think there's a place for everything in the market. I think some people who like to keep themselves to themselves, not really bothered about getting that connection or bond with a with a PT client. I think I think they'll they will thrive as well. I think that'll be absolutely fine. Yeah, with um with just the AI on their own. So I feel like it's just an addition to the community of people in the industry. So that doesn't mean you should do this or you shouldn't do that. Don't go to the floor, do it online, don't use AI, don't do this. I think everybody has their own way of doing it, preferred method, and that's absolutely fine as well.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Yeah, and I think not to put like we're not trying to scare monger saying you should be worried about this. I think if you're wanting to grow with this, because AI is not going anywhere, so we've got two options we grow with it, or we sit back and let and let it take over whatever you're doing. So don't be scared of it. Again, it's a fantastic tool. Like I say, I use it every single day. I use it to refine course materials sometimes, I use it to refine my own materials, how to plan my day. Like I use it in a as a tool to make more productive. If it makes you more productive, you're using it properly. If you're looking at it to answer questions and push you forward without you doing anything, this is where you're gonna fall behind. Because what can opposite can happen if someone just switches off AI one day and go, right, everyone keep going. Yeah, there's gonna be a lot of people who end up on their ass because the people are using AI way too much to get ahead in life. As soon as they turn that button off and they go, right, continue what you're doing. Everyone and a lot of people are gonna freeze.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

I just want to uh go on a little timeline now because obviously I've been in industry since none of this was available. So as I started, Facebook had only just become a thing, yeah. Which was the the AI at the time almost, so social media was only just become a thing. So I think that was 2009, I believe, when Facebook started.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

Do you remember the early days of Facebook when you used to uh send zone a framework and it used to post it? Yeah, yeah. I used to get reached for like remember when you had the school teacher and everyone just rinsed you.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Yeah. Or your mates come to get him to her. Yeah, so I've come from there, and that was a way, that was the only way online. So if you had I don't know, 200 friends, you only had 200 people to actually approach. If not, you had to be on floor PT asking uh Teresa on the treadmill if she wanted to train with you. So mate, yeah, I don't know where that name comes from. I don't know where that name's come from. But so it's obviously progressed in the right way. I think the way it is now, it's more it's a lot more widespread now, so it we can expand your business over a lot further, a lot faster, especially as well. Yeah, you can correct. Uh the social media is not always just now for friends, it's people who can be all over the world. Obviously, online that's massive, maybe not so much floor PT. Someone from Ireland's not going to train with you, but the online thing is you can literally the Horizon is huge, isn't it? You can you can train people all across the world as long as they're into you. But so going from that now, AI is obviously bigger than ever. What I think it might go into is almost a hologram as a PT. So starting from sort of the Facebook era all the way through to uh different social media platforms, Facebook groups, uh different social media sites. Now we've got AI that's doing almost everyone's programming or generating nutrition plans on on through their brand, things like that. To now I believe that there will actually be a hologram one day, or even at the very least, a person on your phone that's not real, who's giving you the instructions, so almost leads you to believe that it's someone. I mean, they're not trying to trick you that obviously, then they'll they'll say it's aye, but I I think that's what the the way we're going.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Have you seen the augmented reality glasses that Matt is developing?

SPEAKER_01 12:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

So that'll be the same thing. You put those in the other people to be inside a meeting.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Oh, you could be a month away from this, that's what I'm saying. Over over the next five years, I think right now what seems impossible is just gonna blow us away. And when it happens, if you think back to um 2020, say something if you if you'd have been told some of the stuff we've got now, you wouldn't believe it then. And I believe it's just getting quicker and quicker. The more the technology um progresses, I think it's speeding the whole process up completely.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

And I think the biggest piece of advice we can give is make sure you're saying please and thank you to the AI because when judgment day comes, they'll have a record of it. And if you're being a bit of a dickhead, you're gonna find out really quick. So please, thank yous, you know. Hello, how's your morning going? Make sure you're being really respectful because it will come back for you.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

And I think I think that's just about about most of what we wanted to cover on that. I mean, we could go into onto it forever. Um, I think AI's limitless. Like I said, I think we can't even actually put it into words or imagine just how big it's going to be. The metaglasses are a great example. I think um everybody in the UFC walked out nearly in the metaglasses. Yeah. How crazy is that? So I'd love to see a little video of it. There's been nothing released yet, which seems weird. Uh the order at weighing and stuff as well. But I'd like to I'd like to see the hologram thing. I'd like to see it for myself. You can be watching films. I think obviously can't be good for a human brain. Never actually in actual reality. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 14:07

So, yeah, it's um I think it's like a COVID bubble again, where you're doing everything you can to feel like you're part of the world. But I mean, it's just how the world's going. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

The maintenance you might as well accept where it's going, uh, try and enjoy it, use it for your own benefits. Obviously, don't let it completely take over your life, but um, it's coming no matter what, you can't avoid it, it's unavoidable. Uh, so you might as well see what tools you can use, get up to speed of it, use the technology as it is. Don't try and be too old school, move with the times in your PT uh journey 100%. If you're if you're not using the tools in someone else's, they've got the advantage massively on you. So I would recommend it. Make sure you always keep up to speed with it, whether it's new training methods, new CPD courses, anything like that. Try keep progressing. You don't want to get stood in the same place, or other people will pass you.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Absolutely. And we do cover AI uh a little bit in our PT Launch Lab course. It's a small little module of how you can utilize it purely for fitness-based stuff and you know, be able to upscale your business without it taking over. But yeah, thank you everybody for watching. Again, new videos every single week. Thank you, everybody. Like and subscribe, like and subscribe.