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Grow Your Business: Serve Low-Income Markets

Do you believe that fitness is for everyone? Do you struggle to accommodate people who can’t afford to work with you? You may be so passionate about reaching everyone that you volunteer in the trenches, speak at service clubs, host health fair booths and support charitable runs. In addition to sharing your goodwill, you can build a thriving business while serving a low-income market. In fact, you can be wildly successful, make money and have a significant positive impact.

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Sample Class: Cardio Brain Fitness

Cardiovascular exercise comes in two flavors: mindless and mindful. Why not layer cognitive tasks into your class design to train the brain as well as the body? Help participants meet the rigors of everyday life by adding mental challenges that also enhance balance, reaction time and agility.

Class Details

Total Time: 45 minutes
Format: low-impact cardio
Equipment Needed: none, except a positive attitude
Music: 115-135 beats per minute (depending on abilities)

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Whole-Body Training: Warding Patterns

Basketball players

Observing sport is a great way to appreciate human structure and function. High-level athletes teach us a lot about optimal performance—and even dysfunction. Watching skilled athletic movement at the collegiate or professional level stimulates us to ask questions and scrutinize our existing training methods. This article identifies a need to introduce warding patterns as part of a well-balanced training and conditioning program. Practicing warding patterns elicits adaptations that are authentic to our physiology and can transfer to sports and daily activities.

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Taking Social Media Marketing to the Next Level

You’re already an active blogger, and you’ve got hundreds of Facebook fans and TwitterTM followers. You consistently post relevant, informational updates and messages. You encourage feedback, and you foster conversations among your followers. Your clients are engaged and enthusiastic.

But you feel you’re in a bit of a rut, or you see that your audience isn’t really growing. Now is the time to mix in other social media tools and tactics.

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Increasing Professionalism In and Out of the Studio, Part 1

Whether you teach one indoor cycling class or provide individual training to 40 clients per week, as a fitness professional and business owner you are a leader in your community. Leaders inspire change in their clients, their colleagues, their employees and their community. By developing your leadership skills?regardless of your role in the fitness industry?you can inspire others to lead as well, and take action to improve the world around you.

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How to Invent, Market and Sell a New Product

Have you ever had a great idea for a new product, but not known how to get it from your head to the marketplace? We tapped into the genius of top fitness industry entrepreneurs to see how their ideas evolved into viable, successful products—and how yours can, too.

Fill a Need [subhead]
The market is saturated with fitness products and gadgets that often end up on eBay® before they’re even out of their original packaging. Before you begin making your idea a reality, you need to consider how this product will fill a hole in the market.

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The Anatomy of an Effective Outsourcing Plan

When you decided to become an independent exercise entrepreneur, you had a core focus and a vision of how you would help your clients. But overnight you also became the accountant, janitor, customer service department, blog writer, fitness manager and CEO—all rolled into one.

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Your Fishmonger: A Health Asset

When was the last time you used the term “fishmonger?” Never, you say? Well, you’ve got company: Perhaps a handful of foodies can use the word meaningfully in a sentence, which is a shame considering the expertise it takes to become one of this rare breed. Now is a perfect opportunity to become familiar with the term—and the skilled people it represents—for the sake of your health and the planet’s well-being.

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Going Gluten-Free

Drew Brees does it. So does the entire Garmin-Transitions pro cycling team. Novak Djokovic went as far as crediting his U.S. Open tennis win to going gluten-free. Gluten has captured the attention of the sports world and many are getting rid of it to gain an athletic advantage.

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Our Best 30 Lessons in 30 Years

If we had it to do all over again, there wouldn’t be much we would change, if anything. We, and IDEA, have come to this exact moment in time as a sum of all the parts, moments, people and happenings—both amazing and sometimes not so great—that have happened on our journey since we founded IDEA.

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United We Stand

It’s unlikely Joseph Pilates would have imagined today’s multifaceted Pilates scene with its army of variously trained instructors reaching around the globe, teaching in a multitude of settings and embracing nearly as many styles as there are instructors. No wonder unity has been a central issue for a community that wants to retain the key…

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Client Challenges on IDEA FitnessConnect

You are excited about helping your clients adopt healthy behaviors and achieve new goals. However, as you know, making changes can be really difficult! The more you do to set up clients for success, the better. Issuing fun challenges can help them get and stay motivated to exercise and eat healthfully. With that in mind,…

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Group Fitness Must-Haves

Thirty years ago there was really just one option in group fitness: high-impact aerobics. Now, as IDEA Health & Fitness Association turns 30, there are many wonderful choices. It’s impossible to list the current top 30. Here, we review some of the programs that are enticing people into the world of group exercise. From the…

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30 Ways to Make More Money: Win the Leverage Lotto!

You don’t observe, research and report about the fitness industry for close to four cumulative decades without learning a thing or two about profit centers and revenue streams. As IDEA’s editors, we’ve read and shepherded countless articles from the best minds in the industry. Back in January, we cooked up this feature story to celebrate…

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Honoring the 2012 IDEA Award Recipients

Every year IDEA recognizes top professionals in three categories: IDEA Program Director of the Year, IDEA Fitness Instructor of the Year and IDEA Personal Trainer of the Year. Award recipients are veteran fitness pros who strive for excellence, show an outstanding commitment to their clients and communities, and spread their passion for fitness across the globe. Recipients will be celebrated at the IDEA World Fitness Convention™ this July, along with screen and fitness legend Jane Fonda, who will accept the IDEA Jack LaLanne Award.

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