Career Path for Mind-Body Professionals
Are You Ready to Sell Your Fitness Business?
Are you thinking about selling your personal training studio or fitness business? Your business is probably your primary source of income, and selling it will mean you’ll lose that annual income but achieve a one-time capital gain. Are you prepared for that? IDEA member Toby Davis, senior adviser at Sun Acquisitions, Chicago, shares the following tips for anyone preparing to turn over the keys:
The Subtalar Joint: An Important Link in the Kinetic Chain
You may have noticed that many of your clients are blissfully unaware of just how much work the foot and ankle complex does—unless and until, of course, an ankle sprain or tendinitis occurs. The ankle “negotiates” ground reaction forces, informing the kinetic chain in numerous ways. Among other functions, the feet and ankles help the body adapt to uneven terrain through side-to-side movement (Price 2008).
Corporate Fitness Evolves
Employers are looking for partners to provide experiences and solutions in social, emotional, financial, family and career growth and well-being,” says Grace DeSimone, national group fitness director with Plus One Health Management, an Optum company, in New York City. Companies are also embracing mindfulness, meditation and virtual solutions for telecommuting employees, according to DeSimone. All these changes represent an evolution from programs aimed primarily at improving physical health and controlling healthcare costs.
Center of Attention: 4 Strategies for High-Intensity Mental Training
Ours is a world wired for distraction. Online information and social media constantly compete for our attention, thwarting efforts to focus on a single goal. The results are scattered thoughts, shorter attention spans and a rewiring of our brains, all of which prevent us from performing at our very best in whatever we do. For many of us, multitasking—focusing on several targets at once—may seem like the obvious solution. However, performance generally decreases in multitaskers by as much as 40% (Schwartz & Goldstein 2017).
Get Your Business Out of Debt in Three Steps
What if you walked into your facility tomorrow and everything was paid off?
What if there were
no weight equipment or treadmill payments due;
no payments due for a rubber floor or a state-of-the-art sound system; and
no loan bills due—that is, no bank requesting its piece of your pie plus interest?
What if instead of paying the bills (aka “your debts”) every month, you could put all that money into a savings account and begin to build true wealth? Does this sound like a fairy tale?
Where Your Career Goes From Great to EPIC
The IDEA World Convention means a lot of things to different people. For some, it’s primarily about updating their skill sets and knowledge to maintain a competitive edge. For others, the connections and relationships they build at the fitness event are priceless in advancing their careers and enriching their lives. Whatever stands out for each individual, one thing unites allIDEA World attendees: an intense desire to create a career that thrives.
Making Connections That Boost Career Success
Creative Ideas That Inspire
KONGA®, at Funk & Twist Fitness in Basingstoke, England, is a high-intensity offering that incorporates elements of boxing, cardio, dance and sculpt. The program vibe is fierce and wild, and sessions are set to upbeat music designed to inspire and motivate. The class is updated each month with fresh choreography so that participants don’t become bored or hit fitness plateaus. It’s appropriate for all levels, from beginners to seasoned fitness enthusiasts.
9 Simple Ways to Keep Your Clients
The success of your business relies solely on your ability to attract and keep clients. Use these tips to enhance the client-trainer relationship so that you can focus more on providing quality service to your current clients and less on finding new ones.
Social Media Contributes to Body Image Pressure
Body image issues in the fitness industry are nothing new. But the need for a more positive philosophy and more diverse perceptions of beauty is especially relevant right now. With rising competition from fitness technologies, social media stars who plug fitness, TV trainers and an increasingly crowded marketplace within our own communities, a nice body can (and should) only get you so far in this industry. We need to emphasize qualifications more than we already do.
Signs the Fitness Industry Has a Body Image Problem
Expectations about body image in the fitness industry crop up in different ways for different people. Some fitness pros ruminate about body image quite often (every day or even every hour), perhaps taking extreme measures to alleviate concerns. Others never really give it that
much thought.
How to Compete Against Discount Clubs
You’ve worked long and hard to get your fitness facility off the ground, and while you’re doing okay in your community, you’ve noticed some of your membership base trickling away. Upon further investigation, you realize that while you’ve had your nose to the grindstone, managing your facility and planning for growth, a discount club has opened up not far from you. Not only that, but a handful of specialty boutique studios have carved out some market share. Where do you fit in, and what can you do to keep your place?
7 Keys to Creating an Unforgettable Onboarding Experience
Do you want to strategically and consistently educate and motivate your new clients so they feel like they’re getting incredible results—and so you’re getting a steady flow of referrals and earning positive social proof? Are you ready to not just deliver but over-deliver? If your answer is yes, then one of your most important next moves is to create a step-by-step onboarding process.
Learn, Connect and Thrive at the IDEA® World Convention
Education is the foundation of the IDEA World Convention, but this fitness event offers plenty more than stellar instruction. For Jonathan Bernath, publicist-turned-personal-trainer, it’s where he discovered the “fitness family” that would guide him in his new career.
Special Benefits of Group Exercise
Group fitness instructors may also want to approach medical schools with an offer to provide exercise classes for medical students. To support a pitch, refer to a recent nonrandomized controlled study in The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association; it found that, for medical students, group exercise can reduce stress and improve physical, mental and emotional quality of life more than training alone or not engaging in any exercise program.
Firefighter Fitness Status
A health promotion opportunity for fitness professionals may lie in working with local firefighters. A longitudinal study of fitness-level changes among firefighters found that while they significantly improve health and fitness measures during firefighter training, many lose a lot of those gains as active-duty firefighters. Physical training is no longer mandatory once firefighters have completed their academy education.
Programming to Prevent ACL Injury
Your new client, 16-year-old Alexis, is a competitive athlete who wants you to design a fitness program that will help her prevent a second anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear. She partially tore her ACL while playing soccer and rehabbed it with a physical therapist, who cleared her to play again. Alexis returned to spring softball without an issue, but she would like to be as fully prepared as possible for the upcoming fall soccer season. She hopes to be recruited to play in college, but her parents are concerned she will sustain another ACL injury, perhaps a more severe one.
Spotting the Food Industry’s Influence on Nutrition Research
The food industry has an inherent conflict of interest when it funds
nutrition research. After all, food manufacturers’ livelihoods rise and fall on how we decide to consume calories. The industry’s deep pockets translate into influence over dietary experts, scientific studies and nutrition policymakers.
Green Exercise: How It Benefits You
Here’s a look at what the latest findings tell us about why you may want to incorporate green exercise into your programs.
Simplicity Steers Success
client: Jennifer | personal trainer: John Parker | location: San Diego
Keeping it simple. Every day it seems there’s a new supplement, food plan or training program that purports to produce unparalleled results. But all of these choices can make it difficult for clients to make wise choices and remain consistent in their approach. That was the problem faced by Jennifer, a florist and part-time kickboxing instructor, and it’s why she reached out to San Diego–based personal trainer John Parker, CSCS.
How to Find Your Epic
The fitness industry is a rewarding and inspiring place to be. However, it’s not without its challenges, and getting ahead with passion alone can be difficult. The most successful fit pros know that to build an epic life and career, they must invest in education and learn from those who’ve been there and done it.
