Fitness Trainers. Get Your Work Life Balance Back!

Written by Daniel Harvey, Co-founder & Chief Revenue Officer at Passion.io

A Day In The Life Of A Fitness Trainer

Beep beep beep. . .

You rub the sleep from your eyes. Rollover, and look at your phone. Its blinking light illuminates the time.

4.02 am.

You need to see your first client in an hour. Just enough time for a quick, and very strong coffee, breakfast (if you’re lucky), and your commute to the gym.

Your first client is great. You’ve known them for ages. They’re a regular and always bring 110%.

After this session, things start to slip. Your next two clients cancel. They haven’t paid in advance for their sessions so that’s lost income. You spend the next hour on the phone. Trying to find a replacement. Luckily, another regular of yours wants an extra session this week.

Crisis averted. . . just!

After grabbing lunch you look at your calendar. You’ve only got two more clients today. You’re going to be spending a lot of your afternoon sitting around in the gym.

Your last client session finishes at 5:30pm. The early finish today is a special treat (You’re normally seeing clients till 9:30pm). You’ve made sure you have plenty of time to make it home for dinner and then out to see your daughter’s school play.

It’s 5 pm and you get a call on your phone. It’s another one of your regulars. They’re asking if you can fit them in for a session in an hour. You’re still a session down today and can’t say no.

You’ll have to run across the road and grab a quick McDonalds for dinner before covering the last session.

You call your partner to apologize. You’re going to miss the play! It’s not ideal but they know the stresses you’re under. You cover the last session and head home.

Tired. Exhausted. Annoyed.

You’re in bed at 9pm. You need the sleep as you’re up at 5am again tomorrow for another day full of clients.

Does This Sound Like You?

It can be difficult as a Fitness Trainer to get off the hamster wheel and get a healthy work-life balance. The positive impact you have on your clients is amazing. But it can be hard to appreciate your own good work when you can’t keep your head above water.

Thankfully, there are several options available to Fitness Trainers that can help them break this early morning, time for money work cycle. Check out my suggestions below.

If you’re a Fitness Trainer struggling to balance work and life commitments or you’re tired of the constant 4 am starts then check out my free webinar. I’ve helped over 200 fitness experts escape the grind and work from anywhere, anytime, by training people through their own mobile app. Passion.io lets you build a Fitness Training app in 30 days using our no-code app creation platform.

Charge More Money

This is simple math. If you charge a client more money per hour, you can train fewer clients a day. Higher fees let you reclaim your time and they can protect you against any last-minute cancelations.

Telling existing clients you’re upping your prices can be difficult. You might find you lose a few customers before you gain any more. Competition is fierce between trainers too, so upping your prices won’t give you a competitive edge in the market.

Group Sessions

If you’re struggling to get the volume of clients necessary to make a livable wage you could try running group sessions. There are only so many hours in the day. By helping multiple clients in one session you can make more money per hour.

However, group sessions don’t allow for the 1 on 1 time most clients want. When you’re teaching a class you don’t have the time to get to know each of your clients personally. You can’t create bespoke training regimes for your customers and you’ll have to charge less per person. Group sessions let you help more people. But you might find you're still working long hours, you’ve just replaced 1 on 1 classes with group sessions.

Build Your Own Fitness App

Building your own Fitness Training app might not seem like the easiest (or cheapest) way to get a better work-life balance. But an app has so many benefits, and won’t cost you an arm and a leg.

Training clients in the gym is important but you can only see so many clients in a day. You’re tied to you’re location: whether that’s a gym or your home. Your income is dependent on clients not canceling and you’re often trading time for money.

A mobile app can remove these obstacles. Give you passive income and the option to be location independent. An app is the best way for you to serve more clients and scale your business. All whilst spending fewer hours in the gym.

Our platform develops mobile apps for Fitness Experts and Personal Trainers. The freedom an app has given them has changed their lives. Some feedback I’ve received from trainers includes:

• No more 4 am starts to see clients
• The ability to train people globally makes my Fitness business scalable
• I get to spend more time with my family

Take Al Kavaldo for example. Al is a fitness trainer, blogger, and author. Al is a savvy PT. He saw the value of having an online presence and how it could help him attract clients and customers to buy his products. We started working together a few years ago to take Al’s online business to the next level.

We created the Universal Strength online program.

The app gave Al the freedom to work when he wanted and spend more time with his newborn. The passive income he generated let him regain his work-life balance and get off the Fitness Training hamster wheel.

‘The great thing about the profits I make from Passion is that I can do the work on my own time. When I’m working online I can log in whenever I’m free, answer questions and help my clients. This is the polar-opposite to training people in person. When I do that, I’ve got to do it on their schedule.

An app has allowed me more freedom in my schedule because I’m able to make the same amount of money and I don’t have to worry about meeting clients for appointments on their schedule.

A Personal Training app has given me so much freedom. I’ve recently had a child and my app has allowed me to spend time with her in the first few weeks and months of her life. No father wants to miss that.

It’s great that I can run my business online. It allows me to have more quality time with my family.’ — Al Kavadlo

Your next steps. . .

All the above options are feasible routes to regaining a healthy work-life balance as a Fitness Trainer. Some routes require more effort and determination than others. I’d always recommend taking your business online with a mobile app. It might sound scary at first but it allows you to regain a healthy work-life balance through a passive income stream. fewer client 1 on 1’s, fewer early starts.

If you’re a personal trainer struggling to balance work and life commitments or you’re tired of the constant 4 am starts then check out my free webinar. I’ve helped over 200 fitness experts escape the grind and work from anywhere, anytime, by training people through their own mobile app. Passion.io lets you build a Fitness Training app in 30 days using our no-code app creation platform.