fitness business – Page 4 – Tony Gentilcore

You’re a Coach, You’re Busy, Lets Adapt

There’s a thick common thread that weaves throughout the fitness industry, for coaches in particular.

This common thread is made of stress and loops its way through our daily schedules. It pulls on our time blocks and puts us in a crunch. We’re giving all of our time, and our energy, to our clients and leaving none of either for ourselves.

Our training isn’t consistent enough.

Meals are missed.

The stress compounds.

The frustration mounts.

Instead of carving out time to fill our bucket so that we may give to others, we exhaust our resources then burn through our reserves and leave our buckets empty, with a hole in the bottom. It’s no way to live, and it’s impossible to perform at our best in this condition.

Chris Merritt and I developed Strength Faction to help other coaches and trainers avoid this downward spiral that ends in the burnout pit.

It’s time to open the discussion about busy schedule training strategies.

Take A Deep, Lung-filling, Relaxed, Fucking Breath

It goes in through your nose, fills your belly and expands into your chest. It expands in 360 degrees through your thorax. It comes in for at least three seconds—four is even better. Then you release it for twice as long as it took to take it in.

You do this every time you feel hectic and scattered—when stress mounts and frustration overwhelms because your responsibilities to everyone else are overshadowing your own training desires. You do this until the frustration escapes from your head, releasing your body’s tension.

Break Up The Workout

We all suffer from a fitness industry cognitive condition I call the spreadsheet paradigm—we have to follow a program exactly as it’s dictated on a spreadsheet. There’s no shame in this thought process—it’s rote conditioning at its finest.

We’ve learned over time that if we don’t start the day’s programming at the top, and finish at the bottom, that we’ve failed. This line of thinking continues on. Since if we can’t begin at the top and finish at the bottom, and that denotes failure, there’s no use in doing anything at all.

Bag it. No training today.

The spreadsheet paradigm is bullshit. I mean, it’s totally real, but it’s a bullshit thought parasite that needs extermination—especially for busy coaches and trainers. Reality is we just need to do the work we can manage to do in the time we have to manage it in. We need consistency that fits our work and life.

(Before we move on, note that if you have the full blocks of time, and have the mental, physical and emotional resources to perform the program as is, do that.)

But if you can’t, that’s totally cool. We just have to break up the workout into smaller blocks.

Start by considering your goals. Is your main goal right now to move better, or is it to get stronger? Are you looking to be so hot that you frequently find yourself in precarious sexual situations? All are valid. All are worthy.

Consider your goals before we break up the workout so that you may prioritize which part of the programs you’ll accomplish. This implies that you may not get all of the components complete. Take a deep breath, one of those breaths we described above, because it’s O-fucking-K.

Now that you have your goals in mind, think of your schedule. Find your breaks and note them all.

Even if they’re miniscule, ten minute gaps between clients.

Now that you know your goals and have noted your breaks, look at the components of the program: warm-up/movement training, strength training, conditioning. Consider which components will most impact progress toward your goals.

Do you have your goals, your schedule blocks and the programming components written out in front of you? Cool.

Let’s hypothetically say that you have a client at 6 am then another at 7:30 am. It takes you a couple of minutes to set up for each client, and your current goal is to achieve ridiculous super hotness that makes underwear fall off everyone, guys and gals alike, as you walk your sweet ass down the street.

So the most impactful components to achieve your hotness are your warm-up, your strength work and your conditioning. Well, on this particular day you only have one break that you’re certain you’ll be able to get training in before other responsibilities overwhelm you and your energy is drained.

So you say to yourself,

“Sexy, we’re going to get to the gym at 5:40am so we can get our warm-up in before our first client at 6. Then, when that client finishes, we’re going to get our conditioning done and grab a quick meal before our 7:30 client. Then we’re going to feel good that we made good use of the time that we had and we’re going to have a great rest of the day.”

See what happened there? We prioritized based on our goals and we made use of the little time we had. It was awesome.

Now, if you have more blocks of time, you include more components of the program.

Ten minutes here?—do your warm-up.

Another ten minutes there?—do your power and core training.

Oh boy! Another 20 minutes over there?—hit as much of your strength training as you can.

And so on. And so forth.

Most imperative is that we break the spreadsheet paradigm and accomplish what we can with the time we have while prioritizing our actions toward our goals.

What If You’re Just Wrecked?

If the more intense components of the program are too taxing based on your current stress level, bag them. Seriously, it’s O-fucking-K. You’re not going to do anything good by compounding the stress when you feel overwhelmed. Think recovery and regeneration instead.

Do some cardiac output.

Do your warm-up a few times.

Just get out of the gym and take a walk.

Meditate.¹

Read.

Just do something that takes your stress level down. If you’re totally at a loss, do some cardiac output. The light neural stimulation promotes recovery and regeneration. The constant, low-intensity movement relieves stress.

Kicking Ass Is Doing The Right Things For Ourselves At The Right Times

You’re busy, adapt to your situation rather than trying to force something that isn’t there. Just because you’re not ripping barbells to and fro doesn’t mean you’re not kicking ass. Kicking ass is being intelligent and doing what you need to do for yourself right now. Use this article and do just that.

About the Author

Todd Bumgardner, MS, CSCS is a co-founder of Strength Faction, an online coaching program for strength coaches and personal trainers that helps fitness industry folks transform their bodies and their coaching. He and his partner, Chris Merritt, just released a great, free E-book on how to keep your training on track, even while you’re training all of your clients.

You can download it here: Train Yourself…Even While You’re Training Everyone Else.

August 3, 2016 Tony

coaching fitness business Motivational

The 5 Most Important Things I Learned From My Internship

Today’s guest post comes courtesy of former CSP intern (and now staff member in the Jupiter, FL location), Ashley Crosby.

I really liked this, as it served as a stark reminder that internships can provide more than just monetary value² Particular to fitness industry internships it’s also a reminder that the “true” value is in learning the intricacies behind working with people, and not just getting good at breaking down deadlift technique and regurgitating Prilepin’s chart.

Enjoy!

5 Most Important Things I Learned From My Internship

When I did my internship at CSP-FL in the spring of 2015, I was mostly concerned with nailing down the technical aspects of coaching. How do you write the best program? How do you spot compensation patterns? What are the best exercises and progressions for each individual at each point of their season? Why choose one exercise over another? What’s better?

See, I was finishing up grad school, and though I was lucky enough to have some experience in the field, I was still mentally stuck in finding the one correct answer. I wanted cut and dry answers, steps to follow, and I wanted to be the most proficient in each and every exercise.

I studied relentlessly–not just the database and in-services we have access to prior to our internship to prepare us, but for my exams as well. I read every article I could get my hands on. I spent a lot of time with my head in books. (To be fair, I still do.)

I recently asked our new class of interns what they were most interested in learning about, and saw similar topics: nutrition supplementation for sport, arm care and managing injuries after surgery and rehab, set/rep schemes, developing throwing programs, density training–the technical aspects of what we do day in and day out.

But here’s the thing: the most important lessons I learned as a coach were not technical in nature.

Comfort in the technical aspects comes with time and practice, from reading both the science and articles from other coaches on how they apply techniques, and from making mistakes and trying new things.

Being on the other end of the internship process now as a staff member and watching the newest class of interns go through their internship experience, I feel these are five of the most important things I’ve learned (by doing and seeing):

1. Learn everybody’s name, and a few facts about them.

Greet them by name every day.

As Dale Carnegie said in How to Win Friends and Influence People (a book I highly suggest every coach out there read), there is great power in a person’s name. Use it often.

2. Learn how to ask questions and genuinely, actively listen to them.

Start every session by asking athletes how they feel, how their weekend was, how their game was, or some other question to see how they’re feeling. It gives you a good idea of their level of fatigue or their mood, and gives you a chance to set (or re-set) the tone for the day.

NOTE from TG: I listened to a recent interview on The Fitcast with Mike Boyle and he mentioned a program that he and the staff at MBSC are experimenting with called CoachMePlus.

The idea is to have better access to the metrics that affect athletes on a daily basis and to better prepare coaches to augment training and programming variables accordingly. Seems interesting.

3. It doesn’t matter what kind of day you are having; leave your troubles at the door.

As a coach, you are an emotional rock and set the tone for the facility and for the session. Don’t let your bad day become your athlete’s bad day.

4. Whether it’s busy or dead, don’t lose your focus.

When it’s slow, it’s easy to mentally check out and want to hang out with the other coaches or interns. It’s great to be friends with your fellow interns–in fact I genuinely hope you are, because they’re part of your new professional network.

However, when people are in the gym, your focus should be on them. Use it as an opportunity to get to know your athlete better, to spend a little more time working on a movement they struggle with, and as a chance for you to become better as a coach.

5. Seek out the quiet ones and the young ones.

These are often the hardest to work with—not the pro guys who are very talented athletes and cue up quickly, but the ones who are still figuring out how their bodies are supposed to move or are too shy to ask for help.

Not only do they need the most help technically, they need to feel a part of the gym culture that you’re creating as a coach.

While I learned a lot of the technical aspect during my internship (and continue to every day through articles and books and interactions with my coworkers), they’re all just in the background of what I do all day, which is interact with people, and build a relationship and trust with them.

As Teddy Roosevelt said and Eric often quotes, people won’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Author’s Bio

Ashley Crosby recently finished her MS at Bridgewater State before coming to Cressey Sports Performance, first as an intern and then as a coach. A CSCS and Pn1 certified coach, she runs the strength camps in the CSP-FL location. Before she went back to school for her masters, she was the social media director for the Cape Cod Baseball League. When she’s not coaching or lifting, she’s usually watching baseball.

June 29, 2016 Tony

business coaching fitness business

“Real” Fitness Business Talk With Pete Dupuis

This past weekend I attended The Fitness Summit in Kansas City, MO. It was my third year in a row not only attending, but speaking as well. It’s easily one of my favorite events each year.

Not only for the huge honor of being invited to speak, but also for the people. It’s truly more of a “lets get together and hang out³” thing than it is a formal fitness event.

Ladies and Gentlemen: your 2016 Fitness Summit speaker panel.

I’ll spare everyone the words of adoration and brown-nosing (you can read that on my Facebook page), but suffice it to say: if you’re a fitness professional or just someone who enjoys ~~watching Bret Contreras and Spencer Nadolsky’s man-crush for one another grow by the second~~ lifting heavy things, than you owe it to yourself to attend.

As we boarded the plane early Thursday morning, Pete Dupuis (Cressey Sports Performance’s business director and fellow presentee) had a brilliant idea. If we were going to be stuck on a plane for 3+ hours, why not produce some blog content?

We decided to jot down a few fitness-business related questions for one another and then do a laptop exchange.

Note to Pete (after the fact): fingers crossed you didn’t click the icon labeled “Tony’s Titillating Tickle Fights” on my desktop.

If so: you’re welcome.

If not: shoot me a PM.

You can check out what I wrote for his website HERE.

And you can check out what Pete had to say below.

Enjoy!

TG – You have an MBA from one of the most prestigious business schools in the US – Babson College – which I know has served you well as an entrepreneur. Yet, I have heard you say several times that “business” is every bit as much about common sense and “feel” as anything else. Explain.

PD – I’ve been asked the question “was your MBA worth it” on more than one occasion in recent weeks.

I should probably start my answer by mentioning that I didn’t go back to school in 2006 with the intention of accumulating the skills necessary to run a profitable fitness facility. In fact, Eric was living and coaching in Connecticut when I enrolled, and I didn’t even know who Tony Gentilcore was at the time.

The idea of owning a fitness business was about as likely as me pursuing my dream job as the starting goalkeeper for the US Men’s National Soccer Team.

I had hit a point in my young career where it was becoming clear that my ceiling as a Marketing Manager in a publicly traded company was considerably lower than what I had in mind for my professional future. The economy (and job market) weren’t exactly thriving in 2007, so I decided pursuing an MBA at that moment in time was what made sense for me.

There were some skills acquired during my undergraduate and graduate level business school courses that have been immensely valuable, and others that have been filed away in the “stuff I’ll never apply” folder in the back of my mind.

One of the most useful learning experiences I covered would be the Introduction to the Microsoft Office Suite course that delved into the minutia of each application. I’d imagine that for a couple hundred bucks, anyone could enroll in a similar course at a local community college and suddenly become a rock star at writing macros in Excel.

As you’ve mentioned, I like to say that 99% of operating a profitable and efficient fitness facility is application of common sense. Don’t spend more than you collect, and you’re in business for as long as you can tolerate the entrepreneurial grind.

Lastly, and arguably most importantly, I’d encourage all fitness professionals to continuously embrace and develop the art of networking. If there’s one thing you fine-tune during an MBA program, it is the skill of professional small talk.

TG – One of the things that CSP has done very well, and prides itself on, is allowing the opportunity or “window” for the staff and coaches to use the CSP brand to build their own brand.

Can you explain why it behooves other small (fitness) businesses to follow suite? Personally, I think it’s a huge mistake when I hear stories of gyms telling their coaches/trainers that they can’t start their own website or generate other revenue streams.

PD – As it turns out, the answer to this question makes up just about 50% of my presentation content for this weekend’s event, titled “Empowering Your Fitness Team.” Here’s a look at the three big takeaways:

For starters, when your employees have the autonomy to explore the development of their own brand and identity within this industry, they are more likely to coach as the most authentic version of themselves on the training floor of your gym. I want my employees to influence the personality of my brand, and not the other way around.

The second reason that I encourage my team to pursue personal brand development is that it allows employees to increase earning potential through writing opportunities, speaking engagements, etc.

If I can assist an employee in increasing earning potential without it impacting the bottom line of my business, I’m going to do it.

Lastly, CSP coaches who successfully establish their own business within our business are more likely to think entrepreneurially as it relates to the growth and development of your gym. They also carry a little more credibility in the eyes of a new client who happens to remember having seen their name in the pages of an issue of Men’s Health or in a guest post on Eric Cressey’s website.

TG – How much does CSP miss Tony’s Techno Thursdays?

PD – About a 6 on a 100-point scale.

TG – I know it’s generic to ask, but it’s still a relevant question for any person contemplating opening their own facility: what are the TOP 3 things to consider/ask one’s self on the topic?

PD – These are the 3 questions I’d ask myself if considering starting a gym from scratch today:

Q1. Do I have something unique to offer?

Is my training model going to introduce something new to the existing set of gym options in my immediate area, or am I simply recreating the offerings of my future competition? If I’m not unique, I’m selling a commodity product. Commodity products compete on price, and that’s a horrible place to be as a gym owner.

Q2. Have I identified “my ten” and run it by them? I recently stumbled upon a fantastic blog post from Seth Godin titled “First, Ten.”

Godin explains that the best way to determine whether an idea or project is worthy of further pursuit is to run it by your ten most trusted confidants, and see if they bother to tell someone else about it.

If they decide to spread your message organically, you’ve got something solid on your hands.

Otherwise, you toss it in the trash and move on to the next endeavor. So, the question becomes: Did “your ten” bother telling friends you were thinking about opening a gym?

Q3. Have I fully come to terms with the realities of owning my own business?

TG – Can you elaborate on why you feel offering FREE consultations is not a wise choice for fitness professionals?

PD – Absolutely. Check this piece out.

TG – Trainers/coaches/gym owners think that getting their names in national publications is the key to success, when in fact it’s LOCAL exposure that pays the bills. What are some hard hitting strategies you’d suggest to anyone looking to increase both their local exposure and lead generation?

I’m sad to say that I didn’t embrace Facebook advertising until just recently. It is quickly becoming an efficient and affordable tool for us. I can’t think of a more effective way to allocate our advertising dollars in a targeted manner, so investing in Facebook ads would be my first piece of advice to those looking to spend toward the pursuit of lead generation.

We’ve managed to minimize our marketing investment over the years by instead focusing on helping our brand to grow organically within our general area.

This happens quickly when you demonstrate how much you care first, and how much you know later.

We attend baseball games. We show up to watch our clients play a gig with their garage band. We make ourselves visible in the community outside of our facility. There’s a whole big world of potential clients outside the walls of your little fitness playground, and sometimes you need to leave your comfort zone and have actual conversations with people.

May 2, 2016 Tony