Are online trainers traitors? - Personal Trainer Community - Forum

[standAPART]

Christina, It is all about one thing....

$$$$

I want to make active income (hand on training at my facility) and I want to make passive income (selling products trough my online ventures). In either case, I feel unscathed by this marketing crap because I actually do what I sell.

[kaiserS]

Christina, It is all about one thing....

$$$$

I want to make active income (hand on training at my facility) and I want to make passive income (selling products trough my online ventures). In either case, I feel unscathed by this marketing crap because I actually do what I sell.

Yeah John I agree -
If you are ONLY online, you are not a REAL TRAINER -
And if your only skill is MARKETING, then you're a piece of ......... you get the idea -

This was something the late great Jason Hadeed said to me in the interview I did with him just before he passed away -

When I asked him about all the training hours he put-in, he said that a lot of people in this industry look to get into making money and forget about the training - he called them "sell-outs" -

That kind of hit me in the face, because I was starting to cut-back on training and thinking more about marketing -

But after he told me that it forced me to look squarely at myself - I confronted my own insincerity, redoubled my efforts on training, and have never been happier or more productive - and I've noticed my notoriety explode as a result -

I guess you just can't beat plain old integrity as the key to success -

As for the marketers, I think the world has caught up to their line of talk - you don't hear anything positive about there stuff anywhere these days -

If anyone wants to hear that final interview with Jason, here's the link:
http://super-trainer.com/jason-hadeed-rest-in-peace/

That message was his final gift to me and I won't forget it!

[standAPART]

Kaiser,
That was a good intro to Jason and a great interview you conducted. I truly believe that anyone in this field that spends less and less time actually in front of people, really shouldn't be in the field or really don't want to be in it.

[kaiserS]

Kaiser,
That was a good intro to Jason and a great interview you conducted. I truly believe that anyone in this field that spends less and less time actually in front of people, really shouldn't be in the field or really don't want to be in it.

Thank you man -

Since this thread started, my feelings on this issue have evolved a bit -

I've been getting a lot of interest in my services this Summer, with about 5-10 new inquiries a week, which is a lot for me and much more than I've ever gotten - I thank the proliferation of celebrity mags always showing how skinny the stars are ... anyway, I digress ...

What I find myself doing, since I can't train them all and some of them don't work because of location, is suggesting some kind of online training arrangement - I've actually started this with two people and it's going well - I'm charging $149 a month, which is a price I though of out of thin air and now realize isn't nearly enough - but let's just see how this thing goes ...

I'm considering adding online training to my usual stable of services, and this has given me the idea to take my usual marketing for my services to a broader level - I'll test all of this for about a month and report back on how it's going -

[C Lenart]

One of the things that troubles me the most about online training is the fact that the trainer is not there to "supervise" the client. Whose to say if the client is performing an exercise with proper technigue and form? Anyone can put a one size fits all canned Powerpoint presentation together on a website but that doesn't make up for personal attention from a trained instructor.

One key item that comes to mind with "online training" is what happens if the client gets injured while performing exercises that he or she learned during an "online" exercise presentation. Yesterday, I was working out in the weight room at my health club and I noticed several people performing resistance exercises in such a manner that could easily have led to injury. Here are just a few common examples. One guy was doing arm curls while heavily arching his back, another person was snapping his knees while performing leg extension, and the list goes on.

If I stop and ask myself if I would set these people loose without supervising them personally, the answer is no. Not to mention the potential legal complications if someone were to get injured and possibly sue me if something happened to them after performing an exercise on one of my videos. One of the things that comes to mind is did I exercise reasonable care by allowing clients to perform exercises without some kind of supervision? I wrote a piece on legal liability issues for trainers a year or so ago detailing the need for supervision as well as other issues.

http://www.fitnessthinktank.com/foru...ers-vt221.html

Frankly, I can see a lot of possibilities for online marketing and sales when it comes to following up with clients. I could see how clients could keep up with their trainer by keeping an online log of their foods that they have eaten so that the trainer knows if they are meeting their nutritional needs. In other words, online training is used as an adjunct to on site personal training sessions.

Just my thoughts...

Curt
ACSM Health/Fitness Instructor

[kaiserS]

that was a great article -

Yeah, in my overzealousness to serve these clients, I totally overlooked the legal/professional responsibility aspect - oh, well, I can just correct course -

Thanks for the heads-up -