Why am I getting back into online fitness training? What is this? Is online personal training even a real thing? Yes it is and it is growing.
I became a certified personal trainer through the ISSA in 2006. For five years I trained clients at houses, apartment complexes, and various parks. Then in 2011 I opened Jackhammer Strength Training. For a brief time I did online training before I opened my physical location. I did not think that I could hold people accountable with their training nor had I truly developed a training style.
Now after over 5 years training thousands of hours, training everyone imaginable from police to stroke victims to triathletes I have developed very powerful training systems. Basically strength and conditioning plans like you might get from a college strength coach but custom made for anyone based on their abilities and limitations.
An example would be a plan for a man we will call Joe. Joe wants to get stronger, lose 20 pounds, and is a very busy man with lots going on. Joe cannot get to a traditional gym very often and is skeptical that he can get stronger while training at home. What kind of things could make you stronger without access to a gym? Joe has a house, with a basement that has joists. Joe can now do pullups on the joists, or inverted rows on the support beams. He can grab a back pack full of books and do pushups, carries, steps. He can do variations of pushups, pullups, body weight squats, lunges, dips, stretches, things to maximize tension.
If I find out where Joe is fitness wise I can easily make him a 3,6,or 12 month plan to help him get stronger, improve his overall conditioning, and lose 20 pounds. Using a very powerful software program I will make a plan for Joe.
How will I hold Joe accountable? Some online trainers do phone calls, texts, emails, skype, or video. I will hold Joe accountable through one phone call and one video message per week. He will be responsible for the video each week. This video is to ensure that he is doing the more difficult exercises properly and to ensure that he is ready to move on to the next phase of the program each week.
One more way I will hold Joe or people like Joe accountable are through actual one on one or small group sessions. Some of the biggest fitness business gurus in the world think that online training will be the fastest growing segment in the fitness industry. I believe they are right. I plan on offering a hybrid model of online training plus personal training, online training plus small group training, and just online training.
The biggest reason I am getting into online training though is not because of it possibly being the fastest growing segment of the fitness industry but because of the amount of people out there touting themselves as fitness experts. I am a part of a group on a social media site with over 5,000 members. Lots of these people probably paid $50 for a certification that they got in a couple of hours. How much knowledge does someone have from taking a two hour test?
Another reason I am getting into online training is that I should be able to attract my ideal customer easier. Being in Columbus, Ohio the strongest city in the world it often seems hard to attract my ideal customer. With this hybrid approach I hope to reach hundreds of people who want to get stronger guys who want to bench 200 and 300 pounds and women who want to squat their body weight or do their first pullup. People who are turned off by Crossfit and do not like the idea of training with 20-40 people at a time, want to compete against themselves, get better on a continuous basis, and not get injured because they were doing a lift they were not prepared to do or were too fatigued to do properly.
In my plans people will be training the seven primal movements squat, lunge, push, pull, jump, run, and twist or bend. Every phase of training will hit the seven primal movements with various ab routines and complexes for conditioning.
What is a complex? I am glad you asked a complex is a series of exercises performed in rapid succession usually 6-8 moves with the same implement. Complexes can be geared towards strength or towards conditioning. I prefer to use them for conditioning and use about 40 different complexes on a regular basis with a 2-1 all the way up to a 6-1 work to rest ratio. If you do something as hard as you can for 30 seconds and rest for 5 seconds and do that for 6 to 8 exercises in a row you will be breathing hard and you will get better!
An example would be: 32 seconds on and 8 seconds of rest
Kettlebell swing
Goblet jump squat
Kettlebell high pull left
Kettlebell high pull right
Kettlebell offset lunges left
Kettlebell offset lunges right
Who would do the above complex? Someone that can do explosive exercises, someone who has demonstrated that they can hinge properly and therefore swing safely, someone with no shoulder issues, and someone that does not have knee problems.
If someone had shoulder and knee issues and could not hinge properly they would not be doing this complex. I might have them do a corrective exercise complex instead which would look something like this:
Hip thrust
Cook lift left
Cook lift right
Tea cup exercise
Dynamic Back burners
Wall Slides
The biggest problem I see in the fitness industry is these cookie cutter programs with everyone doing the exact same thing. Insanity should not be done by most people that is why it causes tons of injuries. Virtually every popular training regimen in the world is probably not the best program for the average person.
I have 20 years of training under my belt, a Bachelor’s Degree, many certifications, am a published author and am looking for three guinea pigs to be my first online clients.
Special Online Offer
One Month Online Training includes
Strength and Conditioning Plan 4 days per week
1 Video and 1 phone call per week
$200
Be one of my first three online clients
Save 50%
$100 and if you are in the Columbus, Ohio area you will also get one small group session per week at Jackhammer Strength Training
