If you are a personal trainer..

[bakedbeanzontoast]

If you are a personal trainer and work in a gym, are you pressured by the people who own the gym to approach people?

I ask because it often happens to me. I hate it; the gym is my me time and I really just want to be left alone. The last two days I've been asked by the same person how my training is going and if you need me I'm just over there, etc. If I needed anything I'd ask grump. I do intense cardio so i find being interrupted especially annoying!

Obviously I am always polite; they are after all only trying to do their jobs and I know many of them are self employed, I suppose I just prefer not to be bothered in general.

Is 'the chat' meant to be a prelude into hoping the person will be interested in personal training? And do the gym chains pressure the PTs to do this?

I think they do because I started a gym membership and have hardly used it after lots of PT tried to push.
I took them up on a session where I wanted to be coached through workouts I can do alone. All the way through they were trying to convince me that really to get results I should have 2-3 PT sessions a week.

A lot of personal trainers, especially those at low cost no frills gyms, are still self-employed & pay rent to the gym in order to use it for their clients. It’s necessary for them to grow their client base.

At my gym they only approach already fit or fittish people - I enquired once and was told "do a bit on your own first until you're serious" so I was too chunky! I took my money elsewhere

@OccasionalNachos as I thought ( I use a budget gym). It can't be easy for them, but I hope this chap gets the hint soon.

I think they get paid from the gym if you run classes but I think they pay to work in the space the rest of the time trying to poach folk.

@TinselAndKnickers that's nuts. I would have thought they would have jumped at the chance to get a new client- and one that comes to them!!

2-3 times a week? Bloody hell that would cost a fortune!!!

A lot of gyms have PTs on a self employed basis that can use the space with clients/run classes/fulfil gym memberships that include PT sessions. The gym take a cut of what the PTs make for sessions so there is more incentive for them to get as many clients as possible. I think it's better to get an independent PT who has already proven their worth by having a solid client base outside of a gym. A lot of the PTs that shark around bothering people will be inexperienced newbies, I avoid would avoid them.

It is how trainers increase their client base. It’s also a good way for new members to get a routine tailored for them. But it does seem counter productive to approach people who are obviously long term members who know what they are doing. And shocking that a gym would tell some one to go it alone if they’d asked for help!

No, but PTs in these gyms are modern day slaves. They have to work 15 hours without pay to supposedly pay rent. Which doesn't make any sense if they don't have any clients. Most don't or they have dribs and drabs.

However, although I understand it is a bit silly of them to approach you when you're doing high intensity cardio, apart from that if they're just letting you know they're available if need them is just good customer service.

@tinselandknickers that’s awful - even if a PT was a specialist in a certain type of training (there’s a guy at my gym who only seems to work with other huge muscular guys...) then they should explain that & even recommend others to you. Glad you went elsewhere!

@bakedbeanzontoast I don’t even think they get paid for classes sometimes, it just discounts their rent more and more. An independent PT I’ve known for a long time did occasional classes at a budget gym & told me all sorts of horror stories like @spectator007 says about newer trainers being paid basically nothing.

Someone approached me once to ask if I was interested in boxing classes - I was on the treadmill on my 9th 400m sprint out of a set of 12. He waited until my recovery break when I could finally get the words out to decline, then told me that cardio wouldn’t help me lose weight. I was training for a marathon & wish I’d told him to piss off.

bakedbeanzontoast
Oh yes at £25 a session.

The thing is that had he just done what I'd asked & given me a walk through of a new workout because my goals had changed then I'd have done that workout for a couple of months and then gone back to him for a review and so on. He could have easily had a steady client.

But what actually happened is I got rail roared into what he felt I needed (so not linked to my ongoing fitness goals), ignored the fact I trained 3 sports outside of the gym and was after some general conditioning, and tried to offer a programme that required being at the gym 5 days a week with 3 of them using a PT. He clearly decided that being new to his gym, despite during induction me answering about all my fitness goals and experience when asked, that I needed to be become a gym bunny.

As someone who is already into health and fitness I've just left.

I was a PT I go paid for working 20 hours in the gym per week, doing inductions / programmes or teaching classes. So I would chat during my paid time if I didn't have appointments.

I wouldn't hang around for free stalking for clients unpaid. But I guess I had some paid time to do this. The gym took 50% of my PT fee but these sessions where off shift. So I would come in especially for them.

I'd just like to say, I'm totally unfit but active now and can't even believe I used to be so into it all just a few years back. I did it for a long time so I think I just over saturated.

I charged £25 in the burbs, but did have some clients in a posh London gym where I only did PT and charged £120 an hour, but the gym took a massive cut and it was really annoying to travel up to have someone cancel last minute. Also in my contact I had to have freshly shaved legs if wearing shorts. It was hard to pick up clients there, I'm sure others did hang around for free to try too. I was too busy with my other stuff and hate the working for free culture. So used ads or word of mouth.

Yep, the business model of big gyms is either you pay rent of several hundred quid pm or work 15 or so hours for them.

I did the training & the range of abilities between students was wide. I'd much rather find a gym owned by the coaches, with lots of investment in their knowledge if you want PT. Big box, learn to programme yourself, there's so much info available, so long as you have good form.

But investing in a decent coach is a good idea, tho I prefer small group to 1:1. Particularly if you have any health issues. PTs should have specialist training if taking in clients with health issues.

I stopped being in any PT groups online as they can be a bit brutal, (I'm fat, which is anathema to the "looks first" guys).

It's a sales job, some people really care, to others, it's getting the sales numbers.

Yes we are pressured to go around the gym and speak to members 😒, it's called member engagement personally I do not like it I feel that I am bothering people. We are told that Standing around/sitting is not being proactive, I can understand that to a certain degree but sometimes times there is nothing else that needs doing around the gym .🙄

But investing in a decent coach is a good idea, tho I prefer small group to 1:1. Particularly if you have any health issues. PTs should have specialist training if taking in clients with health issues.

I wish there were some older PTs at my gym who specialised in this, I've always been fit but at 50 I do now have health conditions that restrict what I do, but all the PTs are in their 20s and none seem to focus on people like me, it puts me off even having my free review with the staff there.

I use Puregym and have PTd for years with the same man that was recommended to me by the gym back when I was a scared newbie and overweight massively.
He is amazing and has not only helped me to lose weight, but gain confidence and become my friend. He came to my wedding.

From what I understand he is self employed and he is expected to pay a percentage to the gym to use the space. They do the classes for free as part of that.
I've never seen any pt bothering people unless they look genuinely unsure or like they need help. All I see is a great community and I really enjoy it.

interrupting you while you're actually exercising, like trying to talk to you when you're on the running machine or something that's just really rude, I would expect personal trainer to know about gym etiquette and not try to talk to someone when they're in the middle of something strenuous!

I've been a member of a number of gyms; from budget to the more apparently upmarket ones. My decision is always ultimately based around how easy they are wit regards to location to get to (I've moved a lot for work). Thinking about it, it's always the budget gyms I've been bothered ( PG / The Gym ). I always cringe when I see staff hovering around in case I get interrupted! Happily it didn't happen today, I can see why they do it know with it being such a cut throat industry but tbh if they have to approach I'd prefer it if they did it when I wasn't on a cardio machine.

@HerondaleDucks I think the budget gyms vary in terms of standards. Some of them are amazing, decent sized changing rooms, large gym floors, good air con and others are quite small. I prefer the lay out of the gym to PG personally but there's a lot less of them at the moment.

I hated this at my gym. The staff there were generally really nice and they weren’t the PTs, they had specific PTs working in addition, but still the staff would look like they were being told to talk to people. Luckily I must have a ‘no, go away’ aura as they rarely did to me. They actually seemed to always be chatting to the same people every time, and seemed to have good relationships with them, but to me it looked like the gym staff were just chatting with friends and didn’t look very professional, as it would always be the same people. I never once saw anyone clean any piece of equipment whilst there.

wear earbuds and avoid any eye contact

I am a PT and I have never worked in a gym - I’m completely independent and mobile. You are essentially working for free a lot of the time as a gym based PT.