Yesterday...
My trains were all messed up and I bumped into a personal trainer friend of mine.
Probably on of the best trainers I know.
He used to be a project manager then stepped out of the construction industry and into fitness. Where he worked for a number of years for Virgin.
Now it's interesting, in fitness there are two distinct career progression tracks. Into management OR personal training.
Now this is where it gets interesting. In my view personal trainers are usually the type of person who likes being around people, managers at least in fitness clubs tend to stay in their offices.
Ok I know... massive generalisation. Present manager isn't like that or the best manager I ever worked for, they were/are on the floor a lot.... BUT they ARE the exception. Almost every manager I have every come into contact with since I went out to work at 16 ARE hiders. They hide away in their offices.
So in the fitness industry we have trainers who like people, and are generally good at building a rapport and relationships
And those on the management track who like to control people but are generally NOT so good with people.
So my friend has resigned from Virgin, and he starts to tell me about the manager.
First off he tell me about the day he is doing drills in the pool and the manager comes in shaking his head... fins bad idea, health and safety.
REALLY?
I've had this argument with Lifeguards, Managers and other gym members.
I have been swimming since I was 3 or 4 years old. In all that time not ONE injury was caused by someone wearing fins, not one. AND I've never seen one. But I have had broken fingers from slow people doing breastroke in the fast lane... and suffered twisted finger or hurt fingers because of people who should be doing something in the right lane.
So of course my mate challenges him. Not good.You can never win against the righteous crew.
Read over my blogs of the last few days... They think they're helping people, but are the worst kind of gate keepers.
Virgin stopped all sorts of innovative equipment being used unless it's branded for them. Oh well good luck with your business model.
So let's look at this. PTs work in the trenches, talk to clients all day long and meet their ever changing needs as they adapt to the ambiguity happening all around. Managers make the policy that provides a service to those clients.
So who do they get their ideas from? Do they even get ideas?
I've always looked laterally for inspiration and things that work. The tech boys where I work have two management tracks, one is normal management the other a fellow track, that links to your experience.
See why disregard a person knowledge because they aren't senior management, they might actually know something.
I think this approach gives the organisation the opportunity to use BOTH set of skills without disregarding each other.
I listened to my friend... he was scathing about the Manager not understanding his point of view, I can well imagine the manager being equally as pissed off by the Trainer who doesn't know his place.
So the Manager thinks he's right, and the Trainer thinks he's right. And the clients lose on both counts.
The Manager made it impossible for my friend to remain working there, so he resigned. So he set up a personal training gym just round the corner and took 50 clients with him.
So being right cost the Manager £78/month (using Bromley's charges) times 50 (people) times 12 (months), £46,800 plus the loss of personal training revenue (£80,000), so realistically that cost the manager somewhere around the £125k mark... over a pair of flippers?!
Is that in any way rational?
In Bromley they tried to ban fins, two clients owned two company accounts with over 50 memberships threatened to leave and the ban evaporated.
The Fitness Industry needs to grow up if it ever wants to be taken seriously. Right now we are a joke.
The pay for the most part is utterly atrocious. So how can we possibly attract high level thinkers if we don't pay them?
Companies like Virgin came down south and charged southern prices, but changed the rate of pay to Northern prices. Virgin pays less now than I was paid to teach a class in 1989.
We need to look at the respected professions like doctors, lawyers, and bankers for examples of how how to elevate the fitness industry.
We are being told over and over that the projected rate of obesity will be x% within so many years.
Add the health issues to that and we are heading into some seriously bad times.
We need to get our house in order. The big players need to get a voice at the table of government and start putting the health of the nation first before their profits. Profits will come, but these issues need to be dealt with imminently.
Food companies need to be dealt with extremely. If they are pumping our foods full of rubbish, and making our population fat and unhealthy, they need to be stopped.
Today a client told me the future was hopeless. My son told me the future is rubbish because you can't get your dreams anymore.
I guess I'm the optimist here. I don't know the future so I can hope we can change it.
Failing that I'm coming off the bench and I'm getting on the field.
If the only way to avoid this future is for me to create it...
Then that's EXACTLY what I am going to do.
That is a promise.
Probably on of the best trainers I know.
He used to be a project manager then stepped out of the construction industry and into fitness. Where he worked for a number of years for Virgin.
Now it's interesting, in fitness there are two distinct career progression tracks. Into management OR personal training.
Now this is where it gets interesting. In my view personal trainers are usually the type of person who likes being around people, managers at least in fitness clubs tend to stay in their offices.
Ok I know... massive generalisation. Present manager isn't like that or the best manager I ever worked for, they were/are on the floor a lot.... BUT they ARE the exception. Almost every manager I have every come into contact with since I went out to work at 16 ARE hiders. They hide away in their offices.
So in the fitness industry we have trainers who like people, and are generally good at building a rapport and relationships
And those on the management track who like to control people but are generally NOT so good with people.
So my friend has resigned from Virgin, and he starts to tell me about the manager.
First off he tell me about the day he is doing drills in the pool and the manager comes in shaking his head... fins bad idea, health and safety.
REALLY?
I've had this argument with Lifeguards, Managers and other gym members.
I have been swimming since I was 3 or 4 years old. In all that time not ONE injury was caused by someone wearing fins, not one. AND I've never seen one. But I have had broken fingers from slow people doing breastroke in the fast lane... and suffered twisted finger or hurt fingers because of people who should be doing something in the right lane.
So of course my mate challenges him. Not good.You can never win against the righteous crew.
Read over my blogs of the last few days... They think they're helping people, but are the worst kind of gate keepers.
Virgin stopped all sorts of innovative equipment being used unless it's branded for them. Oh well good luck with your business model.
So let's look at this. PTs work in the trenches, talk to clients all day long and meet their ever changing needs as they adapt to the ambiguity happening all around. Managers make the policy that provides a service to those clients.
So who do they get their ideas from? Do they even get ideas?
I've always looked laterally for inspiration and things that work. The tech boys where I work have two management tracks, one is normal management the other a fellow track, that links to your experience.
See why disregard a person knowledge because they aren't senior management, they might actually know something.
I think this approach gives the organisation the opportunity to use BOTH set of skills without disregarding each other.
I listened to my friend... he was scathing about the Manager not understanding his point of view, I can well imagine the manager being equally as pissed off by the Trainer who doesn't know his place.
So the Manager thinks he's right, and the Trainer thinks he's right. And the clients lose on both counts.
The Manager made it impossible for my friend to remain working there, so he resigned. So he set up a personal training gym just round the corner and took 50 clients with him.
So being right cost the Manager £78/month (using Bromley's charges) times 50 (people) times 12 (months), £46,800 plus the loss of personal training revenue (£80,000), so realistically that cost the manager somewhere around the £125k mark... over a pair of flippers?!
Is that in any way rational?
In Bromley they tried to ban fins, two clients owned two company accounts with over 50 memberships threatened to leave and the ban evaporated.
The Fitness Industry needs to grow up if it ever wants to be taken seriously. Right now we are a joke.
The pay for the most part is utterly atrocious. So how can we possibly attract high level thinkers if we don't pay them?
Companies like Virgin came down south and charged southern prices, but changed the rate of pay to Northern prices. Virgin pays less now than I was paid to teach a class in 1989.
We need to look at the respected professions like doctors, lawyers, and bankers for examples of how how to elevate the fitness industry.
We are being told over and over that the projected rate of obesity will be x% within so many years.
Add the health issues to that and we are heading into some seriously bad times.
We need to get our house in order. The big players need to get a voice at the table of government and start putting the health of the nation first before their profits. Profits will come, but these issues need to be dealt with imminently.
Food companies need to be dealt with extremely. If they are pumping our foods full of rubbish, and making our population fat and unhealthy, they need to be stopped.
Today a client told me the future was hopeless. My son told me the future is rubbish because you can't get your dreams anymore.
I guess I'm the optimist here. I don't know the future so I can hope we can change it.
Failing that I'm coming off the bench and I'm getting on the field.
If the only way to avoid this future is for me to create it...
Then that's EXACTLY what I am going to do.
That is a promise.
Comments
Post a Comment