So you've just passed your level 2 fitness qualification and are ready to start your new journey as a fitness instructor! But, where do you begin? How do you go about securing permanent classes? How do you approach a gym or get some cover? What bits of kit do I need to teach? What insurances do you need? These are the things I wanted to know when I was first starting my journey as a fit pro. I was fresh out of uni, hadn't been studying sport, was moving back to an area where

In a previous post I spoke about why goals are important to you as a fitness professional and how they can help you grow your influence, income and impact your life in a positive way. Today we are going to get a bit more practical and look at how you can set goals for yourself and your clients, and how you can make sure you achieve them. 1. Get SMART If you have done any sort of level 2 or 3 fitness qualification then you know all about SMART goals. This stands for: S - speci

W

Although teaching group fitness classes is an amazing and rewarding career, it can often be tough to make a good living purely teaching classes, especially if you only teach high intensity programs. The beauty of a career in group fitness is that you can do as much or as little of it as you like, and this provides you with the freedom to pursue another career alongside teaching fitness classes. As I work in the City of London, a lot of my freelance team have a "normal" office

Most people get into teaching group fitness classes because they love the class style, love fitness and want to share that passion with other people. Not everybody that becomes a fitness instructor has had experience standing in front of a group of people and presenting or performing, and your first few classes can seem like the scariest thing in the world. Lack of confidence can strike even the most experienced of us - sometimes all it takes is a new club, some bad feedback

In Monday's post I chatted about whether being employed or self-employed in the fitness industry might be a better fit for you. If you've mad your way to this post then chances are you're seriously considering going self-employed. I'm going to give you an honest break down of the information you need to know to get started. Fro an even deeper look into all of this, I'd recommend purchasing my Group Fitness Instructor's Start-Up Guide and Finance and Accounting for Fit Pros Gu

A lot of people can be put off self-development and self-help materials, seeing it as some hippy thing or corporate rubbish that has no application in real life. This, in my opinion, couldn't be further from the truth. If you want to build a strong fitness business, achieve your goals faster and improve your mindset then self-development is one of the best ways to do it. In my opinion, self-development tools like books, podcasts and seminars have been the driving force behind

As a fitness business owner/fitness professional you are usually a one (wo)man band. When you first start out on your journey as a fitness pro, it’s not uncommon to take every client and class that is thrown your way, and you very quickly end up with a schedule that leaves you approximately 27.5 minutes each day to eat, shower and relax. Before too long you realise that you can’t carry on this way and need to do something about it. And you think about how you can grow your bu

The fitness industry will start to re-open in the next few weeks and it will emerge a different beast than it was before all this craziness began. Now everyone can accept there are problems within the industry and it seems like a total reset could be the best possible thing to iron out some of those flaws and improve the industry both for the people working in it and people engaging with it. So what are the things I would want to change about the way the fitness industry oper

The fitness industry has been one of the hardest hit by the pandemic, with gyms in the UK being shut for 12 weeks at time of writing. Whilst opening is on the horizon once more, the hardship faced by many fit pros over the last few months may have made you think twice about whether fitness is a viable career in the post COVID world? What will our group fitness look like? Will there still be a demand for in-person training? Will home workouts remove the need for as many gyms?

This post will hopefully be one of the final posts I have to write on the C word. It is the beginning of June 2020 and we are just starting to come out of the main throws of the Coronavirus pandemic here in the UK. Boris Johnson announced that from June 1st we would be able to meet groups of up to 5 other people outside, providing that social distancing measures were still adhered to. For many self-employed fitness professionals, this was the news we had been waiting for. Sma

For many group fitness instructors, especially in big cities like London or Manchester, teaching classes is a passion project done in the evenings and at weekends, on top of a normal 9-5 job. Maybe you are one of these people and have been thinking about making the leap into fitness full time. Perhaps you don’t enjoy your day job as much as you enjoy teaching or are bored of office politics, peak time commuter travel or wearing a suit all day. You may have some reservations a

The fitness industry is constantly developing and growing, with new career options appearing all the time. To create a fantastic new career, you need to select a job (or combination of roles!) that suits your skills set, personality, financial goals, current lifestyle and position, as well as looking at your career path. In the second part of this mini series, we will be looking at becoming a personal trainer. Personal training can be a lucrative and rewarding career, but the

The fitness industry is constantly developing and growing, with new career options appearing all the time. To create a fantastic new career, you need to select a job (or combination of roles!) that suits your skills set, personality, financial goals, current lifestyle and position, as well as looking at your career path. This post is the first in a series taking a deep dive into each career choice so you can choose the best path for you. I'll be sharing honest information on

A career in the fitness industry is incredibly flexible as you don’t need to pigeonhole yourself into one specialism. Unlike an office job where you are hired to perform a certain role, the skills needed to be a successful personal trainer, group fitness instructor or coach are transferable. The knowledge you accrue from one training course can be applied to many different areas of your work . One of the biggest problems faced by fitness industry workers is income stability,

Welcome to the first post in my “Working in fitness” mini-series. Each post we will be delving into some must know info and sharing industry insights to start your fitness career off on the best possible path. Having a fitness career can be incredibly personally and financially rewarding, but for every success story there are many who fail to make it out of the starting blocks. The fitness industry is tough, no matter what sector of it you work in. Most people start careers i