Personal Trainer

I'd be interested in hearing how much each gym charges personal trainers in rent

i believe

Bannatynes - £500 per month

LA Fitness - £780 per month (with about £250 going to Fitness Agents)

Virgin Active work on a split 60 - 40% in favour of the trainer

Fitness First £500 per month (and i think it may be more again with FA getting a slice)

what are everyone elses experiences
am i right?

__________________
The PTHub (Personal Trainer Hub) is a site dedicated to promoting Personal Trainers


Personal Trainer
Personal Training Forum
Personal Trainer Marketing

I think Fitness Agents only supply PT's to a small percentage of FF gyms. I think most of them employ (well, self employ) PT's directly. I know for definate that in some of the London West End Fitness First gyms the rent is £165 a week, so roughly £715 a month, but possibly closer to your figure outside London or in Greater London. You do have the option of phasing in your rent though by doing 'gym hours' in exchange for some free and then reduce rent over a 12 week period.

Also, from what I recall, Virgin (I went along to their recruitment day), their PT's are hourly paid, something like £13.50 an hour at first and you have to be delivering a min of 20 hours training a week within 3 months. You could earn something like £16.50 if you became an advanced trainer (might have been a different term they used) and guaranteed you'd deliver 25 hrs p/wk. Its a few months since the day, so my memory is a little sketchy, but I think they said you could basically earn around £24k doing 25 hrs, or if you managed 35hrs (and they said that lots of their PT's did) then you could earn around £30k. The upside with Virgin is that they offer you lots of free training, plus they pay you holiday pay.

does anyone know...

What the benefits are of Fitness Agents?
Is the Extra fee worth it?

__________________
The PTHub (Personal Trainer Hub) is a site dedicated to promoting Personal Trainers


Personal Trainer
Personal Training Forum
Personal Trainer Marketing

I'd also be interested to know what the benefits of FA are as I have been offered a role with them, and am not sure whether to take the risk or not.

It seems to add up with their new products launched, but still I have my concerns going self employed (as I think is natural)

Would appreciate any info.

Thanks

Lesley

I too have been trying to shed some light on fitness agents. When you talk about them do you mean companies like one lifestyle and inspiring fitness?

I honestly believe freelance personal training is the best way to go guys.

Know your stuff, get a decent website, a few good maketing tips and you have a business. If your a class instructor too like me even better! The big chains are always looking for external instructors.

I work in gyms, hotels, schools, for social services, health farms run bootcamps and even did regular work for two years in nursing home but realised that one ran its cause!!!

I have no contracts, no nagging boss and go on holiday when I want 5-6 x p/year. I've just come back from a month of travelling around Australia!

Take a look at my website, it's nothing fancy but it does enough to earn me a decent living doing what I love! I'm also dabbling in internet marketing which is also a bit of a minefield but because I can work the hrs I choose I have the time to do the research (and write long replies like this one!!!).

Matt Sutton
Lifestyle Personal Training

Sounds like you have done pretty well for yourself. Any tips on how to break into the freelance market and would it be worth freelancing for a gym like FF or go it alone?

When you say freelancing for FF, I take it you mean paying rent still?

The problem I have found with that is most gyms will want rent equivalent to you working full-time, which means that your not freelancing really. If they will allow you to pay a lower rent/per session then fine, as this will give you more time to pursue other ventures.

I think it really depends on the person. I know alot of trainers who are quite happy working from one gym alone and do very well from it. I personall like the variety of training people at different locations and I certainly believe more business opportunities arise when you work for yourself.

Things like Bootcamps and group fitness are the big earners (i wish I had started doing them a few years back) but how would you have time to run these if your working full time in a gym.

I think the average charge in the UK is still £30 p/hour in the UK for PT. The first bootcamp I ran last year earned me £120 p/hour and i had to pay £25 rent for use of the area. I made roughly £800 in 4 weeks for 8 hrs work! (obviously thats not including the time taken for marketing and devising workouts etc). Some gyms charge that in rent for a month.

Freelance all the way buddy!!

Thanks alot for the advice mate, group training is something i would love to do and bootcamps sound like an awesome idea.

No is the answer,
they are basically a slickly presented pyrimid scheme.
Once you are in you will find all their figure,s are way out compared to actual club foot fall and cliet base growth potential
they then begin charging you half gym rent by direct debit 4 week,s into your time at the club, despite saying you get 6 weeks free.
the following calender month it will be full rent.
its not really relevant to most new starters if the money leaves your bank account on the calander month it just aint 6 weeks free if you have to pay something by week 4.
avoid, avoid avoid