Phil Learney has been a personal trainer in the fitness industry since the early 90s and has worked in gyms all over England ranging from small private ones to big commercial ones. At his time of retiring as a trainer, he was the second-highest charging PT in the UK.  Now he educates and helps PTs grow their businesses through his company the Advanced Coaching Academy (ACA). Phil tells some fantastic stories about being a PT in this episode and there are so many lessons about how to get more clients and run a better run business. We cover getting your finances in check, how to get a waiting list as a PT, early career mistakes trainers make, marketing and much more.           Timestamps: [02.18] - How he would be handling things if he was a PT having to go through COVID-19 just now? [05.43] - Is he anxious or worried about the industry because of what's happening? [07.48] - Phil tells a story about having to smash a whisky bottle to pay his apartment rent [19.18] - Phil talks about why the hourly rate that PTs charge actually breaks down to very little income [22.48] - Can you speed up going through the inevitable client failures that most trainers go through? [31.18] - Why the only way the fitness industry will become more regulated is through the trainers in it lifting the standard of it [33.38] - Phil talks about personal training pricing [35.03] - Phil tells a story about a trainer who was charging £1000 per hour [39.44] - Why Phil has always had a waiting list in every single gym he's worked in.     Find Out More About Phil: ACA Website Instagram       Find Out More About LTB: Website Instagram Facebook

Today I welcome on Independent Gym owners Mike Waywell (Steel Habitat, Liverpool), Greg Mikolap (Icon Gym, Maidenhead), Will Holmes (Core Training, Switzerland) and Chris Burgess (Curious Fitness, Paulton) to discuss what comes next for Personal Training facilities. We talk through what Will has learnt bringing clients back into his gym in Switzerland after their lockdown ended, how all the guys plan to keep their clients safe when seeing clients in-person again, communication strategies, rewarding loyal clients, programming, gym layout and coaching changes, marketing and what their message would be to a commercial or private facility PT.        Timestamps: [02.46] - Mike Waywell introduces himself [03.22] - Chris Burgess introduces himself [03.42] - Greg Mikolap introduces himself [04.55] - Will Holmes introduces himself [05.56] - Will tells about the specifics of the Swiss govt's reopening recommendations and how he has applied them [09.00] - Mike, Chris and Greg talk about specific plans for how they plan to reopen, use of outdoor space before going indoor (if possible) and keep their clientele safe [19.50] - Greg tells us what he asked in a survey he sent out to his client base to understand their concerns around coming back to the gym [21.23] - Will tells us what his client reception has been to coming back into the gym [26.15] - How they have all communicated with their client base through COVID and how they plan to communicate things moving forward [33.47] - Will talks about the changes he's made to programming and coaching [37.45] - Chris, Mike & Greg discuss programming and gym layout changes [43.40] - The guys talk about loyalty and rewarding clients who have stuck around during COVID [52.55] - How they are all thinking about marketing [64.05] - What they would all do if they were a personal trainer who doesn't own a facility and works in a commercial or private gym     Find Out More About The Guests: Will Holmes Mike Waywell Greg Mikolap Chris Burgess       Find Out More About LTB: Website Instagram Facebook

For the last 30 years, Larry Gold has spent most of his working life as the CEO of numerous different hospitals throughout the world. He's helped brand new ones start from scratch and helped struggling ones grow and become huge parts of their communities and at times he's managed over 3000 people. Nowadays he's a consultant to executives who work within healthcare.   This episode is split into two sections: the first 15 minutes is about Covid-19 and how to effectively lead through this and the section after is all about Larry's career, leadership, managing people and building relationships.        Timestamps: [03.20] - The difference between a manager and a leader [06.00] - The three critical leadership components that must be present during times like this [10.59] - What don't you want to do as a leader during times of disaster? [13.34] - Dealing with the uncertainty that Covid has brought everyone [17.02] - Larry sums up his career and tells us what he's doing just now [18.20] - How he got started in healthcare [28.10] - How he's approached growing within each new job he's done [30.45] - How he managed to get 3000+ staff all on the same page working as a CEO in a hospital [36.40] - Why every single person in an organisation needs to know why what they do is important [40.25] - Why he used to walk the halls in his hospital every single day to connect with his employees [43.25] - Why building relationships has been so important to his leadership style [45.05] - How to approach challenging staff situations [46.25] - Giving tough feedback and saying the things that need to be said [52.15] - How he's approached building up his weaknesses [54.52] - Revealing personal aspects of himself to his colleagues and employees [62.25] - Making the whole community proud of his hospital and what you can learn from it [66.28] - What he wishes he could go back tell his younger self   Find Out More About Larry: LinkedIn Profile   Find Out More About LTB: Website Instagram Facebook

Adam Feit is Precision Nutrition’s head strength and sport psychology coach. He's been an S&C coach at every level you can think of and currently, he’s a PhD Candidate in Sport and Exercise Psychology at Springfield College studying the use of mental skills among S&C coaches. In today's episode with Adam we talk about time management tips, managing overwhelm, helping clients use their skills in other life areas to manage exercise and nutrition challenges, motivation science and much more.       Timestamps: [03.14] - How Covid has affected Adam's day-to-day [07.22] - Whether he's structured all the time or allows some unstructured time [10.50] - Time management tips [15.07] - Managing overwhelm [18.39] - Looking for what PN call 'bright spots' when coaching clients [20.37] - What kind of coach was he prior to starting with PN [31.52] - The importance of having someone to check your blindspots [34.07] - How he's got better at receiving feedback [36.52] - Roses, thorns and buds daily reflection exercise [38.37] - What his PhD is and what it's teaching him [47.57] - How he used to think about motivation compared to how he thinks about it now     Find Out More About Adam: PN Bio Facebook Twitter - @Adam_Feit       Find Out More About LTB: Website Instagram Facebook

Dr. Yoni Freedhoff is an Associate Professor of Family Medicine at the University of Ottawa, and since 2004, the medical director of the Bariatric Medical Institute, an ethical, evidence-based, interprofessional weight management centre. We discuss why a compassionate approach to obesity is absolutely necessary, how to help our clients manage their weight, reducing scale weight importance, whether education changes behaviour, childhood nutrition and much, much more. I know you're going to enjoy this episode, just make sure you've got somewhere to take notes as there are a bunch of times you'll want to pause and write something down!      Timestamps: [01.55] - Why obesity isn't as simple as move more eat less. [05.00] - Why personal responsibility is always touted as the most important part of obesity. [07.30] - How we can improve the message we put out there about obesity. [09.35] - Does education help behaviour change? {12.26] - What country is leading the way in terms of weight management? [14.23] - Why environment is the main element of weight management. [16.14] - How knowing that environment is important for his patients informs his practice. [18.55] - How to teach our clients that exercise is not just something that burns calories and is used to lose weight. [20.32] - What we know for sure about weight management [23.50] - Does he think PTs should be working with their clients on behaviour change around nutrition? [25.59] - The two questions he asks his patients to consider when they want to eat junk food. [21.13] - How important is a clients why. [34.35] - What role the scales play in helping clients maintain weight loss. [37.55] - Helping clients remove the scales importance. [39.20] - Underreporting calorie intake. [44.55] - Helping kids develop healthy relationships with food.       Find Out More About Dr. Yoni: Weighty Matters Twitter       Find Out More About LTB: Website Instagram Facebook

Brian St. Pierre is the director of nutrition at Precision Nutrition. He's coached Olympic champions, NFL and NBA teams on nutrition and written some of my favourite and most shared articles on the PN site. We discuss COVID-19 and how he's thinking about its effects on how to coach clients just now, what his coaching evolution has looked like, why some emotional eating is perfectly ok, the PN process for creating blogs and why he used to remove potatoes from his now wife's Irish stew.     Timestamps: [02.36] - Considering COVID-19, is now the time for fat loss? [04.45] - If he remembers trying to place his goals onto a client? [13.02] - The evolution of the coach [14.52] - Other things to consider when coaching clients during COVID [17.48] - Helping clients manage being at home and around food all the time just now [20.55] - Why it's important to normalise emotional eating  [26.15] - What role do trainers and coaches have with clients and their nutrition [29.35] - Getting clients more in touch with their internal cues? [31.32] - Helping clients who feel eating slowly etc is too small a habit to help them move them forward? [34.45] - Why it's ok for clients goals to change throughout the coaching process [38.05] - His article "the cost of getting lean" and how it uses it when coaching clients [41.06] - The PN process for creating blog posts [45.20] - What he wishes he could tell himself about what he's learnt about writing in the last 10 years [46.37] - Why he isn't big on social media       Find Out More About BSP: PN Bio The Cost of Getting Lean Article       Find Out More About LTB: Website Instagram Facebook

Chris Burgess is the owner of Lift the Bar, an education company for Personal Trainers, and Curious Fitness, a semi-private gym in Paulton, England. Stuart and Chris discuss whether the novelty of zoom sessions will start to wear off on clients who bought into in-person PT, how to think about retention during COVID-19 and what you should do if all of yours clients have said no to doing online training.     Timestamps [03.33] - Will the novelty of zoom sessions start to wear off for your clients? [06.43] - Why the question has to be "is this real?" [11.43] - How to embrace the novelty of delivering sessions online [16.09] - Is he worried about how long this is going to take to get back to some form of normality? [19.53] - How he is viewing retention [25.13] - How to handle going from 5/10-20 sessions a week to zero as your clients don't want to do online sessions     Find Out More About LTB: Website Instagram Facebook

Mark Fisher runs Mark Fisher Fitness (MFF) in New York, a two location gym and Business For Unicorns (BFU), an education and support company for business owners. Like most fitness businesses, MFF has had to go from being an in-person one to one that is now fully online. We discuss how MFF has pivoted to support their members during this time, how they are going about building and growing their community, whether or not they are trying to market and sell their online programmes and why it's so important to be a human.     Timestamps: [01.13] - How COVID-19 has affected things in Mark's world [04.50] - What Mark Fisher Fitness' current plan is [08.29] - How the MFF members have taken to being trained online [12.03] - What else MFF are doing to support and grow their community [14.58] - What silver linings Mark has seen with everything that has gone on [17.21] - Are they trying to market and sell considering everything that is going on? [19.13] - How are they are approaching their marketing and positioning just now [21.49] - How this will affect Mark's ability to make decisions moving forward [25.07] - Any books Mark would recommend       Find Out More About Mark: MFF Website BFU Website Mark's Instagram       Find Out More About LTB: Website Instagram Facebook

Mike Waywell runs a gym called Steel Habitat in Liverpool, England and a company called Gymownr. Mike is one of the people I turn to for advice on helping gym owners as he's built Steel from the ground up to become one of the most impressive facilities in the UK working with over 400 active members. We cover how to see the opportunity among the uncertainty of COVID, why Steel are running a 6-week challenge just now and how to run one yourself, how they are approaching marketing and why you have to remove the emotion out of what's going on to ensure you survive.      Timestamps: [02.26] - Why and how it's so important to see the opportunities that are available just now for gym owners and personal trainers [06.56] - Mike tells us how he's handled things so far [09.26] - Mike talks about a 6-8 week challenge they are using for accountability and retention just now [13.06] - Why Mike's business has seen 95% + retention rates even though they are now fully online [17.21] - How's he's handled pricing [18.41] - How he plans to handle a big drop-off in members [24.26] - If he's going to change his marketing copy to mention things like quarantine and lockdown [26.26] - What novel things they are doing to provide extra support to their members just now [28.19] - How he's feeling about the long term [33.11] - Whether he's managed to keep all his staff [34.11] - What book he'd recommend for times like this [36.41] - Why now is not the time to sulk, become frustrated or argue about politics       Find Out More About Mike: Steel Website Gym Ownr Instagram Gym Ownr Webinar       Find Out More About LTB: Website Instagram Facebook

Cameron Cummings works in a Pure Gym and supports and advises the commercial gym trainers of LTB. In the past week, as with most of the world, the UK has gone on lockdown and he's had to go fully online. We discuss how he's done this, how he's managed losing clients, what his plans are for the long-term and some marketing approaches.        Timestamps [03.18] - How he's dealt with what the coronavirus has done to his business [07.32] - How many clients he's lost since having to go online [09.01] - How receptive his client base has been to going online [16.35] - Why you should plan for 12 months rather than just a few [22.00] - How to start approaching marketing during this time     Find Out More About LTB: Website Instagram Facebook