Hey Guys
Without further ado, here they are:
#1 Reactivate Your Old Clients












Hey Guys
Without further ado, here they are:
#1 Reactivate Your Old Clients













I’m closing my studios down.
I’m quitting personal training for good.
I’m going to stop running courses for personal trainers with immediate effect.
Not!
But perhaps I should. Especially if I go by what many fitness marketing gurus and are telling me.
They’re saying that personal training is dead. That the public neither want nor can they afford PT and that it’s the bootcamp that holds all the promise for the fitness professionals of tomorrow.

So maybe I and every other personal trainer on the planet that still works one on one with clients should quit and open up bootcamps in the very same parks as all these other guys and their bootcamps?
Maybe we should have 20-30 bootcamps to choose from in each and every park, beach and greenspace in every city to cope with this overwhelming demand for bootcamps that we keep hearing about.
Or maybe not.
Maybe this bootcamp craze that we’re going through is part of the process that my good buddy Alwyn Cosgrove is always talking about; over reacting in the short term and under reacting in the long term.
You see it all the time in fitness.
Swiss balls. Resistance Tubes. Bosu’s. Weight vests. Plyo’s. Functional Training and, dare I say it, kettlebells.
They’re all examples of the same short term over-reaction that I believe we’re currently experiencing with bootcamps; Fitness professionals getting carried away by the latest version of ISAIWI.
It’s Shiny And I Want It.
ISAWAI happens whenever something’s new and suddenly everyone has seen the light and believes they’ve stumbled upon the definitive answer to all their prayers. They’re so hypnotised by the new, shiny thing in front of them that they never stop to ask whether or not it actually does the job better than whatever came before. In fact, they don’t care, they just like the new.
I don’t blame them. I like new too.
New’s fun.
New’s stimulating.
New’s fresh.
But new isn’t always better, it’s not always right and, well, it’s rarely truly new.
Bootcamps are a bit like that when you really think about it.
Can they be fun? Absolutely!
Are they stimulating? They certainly can be.
Are they better?
Well, there’s a question…
To answer it you need a definition for ‘better’ in the first place, right?
In this instance we could say that bootcamp training makes fitness more affordable than PT. We could say that in most communities it will get more participants involved in exercise than PT which is no bad thing. And yes, it can create a fairly decent per hour income for the instructor that, in many cases, exceeds the income generated for that same hour by personal trainers.
So far so good for bootcamps.
But here’s where it gets… ‘hazy’ for me.
See, few of the truly great fitness professionals I’ve ever met, worked with or even heard of believe that lasting change in either fitness, fatloss or health in general is the result of attending organised exercise classes. None of the ‘field’ experts nor none of the researchers or scientist for one second believe that classes in and of themselves contribute to the lasting change that most clients seek and that most fitness professionals claim they want to provide.
Anyone who knows anything about long term adherence to health strategies knows that it’s a very cerebral process. One that requires coaching, reinforcement and, ultimately, paradigm shifting on the part of the client. I know of only a handful of bootcamp instructors who come anywhere near to offering anything near that approach and, clearly, with just 2-3 sessions of 30-40 minutes a week shared by 20-40 other bootcampers, even as good as they are, they aren’t going to be very effective at doing any ‘mind work’ with their class participants.
And let’s be honest here. It IS just a class.

Other than a few people out there who are delivering military style bootcamp ‘beastings’ (which is a subject for another post) most ‘bootcamp instructors’ are simply delivering fitness circuits outdoors. No problem with that at all. I was a soldier myself, I went through bootcamp training for real and I love outdoor training but calling it ‘bootcamp’ doesn’t suddenly elevate it to another realm of fitness provision. It’s still a circuit training class, right?
Yet you don’t hear the guru’s calling for personal trainers to give up PT to become circuit training instructors do you?
Why?
Because the industry would see it for what it is. A market that would soon become over-populated and over marketed just like aerobics, pilots, step and all those other church-hall fitness businesses leaving some with busy, thriving classes and others struggling to find available space that they can afford as well as trying to find people to their classes.

But name it ‘bootcamp’ and people don’t see it anymore.
Funny that.
So look, here’s how I see it. Outdoor circuits are here to stay. Just like aerobics, step, tae bo, spinning and all of those other group classes you’ve heard about over the years. And just like these classes, outdoor circuits will go through a massive surge in popularity, a slow dropoff and, eventually, they’ll be run by the relatively small percentage of instructors who can make them profitably work in their local parks and greenspaces (even now, local authorities around the globe are catching on to the bootcamp craze and looking for ways to charge you to a licence to use their parks, forests and beaches).
Just like PT, bootcamps will become the province of those professionals who know how to get a good mix of marketing, results and experience shared around their communities and the rest will either be discouraged by low attendances, low profits or high overheads as the parks ask for their share of the wealth.
One thing’s for sure though. There will always be a need for those people who are able to offer a highly personalised, highly professional and highly niched, specialised blend of lifestyle, exercise and nutrition especially among those for whom exercise class participation is inappropriate, inadvisable or simply ineffective.
So let the guru’s talk about the death of the Personal Trainer all they want. It ain’t happening anytime soon, and nor should it.
Personal training may need to change and become even more specialised than it currently is but it ain’t dying. It’ll still be here when bootcamps have gone out of vogue and the next instalment of ISAIWI shows up and some people will still be making a fortune at it and some will still struggle, just like in any industry or profession.
Cream rises to the top. Always. Regardless of whether you’re a PT, bootcamp instructor or anything else, choose to be the cream and your success is assured.
Dax Moy
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Fitness Professionals HERE!
P.S – I’ll get this out of the way so that you’re clear before any outdoor circuits instructors post me hate mail : )
1. I have nothing against class instructors of any kind. They perform a vital role in our communities and make fitness fun and affordable to a large number of people.
2. I have myself run outdoor circuits very successfully and helped numerous students to do so.
3. I have been in a real bootcamp both as a recruit and as an instructor so feel more qualified than most to comment on what is or is not a bootcamp.
4. I have issue with any class that randomly throws exercises, loads and reps together in a ’screw it let’s do it’ fashion.
5. I believe that ‘beasting’ type of training has no value for the public, limited value for soldiers and athletes and even then in limited doses.
6. I believe that if your idea of long term exercise prescription is a deck of cards then you’re doing yourself and your clients disservice.
7. I don’t believe that a class of 20, 30 or 40 people can ever get enough attention from 1 instructor to ensure that the workouts are truly safe and effective.
C’mon then, let the Dax-bashing begin : )
