The global COVID19 pandemic is showing no sign of slowing down. The fitness industry is one of the worst-hit sectors due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, to revive the stagnant global economy, many countries have started reopening various businesses and services.
Fortunately, gyms and fitness centres have also started opening in many parts of the world, allowing gym owners, fitness instructors, and personal trainers to get back on their feet. However, the road ahead is quite challenging for personal trainers, as many of their clients are still not willing to start one-on-one training.
Fortunately, there are several social media platforms and online meeting tools, like Zoom, which offer personal trainers a new way to train their clients. Online personal training is a safe and effective way to cater to your existing and new clientele.
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Here are 6 tips that’ll help you offer online personal fitness training.
From leading online meeting software like Zoom to various social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook, there are plenty of options for offering online personal training programs.
However, each platform comes with its own set of unique features, benefits, and drawbacks as well. For example:
You may also have to use different video-making techniques as each platform may support different resolutions and display sizes.
That’s why you should choose one or at the most two online platforms. It will allow you to invest more time in creating personal training videos, rather than managing your platforms.
However, you must choose a platform most of your clients are comfortable with. You can create a simple survey using Google Forms or any other means to find out which channel your clients would prefer.
As plenty of personal trainers and fitness coaches already have a substantial online presence, you will have to face stiff competition. That’s why you need to create a Unique Selling Proposition or USP. Your USP is simply a quality or feature that makes you stand out. It will help you market your personal training classes.
As each client will be at a different level of personal training, you will need to create a set of training videos before launching your online program.
You will have to shoot videos of different movements and workouts and upload them to the cloud or the platform for easy sharing.
Before you start shooting the video, make sure to:
If you are going to offer online personal training, you should invest in a good quality camera.
However, with many personal trainers facing pay cuts or even loss of income during the lockdown, a smartphone video camera is good enough to get you started.
Once your financial situation is better, you should invest in a good quality camera.
If you are willing to spend some money right now, investing in a professional-grade video camera is a good idea. You can buy a decent DSLR (Digital Single-Lens Reflex) Camera (however, most of these cameras can shoot no-more than 30-minute-long videos. They are quite versatile though).
Whether you are using a smartphone camera or a DSLR, you will also need to invest in a tripod to hold the camera in the right position.
Never place your smartphone against a stack of books or on a chair when shooting your videos as it leads to shaky footage.
Remember, the more professional your videos look, the more likely your clients are to continue your classes.
Each video publishing platform comes with a few unique features of its own.
For example:
Make sure to check all the video sharing, upload, and recording features of the platform to reach out to as many customers as you can.
Just like your offline fitness career, your online personal training venture won’t be an overnight success. Chances are, your first session may not be a huge success. It may even suck. However, don’t let these setbacks discourage you.
You need to keep learning from your mistakes and move ahead. One way to ensure each new session surpasses the old ones is to get client feedback. You can ask your clients what they liked and didn’t like about your last session. Be sure to take their feedback into account while recording your next class.
You will also need to keep track of the latest trends in the fitness industry, which is in a constant flux. Find out which exercise routines are getting maximum traction on social media and the internet. Including these routines in your training sessions can help you serve your clients better.
Remember, it is not enough to make your current clients stay. You will need all the online word-of-mouth you can get to attract new clients.
So, keep wowing your existing clients and ask them to share the good word on social media. Keep optimizing and updating your classes.
Though lockdown is lifting in many countries and gyms and fitness centres are opening, a lot of people are still not willing to start their in-person training. That’s why personal trainers need to find better alternatives to their traditional form of fitness coaching, starting with online classes.
These six tips will help you set up your online personal training sessions without difficulty. If you haven’t already thought about starting online fitness training, now is the time to do it!