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The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach is my favorite personal finance book of all time. It’s my financial adviser’s favorite book too. That’s what made me know we were of the same mind and to work with him. This book is the epitome of practical, put in place today strategies that can pay off big time for you in the long run. Like David says in the book, “It’s not how much you make, but how much you save.”

The E-Myth is a must read for any business owner. Gerber tackles many of the misconceptions surrounding starting and owning a business. Most importantly, he reinforces the concept that you should be working on your business, not necessarily in your business.

The Cash Flow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki may sound a little boring and confusing from the outside, but I assure you it is one of the books that has really helped and given me perspective in my own financial education. He’ll take your through the quadrant and show you the drawbacks to staying on the left side of the quadrant and how you can move ultimately to the right side. If you ever hope to achieve financial freedom, understanding these principles is a must. Traditionally, only the rich tend to think this way and apply it to their lives. You’ll have to virtually change your mindset to move into the most productive places in the quadrant.

At some point (sooner rather than later), be sure to pick up a copy of these books and give them a read. Nearly every successful business owner I know has read them as part of their own business and financial education. Many of these principles and concepts don’t come naturally. What’s worse, is that we may have been conditioned our whole lives to thinking and acting in ways that are inhibitory to our personal success. Continuing to educate, and re-educate ourselves is vital if we wish to become prosperous.

Within our organization, you can remain certified if you’re a member and participate in our business of personal training membership area.

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Some of you already do this and that’s awesome! Most trainers I see though, don’t. First of all, there’s no way you can remember all of the minute details of seat settings, etc. for a number of clients. Second, there’s no way to show true progress your clients are making. Yes, there’s value in variety, but if done to excess, records are useless and meaningless. It is possible to have someone do a lot of work and effort, but still not really progress much. You have to have some repeatability in there in order to show comparison. Probably the biggest principle to adhere to in personal weight training is the progressive overload principle. You don’t really know if you’re abiding by that principle if you have a different exercise every time. What might end up happening is apparent progress, not true progress. Granted, you could do a pre and post test of some standardized exercise(s) which would be a step in the right direction. But, why not try to get your clients a little better nearly every time they come in? If you are tracking their progress and monitoring all the variables, you can show them graphically, show trends, and it gives them a sense that you care about their progress and how their results.

Charting progress for more quality

You’ll also stand out from those around you and appear more professional. As you know, I think our whole industry can use a big dose of more professionalism. More professional also means that you can charge more too as there should be higher perceived value your service. We track everything and even use stopwatches to time right down to the second. The more you can control and the more you can isolate out certain variables, the more effectiveness you’ll deliver.

Not professional

This also comes in very handy if the client has medical needs that you may need to communicate to another health professional. Hell, mine even came into play once legally when one of our clients was being assaulted by her husband. I had documented the day and specifically what areas she had mentioned were hurting her and had to adjust the routine as a result. Of course, she didn’t tell me this was the case at the time.

For good tools in order to implement this, click on the progress chart image above or go here to download a progress chart.  Between charting performance accurately, and measuring circumference and body composition as accurately as you can, you should be able to deliver more value in your program to your clients and stand out from the crowd. Nobody will ever be able to doubt the validity of your methods.

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It’s no secret; most personal trainers hate to sell. They hate to sell themselves and they hate to sell their services. That’s fine, a lot of people have a hard time pricing themselves and that gets better with more experience as an entrepreneur. But, if you hate doing it, don’t put yourself in a position where you are forced to do it over and over again and risk losing clients at the same time.  How can you do that?

EFT or ARB. EFT is electronic funds transfer, or as my bank calls it, automatic recurring billing. We are fortunate to be in an industry where typically, your services are paid for ahead of time. That’s great. You don’t have to bill your clients after the fact and constantly chase down 50% of them to get paid for what you have already performed last month. So, we are a step ahead of other industries on that one.

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It’s called the 15 Second Pitch. Use the wizard below to formulate a 1 or 2 sentence elevator speech (pitch) that you can save and memorize for use in situations like I described above. You’ll sound much more professional and hopefully gather some new leads from it.

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After seeing 2 incidents in the gym (not our clients) in the last couple of weeks, it is something that could be extremely useful. I’ve put one together for us. In the event of legal trouble, it could come in very handy to show that we had forethought and followed the proper protocol we have laid out.

But, generally, make sure you are up to date on CPR/first aid/AED certification and follow those procedures. If you are ever in doubt, go ahead and get the AED and have someone call the EMS. No one should blame you for being cautious. It’s better to have called and not really needed it if you’re not sure what’s going on rather than the alternative.

If you’d like a copy of a general personal trainer medical crisis plan, you can obtain one along with our incident report form. Click here to grab your copy of your medical crisis plan.

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But, what about us, the so-called professionals? I haven’t seen a whole lot of professionalism in this area at all when it comes to a pretty high priced 1 on 1 personal service. In fact, I’ve seen downright poor treatment of customers and non-professional attitudes while working. Case in point: One of the locations we use just recently sent out a letter that indicated they wanted all of the independent trainers to be certified and have liability insurance. Something I would have done years before if I owned the place. That’s risky not to. However, most of them would talk to me and express their unhappiness with the new rules. As a result, those changes weeded out about 90% of the independent trainers in 1 location. All because they didn’t want to take their business seriously and do things like incorporate, be certified (or educated in some other way), carry liability insurance to protect themselves and the facility they work in.

I think most people see this as something they do in between other jobs or simply on the side. Rarely do I see it employed as a career option. Even more rarely is it run as a legitimate company with owner and staff. It is an uregulated industry and we have it nice. There are so few requirements and barriers to entry. We should be able to take it seriously enough that prospective clients will see that we operate like legitimate businesses. The pool of clients that you attract in turn will also take it more seriously and they will be more pleasurable for you to work with and they’ll probably be more successful too.

So knowing all of that, can you call yourself a professional? Is there anything you could do to raise your level of professionalism? That’s one of my goals to make a difference in the industry before I leave it. It’s also our company mission. Take a look around our site for personal training companies and see if there is anything you can use to build your professional reputation.

Also, be sure to post a comment and share with us some of the unprofessional things you’ve seen going on around you in the business of personal training.

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About Markus: “If you’ve been reading bodybuilding magazines for any length of time, you’ve probably noticed that most of the top bodybuilders train in a remarkably similar fashion. They’re in the gym five or six days a week, hitting body parts with 12-20 sets. Sometimes you could almost switch the names and pictures around on the articles and few would notice the difference. Enter Markus Reinhardt. You’ll soon discover that his methods are a radical departure from the rest of the bodybuilding herd, based on principles of reason and logic rather than merely a blind imitation of those around him. ”

Learn from a Master in person and discover:

-Common weight training terms
-Different muscular actions in weight training
-How to differentiate types of exercises
-Characteristics of HIT routines
-How to moderate frequency, intensity, and duration
-The real function of the cardiovascular system
-Appropriate rep ranges
-HIT principles
-HIT advanced techniques
-Basic nutrition principles and acceptable body fat ranges
-Proper way to determine new client resistance
-Client tracking and progression models
-How to identify overtraining
-Possible exercise contraindications
-And MORE!

Study materials are downloadable. 60 day completion time frame.

Click here to learn more about the HIT Personal Trainer Certificate if you live in or around Las Vegas, NV. Be sure to ask Markus about his special code to get 10% off and to indicate that you want to be graded by Markus, himself.

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A recording of our Natural HIT Bodybuilding Webinar with Markus is available here.

I’ve got a great book for you to check out. It’s written by my friend, Dave Durell, of High Intensity Nation from Orlando, Fla. Most of the people I see are looking for general fitness and fat loss, specifically. Our clientele is almost always a slight majority of women. But, this one is something special mostly for the guys. Not that women should be afraid of muscle, on the contrary, that should be your focus if you want to raise metabolism and improve shape. But, men, if you’d like to pack on some lean weight, raise your metabolism, and start to develop that upper body shape you’ve been looking for, this book will tell you the way to do it. Better yet, it tells you how to do it in a safe and very effective method using high intensity training principles specifically for BUILDING MUSCLE!

Click Here!

Dave knows what he is talking about too. He’s spent quite a bit of time with the industry’s leaders in bodybuilding and strength and conditioning.

Pro bodybuilding results in little time!

Click Here!

Dave has personally spent time with and been trained by the man above, the late Mike Mentzer. Former pro bodybuilder in the early 80′s. Mike knew the secrets to getting lean and muscular without overtraining. When most bodybuilders were working out 6 hours a day and twice a day sometimes, Mike was working out twice a WEEK! He was maximally stimulating his muscles for growth and then allowing them to grow with the proper amount of rest.

Dave has also spent 10 years in all helping to build pro athletes to tip top shape as a strength and conditioning coach for pro football teams like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Jacksonville Jaguars, and even at South East Missouri University. He knows what it takes to get lean and muscular and it’s in this book.

You’ll also get a couple other bonuses like I did. You get the simple nutrition guide to go with it as well as 2 downloadable MP3 files for the High Intensity Muscle Building Audio Program where he literally walks you through to your success. You’ll also get access to his High Intensity Training Video Vault. The first video is the secret to bigger biceps. Now, I know my anatomy being a Master Trainer, but Dave showed me something in this video that even I didn’t think of. It’s a simple technique, but extremely effective if you want to maximize your bicep’s muscular development. What guy doesn’t want to do that? I wish I had seen that video 10 years ago. I’ve never seen anybody else recommend this technique. There’s also an excellent technique if you’re having trouble making progress with dumbbells. Sometimes a 5 pound jump is too much, well what do you do? Dave shows you a simple technique that can make an intermediate step in this process without interrupting your muscle building progress.

Again, I can’t say enough about this book and all the extras, information, and tools that come with it. I fully endorse his methods and would jump at the chance to grab this book. And just like us, he has a GUARANTEE. If you’re not happy with it, there’s a 100% money back guarantee.

Click Here! to get your copy of this must have book if you’d like to start building that lean muscular frame or if you’re a trainer looking for a great technique to get your clients exceptional results.

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The Skyndex is probably the best body fat caliper on the market. This is the one with 2 formulas programmed into it. It has the Jackson-Pollock formula which is good and reasonably accurate for everyday use and the Durnin formula if you ever plan to need it for research or a clinical setting. Or if you just want to be a little more accurate. It’s easy to use. You set the dial to a number that corresponds to a range of the subject’s age. Then take 3 or 4 sites to measure, entering each one as you go by pressing the thumb button. When you are done, it automatically goes through the formula for you and give you the body fat percentage on the digital display. It’s the best one I’ve used to date. Everybody claims hydrostatic weighing is the gold standard, but you have to measure tidal volume. If you don’t, it’s not any more accurate than calipers. Plus, hydrostatic weighing requires extra time, a wet area, etc. It’s a hassle. Why not just get reasonably close to the same results in a much more practical product? Comes with its’ own case and power supply.

This is the Lange skinfold caliper. It’s a little more cost effective option, but is not digital. It is very compact and comes in a small case that you could easily store in your gym bag or something. This is the second best body fat caliper I have ever used. It takes a little more time because it isn’t digital, but it is VERY well constructed and will last you a long time. It comes with a calibration block to ensure accuracy. It’s accurate down to within 1 millimeter.

Garmin make some awesome stuff. This is the Forerunner. It’s a GPS with a heart rate monitor and stop watch mounted on the wrist. It’s pretty cool and you can use it to compete with previous workouts for yourself or use it in the gym to time client’s sets and/or workouts.

The PT/Pro Bench is great. For you in home trainers, it’s an excellent portable option for a professional adjustable bench. It’s got a carrying handle and strap for you to easily maneuver from location to location. It’s pretty versatile for just about any type of training you want to do. At 23 pounds, it’s heavy duty too so you don’t have to worry about it falling apart on you.

The Bowflex SelecTech Dumbbells. These could also be portable if you want to lug them around. It’ll replace a whole rack of them. Between the PT/Pro Bench and these, you could really put together a good program for someone. They are fully adjustable and should satisfy the needs of most clients going from 5-52.5 lbs. each. This link even has many of the routines and exercises you can do listed right out for you.

Bodylastics are a great complement to the bench and the SelecTech dumbbells. Very lightweight and versatile with door anchor and ankle straps. You can load up multiple bands at a time with the carabiner clip totalling 127 pounds per side.

The TRX is hot right now and it was specifically invented to use where equipment is lacking. That’s one of the hardest things to address is pulling exercises for the upper back (latissimus) when there is little equipment around. Not everyone can do a pull up. That’s one of the benefits of the TRX is that you can use your body weight (or only a fraction of it) in a way that will allow you to address those previously neglected areas. This one is a cool military green color. It’s VERY well made and should last you a very long time.

This is the online training system that we use. It can allow you to get at previously unreachable markets and disperse your fitness knowledge to people over distance. We private label our site through their enterprise account and our own domain name so it looks like the clients are signing up right through us. All you need is a paypal account. Like I said, this is good for people at distance or a good downsell to someone that cannot afford your services one on one. It has a library of fitness routines, a workout wizard, and nutrition tracking. You can set your own pricing and customize the users experience as much as you want.

If you have your own location, a good scale is a must. A physician’s balance beam model is the way to go as you can calibrate it easier and they are more reliable. You can also measure height with this model.

Myotape is a great tool to use in place of a regular measuring tape. You can measure up to sixty inches and the push button tape retraction makes it a little easier than fumbling with a cumbersome normal tape measure.

Robic is one of the best companies out there for timers. Here they have a clipboard with a ruler/straight edge down the side as well as a stopwatch/calculator combo. You’re covering all of your bases with this one as you can time client activities and calculate anthropometric measurements as clients come in during the day.

This is Sportline’s digital tally counter. I don’t know about you, but the traditional way of counting reps gets in the way of instructing the client mid set. With this tool, you can click off the reps as the client completes them while you continuously instruct them. Then you can look at the total countable reps you clicked off to record after the set is complete. It frees your mind to focus more on what you should be…instructing the client, not counting to 10. You can obtain a lot of data while fully instructing a client. You can time the whole workout, time each set with the clipboard, and track whole reps with the tally counter. All of those numbers should give you a really good idea of what kind of progress your clients are making.

Another testing device is the flex tester sit and reach. Probably the most used test to determine flexibility improvements. Obtain readings in metric or standard. It is well made and accurate with the height of the box at the subject’s hands.

Here is another portable option if you’d like to have clients do a chin up or pull up. This bar has multiple different hand grips and won’t cause damage to the door frame. It can also be used as an anchor point for a band or other suspension device like the TRX.

So there you have it. 14 awesome tools you can implement in your personal training business if you don’t already have them.

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