One of the greatest trends to come out of the industry has been the concept of group training. This inexpensive and social alternative to personal training has truly resonated with consumers. It gives clients the ability to take advantage of the benefits of personal training, without the tremendous cost. Depending on how your facility structures its personal training program, adding group options to your program can benefit not only your trainers, but members as well.
My definition of group training is one trainer with up to eight people who are relatively of the same fitness level, striving for the same or similar goals. If you have more than eight people, it can become very tiresome for the trainer if not everyone is on the same page. For example, having a CrossFit participant and a weight-loss client in the same group will not work if they are on either side of the fitness spectrum.
In addition, pricing should be less than normal one-on-one sessions or packages of personal training. This then becomes another way for clients to train and get results at a lower rate. You can structure payment in a number of different ways: packages, monthly membership, or weekly memberships. Memberships are nice for the sake of billing, but the idea of no refunds must be stressed. Packages can also work, and it gives the member options to take different classes.
Finally is the idea of training for a specific goal. For instance, training members to do their first adventure race or a marathon builds team camaraderie and makes workouts fun in a social setting that breeds results.
In my next blog, I’ll discuss the implementation of a program like this.
Vic Spatola is the Director of Personal Training for Greenwood Athletic and Tennis Club in Greenwood Village, Colorado, a suburb of Denver. Contact him at vics@greenwoodatc.com.
