In September 2014, Anytime Fitness named Luke Andrus “Personal Trainer of the Year,” an honor he had set his sights on two years ago. Although he has only been a personal trainer for four years, teaching in some capacity has always been a passion.
Originally, Andrus planned to become a teacher. However, after working at a friend’s gym throughout college, he realized a career in personal training would provide for more flexibility. “When I became a trainer, I think it took about two months for me to realize that I was a teacher — I was just teaching something other than history and English,” he recalled. “I’ve always wanted to do something and serve a greater purpose in my life, and [training] became it.”
That teaching philosophy has translated into his interactions with other trainers as well. “I always and continue to teach as many people as possible, whether [it’s] my own team, in the articles I write for AnytimeFitness.com or on phone conferences with tons of people that I’ve never met before,” he said. “I think the biggest thing is to just be open to everyone else and just try to be a mentor to others in the industry.”
A genuine interest in his clients is a trademark of Andrus’ personal training career. “When I’m with people … my only agenda is to help them, to truly help them create a lifestyle, not to give them false promises and certainly not to get them to buy personal training constantly,” he said.
Although Andrus is passionate about personal training, he didn’t accept sole credit for his success. “I also have an incredible team that supports me, and an owner, [Bobby Hines], that invests in educational opportunities for me on a regular basis,” he said. “Every opportunity he finds to invest in me, he takes.”
Andrus suggested other personal trainers focus on day-to-day improvements with their clients, versus milestone achievements. “Honestly, as trainers we can’t bog ourselves down with trying to seek a success story, because that makes us try to mold the person into what we want them to be,” he said. “Instead what makes a personal trainer a hero is that they wake up every single morning and decide to change someone’s life. It’s not in the big successes that you become that hero, it’s in every decision to help people live lives of integrity, and that’s what fitness is about.”
Andrus thought back to winning “Personal Trainer of the Year” and said, “That felt amazing. I love my fitness franchise and I love Anytime Fitness, and so to win ‘Personal Trainer of the Year’ in such a great and huge corporation was surreal. That was what I wanted to set my sights on, and I won, so it’s just crazy.”
By Rachel Zabonick
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Rachel Zabonick-Chonko is the editor-in-chief of Club Solutions Magazine. She can be reached at rachel@peakemedia.com.
