Personal trainers seem to live in the gym right? Well, you’d be forgiven for thinking so, but that’s only part of the job! The working day of a personal trainer can be really varied and they might travel all over the city, or they might stay only in one gym. It all depends on the kind of personal trainer that they are.
Many younger and newly qualified personal trainers are attached to large corporate gyms. The reasons for this are two-fold, firstly, because they haven’t yet built up a list of regular clients and need the exposure a large gym gives. Secondly, they haven’t built up enough experience of training clients and need to get more expertise through personal training in a gym and doing group classes. Incidentally, depending on the gym chain, they might not even be paid for those group classes – it’s all to build up experience and find potential clients. When assigned to a corporate gym, personal trainers will by-and-large remain in that gym either training clients, doing promotions or trying to find new clients and running group classes.
Independent personal trainers have much more varied working days. Because they aren’t tied to any one gym, you’ll often find them training clients and doing paid classes all over London. Their day may go something like this:
6am (or earlier!)
Wake up and have a light breakfast, ideally something with a nice mix of protein, complex carbs and veggies. An egg white omelette sautéed with spinach and mushroom on some wholewheat toast is good. Once done, head off to the first client of the day.
Between 7-9am
Training clients before they begin work. This can either be in a park or personal training space (weather and client dependent!).
9am-11am
Do some more client plans ready for later in the day or answer email and phone enquiries. If needed, travel to another part of London for clients later that day.
11am-12pm
Train an early lunchtime client or one who works flexible hours. Otherwise, do a workout themselves before the lunchtime rush.
12pm-2pm
Training clients on their lunch breaks, again in either a London park or personal training studio.
2pm-4pm
Travel to another area of London for more clients if needed. Planning more programmes for clients later that day. Carry out marketing for new clients or plan a group exercise session and associated marketing for it. Grab a late lunch after the lunchtime rush.
4pm-7pm
Training clients after they finish work. Alternatively there might be a group fitness session to run. Have dinner once completed with training.
8pm-9pm
Plan client workout sessions for the next morning. Research new exercise ideas or equipment to use via industry magazines and websites, social media and blogs.
9pm onwards
Chill out and relax before having an early night ready for the next morning.
Of course, not every day is the same and some days may have more clients or group sessions and some may have more marketing and new business activities to do. Variety is the name-of-the-game when you’re a personal trainer.
