A day in the life of a personal trainer and gym owner.
Behind the glamorous life of a fitness professional lies… whatever the opposite of glamorous is.
One of my favourite lines lies in the So you want to become a personal trainer brochure is “choose your own hours”.
There is some element of truth to that statement: you can choose your own hours as long as those hours are a triple split shift when your services are most in demand: before-normal-person-working-hours, in the middle-of-normal-person-working-hours, and after-normal-person-working-hours.
Watch: That time we worked out with Madonna’s personal trainer. Post continues after video.
If you want the tired truth, here it is:
5:12am: Wake up.
5:10am = too early.
5:15am = too late.
Morning minutes are valuable. They are like dog-years. Every minute before dawn you can save is the equivalent of 7 afternoon minutes. Or something.
5:30am: Drive in the dark to my first class of the day.
Only one headlight is working. Drive with fog lights on instead. Survive.
5:45am: Start first classes of the day.
Teach 3 x reform Pilates classes at 5:45am, 6:45am, and 7:45am.
8:30am: Life-saving sustenance.
I grab coffee before my next class: THE BIGGEST long black with a dash of milk. The first sip is heaven, the final sip 5 hours later not so much. But… caffeine. In the hour before my next class (BODYPUMP) I cram choreography. To be fair, I learned it yesterday, but the short-term memory cramming makes me feel more confident. Realise I didn’t learn the core track. Don’t have it in my soul to learn it now, so just sneak in the one I taught last week.
9am: Drive to my next class.
In the daylight. No headlights (or fog lights) required. Survive.
9:30am: Teach BODYPUMP.
My shoulder is f**ked. Every move where I press the bar is agony. Those that have participated in BODYPUMP before will know that there are… A LOT of pressing moves. I’m trying to hide the pain. See, the thing is in this industry, if you don’t work, you don’t get paid. So I cry on the inside like a winner.
