If you have been a personal trainer for any length of time - or
any fitness professional, for that matter - then you know what
it’s like to spend a lot of time on the road. For trainers who
work with their clients in homes or a geographic mix of local
fitness facilities, you especially have some serious time behind
the wheel on a regular basis.
Regardless of where you train your clients, most trainers spend
a good deal of time driving to and from training sessions,
seminars, and other work-related activities. For most people,
that time ends up being “dead time”, during which you really
can’t be very productive. Listed below are some great ideas for
making the most of that time, and making it time that you even
look forward to!
Audio Learning
Audio learning is listed first in our list of great ideas
because it is VERY powerful on many levels, and there are
numerous resources available for this productive practice. The
basic idea here is that you listen to any number of audio
learning resources while you are driving. You don’t have
anything else to do, and you can’t effectively or safely do
anything with your hands, but your EARS are just fine, so put
them to work!
Here are some of the educational and motivational items that you
might consider listening to, and many of them have resources
geared specifically for fitness professionals: Self-help
programs, Audio interviews, Recorded conference calls, Recorded
radio programs, Career enhancement tools, and Motivational
recordings.
As you can see, there are enough ideas for things to listen to
while driving to fill up endless hours of time, and if you know
where to look, there are literally more things to listen to than
you will even have time for. We won’t get into too many details,
since it would take a large amount of text, but here are some
great resources to get you started. Self-help, motivational
audio, and recorded conference calls are items very specific to
your individual tastes and situation. As for the rest, here are
some fitness industry specific resources:
Audio Interviews: http://www.personaltraineru.com
Recorded Radio Programs:
http://philkaplan.com/thefitnesstruth/RadioShowMENU.htm
Career Enhancement Tools:
http://www.fitnessdestinations.com/fitnessinfoproducts.html
http://www.fitnessdestinations.com/sixfiguretrainer.html
http://www.fitnessdestinations.com/personaltrainersecrets.html
Planning Workouts
Driving time is a perfect time to work on the training protocols
for your clients. If you are doing the same workouts week after
week and month after month, both you and your clients are going
to get bored doing the same thing all the time. A great way to
keep your own motivation up while also keeping your clients from
hitting plateaus in their training programs is to change up the
training routines on a regular basis. Think about all of the
muscular and cardiovascular training principles that you are
familiar with, and come up with new and inventive ways to put
those resources together in effective training routines. Also,
for specific clients, you can spend that driving time thinking
about their individual workouts, and ways that you can make them
more intense, or fill them with more variety. This is a valuable
practice, especially if you have long-term clients who need
things to be changed up on a regular basis.
Working on Products
Another trait shared by many successful trainers is that their
actual training wages make up only part of their income. They
also have many products that they sell to their clients, through
their websites, and via their newsletter distribution lists.
However, just as with training, the same products can only be
utilized so many times, and driving time is a perfect time to
think up new product ideas.
Whether you are talking about “information” products, such as
books, e-books, CD’s, DVD’s, manuals, etc., or if you construct
actual training equipment, use that dead time when you are
driving to think of cutting edge product ideas that will not
only help your target audience towards their goals, but will
also make you a nice residual income in the process.
A great example of this is the Ultimate Complete Personal
Training Business Kit. This kit was constructed simply by taking
the experiences and knowledge of one trainer, putting it all
together in a downloadable package, and making the kit available
to others in the fitness industry. Learn more here:
http://www.completepersonaltrainingbusiness.com.
Making Phone Calls
As most trainers have realized, phone work is an integral part
of keeping a steady flow of clients. Contacting and following up
with prospective clients is a sure-fire way to keep your
training schedule packed from week to week.
In addition, you can call your present clients to check on them.
See how they feel after yesterday’s brutal leg workout, or find
out if their sore shoulder is feeling any better, or maybe check
in with them to ask how their job interview went, or their
anniversary dinner. TALK to your clients! When they know that
you care, they will keep training with you!
Nothing!
One of the most effective things that you can do as a busy
personal trainer when you are driving is NOTHING! Just let your
mind be blank. Pay attention to the road, obviously, but
otherwise, just enjoy some mental down time!
You spend hour after hour every single day training, motivating,
and educating countless people. Sometimes to the point that if
you tell one more person the proper way to do a push up, you
just might have to SCREAM!
Let those mental energies have a well deserved break! Listen to
some relaxing music and (safely) let your mind wander. Crank out
some hard rock and sing your frustrations into the wind. Plan
your next bout of Karaoke - whatever! The point is that you are
doing anything BUT putting your brain on overdrive.
Conclusion
Your time traveling from place to place is YOUR time. Use it
well and you will find both your success and your sanity under
control, and keep both headed in the right direction!