The newest addition to the OPEX Team - Casey Jenks

So you’re ready to start training clients. Step one to becoming a personal trainer is achieving your very first coaching certificate, which will likely be the first of many as you pursue a lifetime of continuing education.

Getting a personal trainer certification seems like the logical first step to becoming a fitness professional. Online learning has opened up opportunities for many by bringing personal trainer educations to their homes. Here are the four steps to getting your personal trainer certificate.

How hard is it to become a personal trainer? Here we will look at the education you need to get a job, how hard it is to get a job, and be successful.

A micro gym can be a low-cost, low-risk way to start your in-person fitness business. But consider a few of the pros and cons before making a final choice.

Your ability to market your fitness business can make or break you, especially early on. Learn 10 key marketing tips to set yourself up for success.

The health and fitness market is saturated, it’s no secret. How much you should charge for coaching is directly dependent on your market's willingness to pay. Learn how you can figure out how much to charge here.

Personal trainers only last for a few years before leaving the industry completely because they’re burnt out and can’t make a living, this is personal trainer burnout syndrome. Imagine a world where health and fitness coaches could actually pursue a lifelong career in the industry. That is exactly what we are doing.

This blog provides you with 15 factors you must consider before deciding if being a Fitness Trainer is a good career for you. These factors include: Will your job pay you enough money initially? Will you get benefits today or into the future? Will you have to work a lot?

You are playing a game when you open a gym. How many more clients can you bring in than you churn out?

Gym owner Justin Yoon ran a group class CrossFit gym for years. Here’s why he decided to transition his fitness business to individual design coaching.

Quitting your day job and launching your career as a professional coach may sound easy. But, for most new coaches actually finding clients to work with is harder than it seems. With more than 20 years of experience in the coaching industry, we (OPEX Fitness) have learned what works, and what doesn’t. Here are ten steps we use to help coaches get their first clients and your next few as well.

Opening a gym is exciting. The thought of working in an environment you love and being your own boss is motivation enough to sign whatever documents you need to get that loan and open up your own gym. 

If you’re a coach, you probably agree that working with a new client requires way more energy than working with a veteran you have been coaching for five years.

For example, large gyms like 24 Hour Fitness and L.A. Fitness require almost 30,000 square feet of space. Though the costs of leasing such a facility size are astronomical, they are able to maintain profit by offering cheap gym services and coaching while operating a very large client base. The same analysis can even be applied to most CrossFit or group fitness gyms, because the overlap in when clients train necessitates larger facilities and more equipment.

That’s the number one tip OPEX CCP Coach Sam Smith has for the thousands of coaches who are suddenly transforming themselves into remote coaches since their gyms closed because of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Or maybe you have discovered coaching 20 group classes a week, sometimes four a day where you administer the same workout over and over, becomes tedious in a hurry. That’s certainly not your perfect day. 

For this to happen, the client needs a solution to his/her problem—to get and stay fit and healthy. The coach needs job fulfillment and an opportunity to make a professional wage so he can have a long-term career in fitness. And the business needs clients and coaches to stick around in order to be profitable.

Most group class facilities run the same workout 8 to 10 times a day. This makes for an incredibly long, boring, repetitive, monotonous day for any coach who coaches more than two or three group classes per day. (This is often why coaches choose to be part-time coaches, as coaching the same workout 8 times a day puts them on the fast track to burnout.)