There are two aspects to the available specialties.  When creating your account, as before, you can check one or more of 15+ fitness specialty formats.  For being part of the community, participating in the conversations, or promoting your services within you only need to designate whichever of those options best fits your role in the fitness industry.

The second aspect that draws so many fitness professionals to Fitness Pro Travel is to have their account and specialties reviewed for inclusion to the Fit Bodies, Inc. teaching vacation program.  And, here is where a few minor changes have taken place…

Personal Trainer	Golf Pro	Group Fitness	Tennis Coach
Yoga Instructor	Cycling Instructor	Zumba Instructor	Pilates Instructor

These 8 specialty positions are currently offering availability for the fitness pro to become an international fitness presenter through the Fit Bodies program… So What Changed?

Change 1 – Pilates and Yoga now each hold their own distinction as an independent specialty.  Often a resort will take either discipline for the week in a teaching exchange as it does currently, but now you can search out opportunities specific to your expertise in these areas.

Change 2 – To provide certain hospitality locations with greater specificity in regards to the qualifications of the fitness professionals we connect them with, additional formats have been added to the Yoga and Personal Trainer positions (more on these in a future post)

For our existing account holders you will want to ensure your account is up to date so that you are able to access the greatest number of Fit Bodies teaching vacation opportunities.

Change 3 – Is how you will make those updates.  Similar to the current community set up you will (when logged in):

1. Cursor over “Account” tab
2. Click on “Edit Profile” from the drop down menu
3. Scroll down the page to the section called “Specialties”

Here you will be able to view all the fitness professional specialties that your account is currently approved for.  If it is not accurate you will follow the link thre for directions on how to go about requesting your information be updated…. Take those easy steps and viola, you will be set to take full advantage of our community and the Fit Bodies teaching vacation program.

Surprising to me that I’ve only advised over the past 8 years managing FPT a handful of Fit Pros on attaining multiple specialties simply so that they can take greater advantage of this Fit Bodies program……..  Are there many of you who have realized the great opportunities and done this on your own???

**remember, this is all for the new website that is just over a month out in opening its doors to the entire community.  Feel free to update your account sooner if you like, but the above procedures will be available in the new system to make it easier and more reliable in reflecting your true fitness specialties.

Promotional content tends to get more conversational in a Blog.

I’m just starting to check out MyClassPro now and while jumping into their blog I found an interesting video quiz that might be fun for those who travel through the Diet Grader site.

I’m not so certain that the quiz result is the “perfect” way to start each day, but of the choices it seems to be making sense.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

After further review and discussions to ideally bring some added benefit to our membership in the Fitness Pro Travel Network, I look forward to providing further opinions on how this program may assist you as a Fitness Professional.

You can begin your own research now by following the links above.  Pete and Kelly were both pleasant to talk with and would be happy to ensure you get set up with a free trial.

Scheduling group trainings can be a pain. MyClassPro is  primarily geared to the Fit Pro who independently provides community fitness camps and is designed to make scheduling, payment, and communication simple. But, it can be used for other group training scheduling functions appropriate to the yoga instructor, group fitness instructor, or even certain club settings as well.

Give me a couple weeks and I’ll see if we can dig up a bit more and if appropriate secure specific benefits for the FPT community members…. If you’ve used it or have specific questions you’d like me to check into be sure to post them to this blog entry.

"BootCamp" OR "Session Class"

Group fitness instructors have offered bootcamp programs for many years in the club setting. It is somewhat interesting to witness the advent over the last couple years as “bootcamp” programs have grown in popularity outside the club, that group fitness instructors are rarely found leading the class.

Spending quite a bit of time on the business side of fitness (nationally/internationally) And, having the opportunity to watch my wife as she implements various fitness camp programs or marketing tactics within our local operations, gives me an interesting perspective.

I also see much of what is being offered as business education & programs to the fitness professional and I have the opportunity to create and test our own.

It’s clear that within the fitness industry a lot of attention has been paid to the personal trainers while the group fitness instructors seem to be a forgotten specialty when it comes to outside the gym “bootcamp” styled programs.

Programs like Mega Marketing, BootCamp Blue Print, or Fitness Business Revolutioneach are targeted to the Personal Trainer and the list goes on. It is much tougher to find programs to assist and teach the group instructor that has an entreprenuerial mindset.

These programs can all be made applicable to the group fitness and yoga professionals if you are willing to look at your professional fitness specialty as more than just a part-time job working for a club. Personal trainers are figuring it out and it might just be time you do as well.

Tell me, which certification is geared toward group training? I’ll give you the answer; The one that has the word “group” in the title. That being the case, why is it that small group training and “bootcamps” are dominated by the personal trainers?

Bootcamp is simply one format out of many the average group fitness professional is capable of running.

Trainers are using these formats to generate incomes of well over $100 per hour. They are taking advantage of internet marketing and building lists of participants that they can continue to market to into the future. They are also diversifying their business and offering related fitness products, supplements, information, etc.

… I say, “good for them”, but shouldn’t the group trained instructor be working within these programs also?

Group Session Classes of any Format

I do not see the Group Fitness and Yoga Instruction professionals doing the same thing at all. They (of course not all) seem to be content to work only for the facility and are missing out on many opportunities that are available to them.

You are trained to create group programs, monitor participants of various levels, and to safely provide modifications for all to actively participate. Because of the focus of these training on groups, YOU are well qualified to be leading the bootcamp” (actually, just session classes) styled programs.

There are personal training principles which are important in the operation of these programs. The group fitness instructor can learn those principles in a well designed “bootcamp” training program at least as well as a personal trainer can learn the skills specific to what the group fitness instructor does.

There are several reasons personal trainers are utilizing group training tactics outside of the standard gym setting. Here are some great reasons you should too!:

1. 85% of the population does not belong to a fitness facility.
2. 60+% of the population is overweight or obese.
3. The diet industry is huge. The fitness equipment industry is huge. The anti-aging movement is huge and growing. – bottom line is that people are spending lots of money on things you can actually provide.
4. Group trainings lowers the per person cost to participants. You will make more dollars per session/class while charging individuals less.
5. Bootcamps, which are most often variations of high intensity interval training (HIIT), have proven extremely effective in assisting participants in achieving their fitness goals for a variety of reasons.
6. Bootcamp is a format of group fitness. What we are really providing is the business model of offering session classes. Group fitness instructors can offer this under many different formats, not just a bootcamp program.

You are leaving money on the table, allowing your brothers & sisters from the personal training side of fitness to dominate the large and growing bootcamp business model.

These programs are not rocket science, but will help you reach more people and make a greater amount of income. We continue to work on a program specifically for group instructors to help you get started.

While I encourage personal trainers to get training to work with larger groups and add these types of programs to their offerings list, you the group fitness instructor have a few advantages right off the bat and I’d love to see you take advantage of them.

• You are trained specifically to work with groups of various fitness levels.
• Group fitness instructors generally have the ability to offer multiple formats of classes. BootCamp is only one style that can be performed in a gym, field, or apparently a combat zone. Just because this is the primary format that personal trainers have attached themselves to doesn’t mean you can’t take your other formats outside the standard gym setting or offering structure.
• I believe it is generally easier for a person who has picked up the principles and abilities important to group fitness to get further training and diversify themselves as personal trainers rather than the other way around. What you do is not the same, but it is similar. A small amount of related training will make you very proficient and capable to run these programs.

I hope you consider what you may have been passing up. You have skills that can be provided in many different locations, can reach many fitness needy lives, and these skills can be utilized to generate a great deal of income for you and your family with minimal extra work.

This is an updated re-post from our original blog. As the program continue to be developed your thoughts and concerns are still of interest.