The Impact of COVID-19 on Personal Trainers

The impact of COVID-19 on personal trainers has already begun. Many gyms are being forced to shut down for the next 30 days at the minimum. That’s assuming nothing gets worse.With that being said, the affects of COVID-19 are being felt across all industries. But that’s old news.

Many trainers and their clients are scrambling to figure out how they can continue training for many reasons. Namely, clients who have been working hard for months with their trainers don’t want to lose all of their hard fought progress. On top of that, trainers – especially in-person trainers – are having their very livelihood taken right out from under their feet.

I mean, many people are prone to feeling a little cabin fever during this time of social distancing and working form home. But, trainers especially. Many trainers went from the normal hustle and bustle of their typical work day to essentially being laid off for 30 days; all within 24 hours in some cases.

How to Continue Training

First, a disclaimer. Training won’t be the same as you are used to. You think toilet paper and chicken were the only things people raided at the stores? I implore you to check out the fitness gear sections of your local stores.

Many of them have been raided already for resistance bands, weights, and other common fitness equipment. Not only do you have to find a way to train at home but also with limited gear. We are going to have to get creative.

With that being said, we can still find ways to sweat.

Bodyweight Workouts

Considering that people are raiding fitness gear, it might be a good idea to prescribe body weight workouts. This way your clients can rest assured that there is a way to maintain all of the progress they have fought for.

We at FitSW are already hard at work in putting together some body weight workouts trainers can use as templates.

However, in the meantime we will be posting body weight workouts you can use on our social media accounts.

Using a Client Management Software

If there’s one thing that’s true, it’s that COVID-19 has created a lot of uncertainty. Not only in our day-to-day lives but also in the way that we will train. You may have clients who are used to exercises within a certain training style. Now, we are being forced to adapt to new training styles with body weight exercise, the use of bands, and anything else we can get our hands on.

Client management software can help mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on personal trainers and some of the uncertainty. FitSW for example offers demo videos you can include in exercises for clients to reference. You might be saying “well duh”, but now that clients are training at home, a demo video can go a long way when they are unsure about certain exercises.

Additionally, using a client management software can help give your clients security with constant access to workouts. Not only that, but they can also continue tracking their progress.

Many trainers are creating packages in FitSW and selling them to clients for in home workouts and in home training sessions. Through all of this, there might be some grey area when it comes to payments because a lot of clients are still paying for sessions at their gym that they aren’t able to use.

Luckily, most gyms are putting a pause on payments which makes it easier for trainers to accept payments from clients while everything is shut down.

Keeping Your Spirits High & Using Your Time Wisely

Although there are some negatives coming out of all of this, the impact of COVID-19 on personal trainers can also yield some good.

Through all of this, it’s easy to feel down about the whole thing. Not just because you are no longer working. But because your daily routine has been knocked off it’s tracks.

It’s good to maintain a normal routine throughout the day to keep yourself from feeling down. Maybe that means continuing daily rituals, such as, getting up at a normal time and drinking your coffee/tea. In addition, get up and get active. Schedule walks and home workouts for you to do.

You can even schedule a group training session with clients who feel up to meeting at a park. Just make sure your group doesn’t exceed the maximum gathering size many states and countries have established.

You might be thinking “okayyy, that only gets me so far through my day” and you’re right. However, you can supplement that time that you’re usually training with writing home workouts for clients or learning new things.

Get a Specialization

Maybe you have purchased one already and haven’t finished it or you have a rainy day fund you can use to purchase a course. Whatever it maybe, what better time to gain another specialization? You have more free time then usual and when all is restored to normal you can get right to training with your new specialization.

Explore Business Idea’s You Haven’t Had the Chance to Explore

Have you been thinking about online training? Setting up a website? Why not try it now? At the very least, some site builders like Webflow offer a free subscription model that allows for you to build websites for free. This lets you explore their courses and tutorials and familiarize yourself with the tool. Plus it’s free so why not?

Get ahead on Social Media Posting

Do you automate your social media posts? Many trainers and businesses do with sites like Hootsuite. With some of your spare time, you can sit down and make a bunch of posts to schedule in your social media scheduler.

This way when things go back to normal, you are caught up and ahead of the curve. And trust me, my guess is things are going to be crazy. Clients are going to be clawing their way into training sessions with you and a new crowd of people will be looking for training sessions too.

Make a Guide

Are you a personal trainer trying to grow your business? A guide is a great way to show your expertise and get leads.

The only downside of creating a guide is that it takes time. You have to choose a topic, do research, create an outline, and design the whole thing. But now that you have more free time this might be a good option to consider.

Brush up on Your Marketing and Sales Skills

Although there aren’t specializations with this, there are plenty of free courses and certifications online you can get. You can even start by reading some of the blogs we have written about marketing:

1. Marketing Funnels for Personal Trainers: Click Here
2. Social Media Marketing for Personal Trainers: Click Here

Aside from this, Google offers a boatload of certification courses with Google ads. These can be a great resource that you can use to start learning digital marketing.

Turn part of your home into a safe haven

Have you ever jammed you finger and injured it? And then over the course of your finger healing, you realize how often you bump it into random objects because it hurts every time you do.

By the time it’s done healing, you’re glad, not because you were in aching pain, but because you missed the luxury of not having to care when you bumped your finger into things.

Well, COVID-19 has done something similar to a lot of people.

However, instead of it being a stubbed finger, it’s taken away our daily rituals many of us take pride in. Right about now, some of us are starting to realize how much we miss our day-to-day habits because we have never had to go without them like this before.

If there’s one thing we know to be true, it’s that most of us have mini rituals we follow everyday, sometimes unwittingly. Some are intentional, some are a product of the habitual nature of human beings.

Whatever the reason is, we run on mini rituals. They help us ground ourselves during times of stress and right now is no time to sacrifice your personal time.

At the time of this blog being written, many of us are at home due to mass closures and mandatory social distancing. As a result, our worlds have shrunk drastically from what is a normal day and so have our daily habits. At this point you may be asking, “how am I going to re-create a daily pattern from my living room couch?”.

The answer is this, you don’t have to. Start by freeing up any points of stress in your life. Are the dishes a disaster when you go to cook food? Find out why and fix it. Then, turn your kitchen into a point of joy. Cook meals you’ve wanted to learn and try decorating it how you’d like to.

Haven’t had the time to decorate your desk in your room? Go buy a couple fake plants for a couple bucks and liven it up a little bit.

Your closet full of laundry? Do your laundry!

The point here isn’t to overload yourself with chores and eventually stress out, but quite the contrary. Eliminate the clutter and put things in place that make you happy.

Feedback On The Impact of COVID-19 on Personal Trainers?

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