Posts Tagged ‘personal training’
Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
Innovation? Does it really exist in the fitness world? This is a question I am continually asked over the course of a work week as people make their way into Illuminate Gym or call about our fitness franchise opportunities. My professional answer is pure and simply ‘No’. There really is no innovation in the fitness world. I know what you’re thinking ‘how could a CEO of a fitness franchise tell us there is no innovation in the fitness industry?’ The reason is because there is no method of staying fit that didn’t exist 50 years ago. For instance a couple of years ago I had a personal training client hand me the P90X DVD set and I took it home and tried it out. What I found inside were movements that personal trainers and athletes have done for years. The only real innovation when it comes to products like P90X is the marketing strategies of the companies that sell them. Now don’t get me wrong if you are a P90X fan I am not ripping the program as I completely agree that the P90X can be a very affective way to lose weight and get fit. However, it’s not because it’s a revolutionary way to train.
The point of this blog is to really look within our society and recognize that we have become lazy in the way that we can’t self -motivate ourselves to get more active and to focus on what we are eating on a daily basis. As I said before p90X (as an example) can be a very affective way to lose weight and increase the strength of your heart, but if you never put those DVD’s inside of your DVD player and get off the couch they will never work. Like plopping your credit card on the table for a gym membership you will never use also will never help you lose that extra weight. The bottom line is being fit is a lifestyle not a habit. It takes real discipline and hard work to maintain both your health and fitness. There is no magic pill, exercise regimen, or piece of equipment. There is only you and your discipline to get to the gym and the will to say ‘no’ to that donut on your receptionist’s desk at the office. There is no magic.
At Illuminate Gym we think our business model is very beneficial to our customers because our ‘High Oxygen Training’ is a proven system of personal training and because we are not a membership based gyms. All of our clients have scheduled workout times that they must keep with fitness professionals. It’s funny how easy it is to let ourselves down, but how crushed we become when we let someone else down. Illuminate Gym is all about accountability and proven personal training principles and dieting guidelines.
Thanks so much for reading the blog here at www.illuminategym.com. If you would like to read some more about the franchise opportunities at Illuminate Gym check them out at www.illuminategym.com/franchises.php. Thanks so much for reading and have a healthy day!
Tags: Circuit Training, diet, dieting, exercise, exercise machines, Fitness, fitness franchise, fitness franchises, gym, gym franchise, gym memberships, illuminate gym, innovation, P90X, personal trainer, personal trainers, personal training, pills, supplements
Posted in Fitness, personal training | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, August 31st, 2010
We live in an unhealthy society today where the majority of us sit in front of computer all day and we feed ourselves to excess usually with foods that are filled with saturated fats, sugars and too much salt. The result is unhealthy habits that are leading to our rising obesity statistics and illnesses related to America’s new found lifestyle. Then on top of these horrible habits Americans are getting lazy. Now don’t get me wrong personal training and Illuminate Gym are built on building ‘liability’ into people’s pursuit of fitness. After all, 80% of all people who buy simple gym memberships will not return to the gym within 4 months.
Either way the point is with horrible eating habits and a lack of motivation for fitness it shouldn’t be a suprise that we could see the first generation who will have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. That’s a scary statistic to think about isn’t it? The point is that people need to start focusing on what they put in their bodies on a daily basis and also they need to get out of that chair they have grown so accustomed to sitting in and get active! It doesn’t matter what you do, but you have to make time to burn the calories your consuming and make sure you’re not taking in too many calories. It’s a very easy thing to take care of ourselves, yet for some reason we make it very hard for ourselves to take that step to ensure we have a healthy future. Instead we make investments for a healthy financial future, yet we don’t plan for a healthy future???? That doesn’t make any sense at all does it??
It’s time to get out there and start working out for a better future and start looking at the food you are eating and not just tasting it. Have a healthy day and check us out at www.illuminategym.com!
Tags: diet, fat, fit, Fitness, gym, gym membership, health, healthy, Nutrition, personal trainer, personal training, salt, sugars, unhealthy, www.illuminategym.com
Posted in Fitness, Nutrition, personal training | 1 Comment »
Thursday, August 26th, 2010
As personal trainers we always hear women say one key thing, ‘I don’t want to build too much muscle while working out.’ This is a common concern of many clients who are interested in hiring a personal trainer and you can almost see it in their faces as they walk into the gym and they see weight equipment…. All of sudden their eyes open and they start to have visions of them walking on a stage in a string bikini looking like a professional bodybuilder. ‘I don’t want to build too much muscle… I don’t want to look like a man… I don’t want my arms to get bigger…’ starts racing through these women’s minds.
If you are a person who is thinking about hiring a personal trainer don’t be concerned about building muscle. Many people have no idea how hard it truly is to build muscle. Now there is some truth that some of us have more of a genetic disposition to build muscle. However, it’s still a tough for a woman, or anyone for that matter, to build a substantial amount of muscle tissue. You see the issue is that our society has been jaded by the use of steroids. Steroids have actually changed our perception of what the human body is really capable of achieving either through muscle growth or human performance. Many women and men have seen photographs of bodybuilders and athletes who have changed their body’s chemistry to obtain muscle mass and they are convinced that they could look like that by training with a personal trainer twice a week.
The honest truth is to build a substantial amount of muscle you need to make sure you are eating enough calories and the right sort of calories to gain muscle. To lose weight you obviously need to eat less calories than you consume on a daily basis and to build muscle you have to eat more calories than you are burning. That being said a ‘bodybuilder’ must make sure that he/she is getting enough calories from fat, carbohydrates, and of course protein. Then it just takes a lot of hard work and some help with some genetics. Some people struggle for years just to gain 5 pounds of muscle.
The other side of this argument is what the heck is so bad about gaining muscle? Did you know that muscle burns 10 calories a day by just living in your body? That’s right. You see fat is not a living tissue, it’s merely storage, but muscle on the other hand is a living tissue that burns calories every day. So in my mind gaining muscle is actually a good thing because the more you have the more efficient and thermogenic your body becomes. And don’t worry about gaining bulky muscles ladies. It’s really hard to do. Thanks so much for reading and have a healthy day!
www.illuminategym.com/franchises.php
Tags: bodybuilder, bodybuilding, calorie, calories, diet, eating, fat, Fitness, gym, gyms, health, healthy, muscle, muscles, personal trainer, personal trainers, personal training, steroids, work out, workout
Posted in Nutrition, personal training | 5 Comments »
Friday, August 20th, 2010
I was 22 years old and I had worked extremely hard to become a successful personal trainer, but I wanted more. I arrived at work every single day at 4:30 AM (to prepare for my 5 AM session) and I wasn’t out of the gym until 8 PM, and though I loved my job I came to important realization as a personal trainer that changed my career course forever. The realization because I wanted to earn more money, but there was only one of me and so many hours in the day. I also started to understand that though I loved personal training I couldn’t keep working 15 hour days 6 days a week forever. I started to wonder, had I already reached my full earning potential in the personal training profession? Had my career reached the pinnacle of the fitness industry at 22? ‘Maybe it’s time to find a new profession,’ I thought to myself, but every time I looked into a new career I just couldn’t imagine leaving the fitness industry.
Then one day I voiced my concerns to one of my long time clients as we measured her body fat. She then looked at me and said, ‘David why don’t you open your own gym? I mean I don’t even like this gym. I just come here because I like you and my personal training with you is getting me results.’ That’s exactly when I started thinking about opening my own fitness facility which would cater to individuals interested in working with personal trainers just like me. That’s the day that Illuminate Gym became a reality for me. I knew that many other personal trainers had tried to open personal training gyms in the past and failed, but what I have learned is being a great personal trainer is not enough for a personal training gym to succeed. It took me a long time to perfect my model, but something I found out about myself is I’m actually a business man first and a personal trainer second. It’s the combination of business sense and fitness passion that makes for a successful entrepreneur in the fitness industry and if you are missing one these two attributes then I’m not sure opening your own fitness facility is really the answer for you. However, if you do have these two important attributes then maybe it’s time you put your leadership skills to the test and open your own fitness facility!
If you are considering your own fitness facility the one piece of advice I would give you is the make or break for an entrepreneur starts with all the pieces of owning a business you haven’t considered such as, the lease you are going to sign, the insurance you are going to carry, your marketing efforts to get people into the gym, development of your brand, and how to support and develop the people that work for you. As I said before being a great personal trainer isn’t enough to be a good fitness entrepreneur. In fact, it’s just a small piece of the journey to success. It’s important that you understand the early development of your personal training gym or fitness facility is the most important and fragile part of your business development. In other words, the worst thing you can possibly do is to rush to get your doors open as quickly as possible. I have watched personal trainers rush into opening their own personal training studios multiple times and most of them end up out of business very quickly. I had a personal trainer who once worked with me who had all the potential in the world and one day he came to me to let me know he wanted to open his own fitness facility.
‘Great, let’s put it together and build a business,’ I said because he knew I had just started offering franchise opportunities for Illuminate Gym. His eyes dropped and I could tell he had other plans.
‘I think I want to do this on my own David,’ he said.
‘That’s fine. Get yourself an attorney to take a look at your lease and make sure you have enough money behind you to market and to support your business while you get back on your feet,’ I told him.
‘I think I’ll be fine I already met the landlord and I think I have some good ideas to get some new clients,’ he explained.
That day he walked out of my office and within weeks he had opened his small facility in a small office building with no exposure and of course without proper legal representation the landlord had taken advantage of the young personal trainer. Within a year both he and his business was gone even though he was a great personal trainer. The point is if you’re a personal trainer looking to start your own business regardless if it’s a ‘one-man-shop’ or a full scale gym you need to educate yourself and take your time. I personally would recommend looking into a fitness franchise or aligning yourself with someone who understands retail business. Either way personal trainers need to make sure they do their due diligence before opening up to the public to ensure they give themselves their best opportunity for success. Business can sometimes cloud our view of the fitness industry and I think you should always remember that personal trainers do what they do because we want to change people’s lives for the better and because of this the fitness industry can be the most rewarding industry in the world.
Tags: business, business model, clients, entrepreneurs, fitness business, fitness facility, fitness franchise, fitness industry, franchise, franchise advice, franchises, gym, illuminate gym, lease landlord, personal trainer, personal trainers, personal training
Posted in illuminate gym the franchise, personal training | 13 Comments »
Wednesday, August 18th, 2010
For More Information:
Jamie Sedbrook
303-399-1355
jamiesedbrook@illuminategym.com
www.illuminategym.com
Fitness Franchise Illuminate Gym offers a healthy relief to the unemployed!
DENVER—August 17, 2010—Fitness franchise Illuminate Gym, affordable personal training featuring unique High Oxygen Training (HOT), announced today that they will be offering 3 free months of free personal training for someone in Denver who is out of work and in need of some fitness guidance.
The economy is still down and every day for the past year David Sedbrook, CEO of Illuminate Gym Development Company has been reading about the loss of jobs and the declining confidence of a nation in the ‘American Dream’. ‘It’s been so hard to watch family and friends lose their jobs and homes over the past two years. It’s been so bad that at times I have even felt guilty for still having success here at Illuminate Gym during this tough economic time,’ David Sedbrook said. Illuminate Gym is now doing its part by offering to help 1 individual who is currently unemployed due to the economic downturn a chance to train at Illuminate Gym in Denver, Colorado for 3 months at no charge. ‘At Illuminate Gym we have always been committed to changing people’s lives for the better and just maybe with this offer we can do our part to help one person with their health and fitness during this tough time in their life,’ David Sedbrook said. Illuminate Gym will be accepting inqueries about the 3 free months of personal training they are offering starting September 1, 2010.
If you or someone you know are interested in such a program please give our personal training manager, Jamie, a call at 303-399-1355 or she can be emailed at jamiesedbrook@illuminategym.com. ‘Our goal is to help someone start building a better future through fitness by providing a regimen that will prove to build confidence and overall health for one person in a time of need,’ Jamie said.
This is another example of how Illuminate Gym is completely committed to making every community they touch a little healthier and a little better. Have a healthy day!
Tags: Colorado, Denver, Fitness, fitness franchise, franchise, gym, gym franchise, healthy, illuminate gym, personal trainers, personal training
Posted in Fitness, illuminate gym the franchise | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, August 17th, 2010
Illuminate Gym was started on the principle that personal trainers should have the opportunity to become their own boss by joining the Illuminate Gym franchise model. That’s not to say that a business man wouldn’t be able to succeed at owning an Illuminate Gym, but we do offer our franchise opportunities to both fitness professionals and perspective franchisees who are interested in the fitness industry.
Personal trainers have been faced with a tough issue that plagues most individuals in a service industry which is, ‘there is only one of me, and 24 hours in a day.’ This dynamic makes it very clear that there is so much money that a personal trainer can make and if they miss work well then the revenue stream will definitely slow down and eventually that stream will turn into a drought. I personally started my actual fitness career (I did work in high school at the front desk of many larger membership gyms) as a personal trainer and I became very successful. In no time I had become the highest producing personal trainer in the whole gym, but I found that I was working from 5 AM - 9 PM. Now don’t get me wrong because anyone who truly knows me is reading that last sentence and saying to themselves, ‘David Sedbrook you still work that hard,’ which by many accounts is true however, as a personal trainer I had hit the ceiling of my profession at 24 and I had no where to go except down. That’s when the ‘Illuminate Gym model’ was born. Today it is my goal to provide business people and fitness professionals the opportunity to work in a low overhead business with high margins. Within our franchise model we actually promote personal trainers’ businesses and if personal trainers wish to build their businesses within the franchise model then franchisees can work themselves into an area developer position within our franchise development.
If you have any questions about our franchise development at Illuminate Gym then please check out our franchise opportunity at www.illuminategym.com/franchises.php and don’t forget to have a healthy day!
Tags: fitness franchise, fitness industry, fitness professionals, franchise, franchise development, franchise model, franchise opportunity, franchisee, franchisees, franchisor, gym, illuminate gym, membership gym, personal trainers, personal training, personal training industry, perspective franchisees, service industry, www.illuminategym.com, www.illuminategym.com/franchises.php
Posted in Franchise updates, illuminate gym the franchise | 2 Comments »
Monday, August 2nd, 2010
‘Why am I not losing weight?’ was the question I heard yesterday at the Illuminate Gym (Sunshine Gym) in Cherry Creek, Colorado. It’s a question we have heard a million times in the personal training world. At Illuminate Gym we always guarantee that at least 2 measurements will change on each and every client within the first month of hiring a personal trainer. However, after that first month a client must start changing their life outside of the gym to continue to see dramatic results. Here are some tips on how you can ensure you give yourself the best chance of losing weight.
1. You have to be active for at least 30 minutes a day.
2. You have to do cardiovascular training along with your weight training.
3. You have to throw out all hollow calories such as, fast foods and high sugar foods.
4. You should try to keep good sleeping habits.
5. Watch what you are putting in your body in the way of liquids. You want to avoid drinking too much alcohol, sodas, or other high sugar refreshments.
6. Try and eat slowly so you can tell when you get full rather than eating quickly until you feel stuffed.
7. Try and cut the calories down later in the evening because you don’t have an opportunity to burn those calories off.
8. Try and cut your carbohydrates after lunch.
9. Drink plenty of water.
10. Avoid high sodium foods.
I hope these ten helpful hints help you lose a little weight. Just remember you can’t blame your personal trainer if you’re not doing your part outside of the gym. Personal trainers are not magicians and they are not able to make significant changes seeing you only for a few hours in a week. You have to do your part and you have to find the will power and discipline to lose weight. Good luck and thanks for reading. Have a healthy day!
Tags: calories, carbohydrates, Cherry Creek, Colorado, Denver, diet, fat, fit, Fitness, gym, illuminate gym, lose weight, meals, personal trainer, personal trainers, personal training, Sunshing Gym, weight
Posted in Fitness | 1 Comment »
Thursday, July 29th, 2010
Illuminate Gym (Sunshine Gym) started there rise as a personal training gym in Denver, Colorado. Today I think it’s worth noting that the franchise development of Illuminate Gym has been built on the backs of the personal trainers of the original Illuminate Gym (Sunshine Gym). Illuminate Gym Development Company would like to take this opportunity to thank the original personal trainers of Illuminate Gym (Sunshine Gym) for there help with developing our personal training principles (High Oxygen Training) and for helping our business continue to grow in the Colorado market and beyond. If you would like to check out the original Illuminate Gym (Sunshine Gym) please check us out at www.sunshinegym.com. Also ask about our special of 2 free personal training sessions!
Also if you have any questions about the franchise development or the franchise opportunities at Illuminate Gym please check us out at www.illuminategym.com/franchises.php. Thanks so much for reading our blog here at www.illuminategym.com and have a healthy day!
Tags: fitness franchise, fitness franchises, franchise opportunities, franchise opportunity, gym, gyms, illuminate gym, personal trainer, personal trainers, personal training, Sunshine Gym, www.illuminategym.com, www.illuminategym.com/franchises.php, www.sunshinegym.com
Posted in Fitness | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 6th, 2010
The 4thof July weekend is over and now it’s time to get back to work here at Illuminate Gym. Personal Trainers are meeting with their clients and helping them become as fit as possible. Now that your holiday weekend is over what do you have planned to help yourself become as fit as possible? Not sure huh? Well here at Illuminate Gym we are preaching to our clients that to honor your country this year why not make make sure that we make America a little healthierone person at a time. We think the best way to do this is to start with the person you see in the mirror. Maybe it’s time for you to hire a personal trainer at Illuminate Gym and make this the healthiest year of your life. Thanks so much for reading our blog here at Illuminate Gym and if you are interested in reading more about High Oxygen Training, Illuminate Gym, Personal Training, or our franchise opportunities then please check us out at www.illuminategym.com. Thanks for reading and have a healthy day!
Tags: fit, Fitness, franchise opportunity, gym, health, High Oxygen Training, illuminate gym, obesity, personal trainer, personal training
Posted in Fitness | No Comments »
Monday, June 28th, 2010
Two clients at Illuminate Gym in Denver, Colorado are currently in the fight of their lives with Cancer but they have both made the choice to fight back with fitness. One of these clients has already beaten Cancer once, but this time she is fighting even harder by keeping her body healthy and lean before her chemotherapy treatments begin. The other customer has already gotten into the mind set that he will beat Cancer and he refuses to live a life without fitness. Both of these customers have made it very clear the Illuminate Gym helps them stay fit both physically and mentally because our personal trainers are committed to not letting our customers quit. We won’t quit on them and in turn, we ask them to not to quit on their fitness or their futures. These two customers of Illuminate Gym are extremely brave and though they’re letting Illuminate Gym help in the fight against Cancer we believe everyone needs to fight for a healthier future with fitness. Over 30% of the adult population in the United States is obese and these people are all at risk for diabetes, heart disease and other ailments that could lead to an early death. Fitness is an investment you have to make in your future and Illuminate Gym offers personal training at a very affordable rate to keep you focused on reaching your fitness goals and ensuring their is a healthy future in front of you. Thanks so much for reading the blog at www.illuminategym.com. Have a healthy day!
Tags: Cancer, clients, Colorado, Denver, Fitness, gym, health, illuminate gym, personal trainer, personal trainers, personal training, www.illuminategym.com
Posted in Fitness, personal training | No Comments »