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!

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!

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

            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.

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!

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!

Illuminate Gym has become a place where people of all ages and athletic backgrounds can come and pursue their fitness goals with a personal trainer.  However, now Illuminate Gym is now offering franchise opportunities across the country.  Wouldn’t it be nice to build a successful business based around helping people to healthier future.  At Illuminate Gym we believe that there is nothing better than this so we are committed to helping entrepreneurs just as we have helped so many clients to their fitness goals.  If you are a person in need of a personal trainer then please check us out at www.illuminategym.com or www.sunshinegym.com.  If you are interested in owning your own Illuminate Gym then please check out our fitness franchise opportunity at www.illuminategym.com/franchises.php.  Thanks so much for reading and have a healthy day!

So you’re interested in purchasing a franchise?  Perhaps it’s a fitness franchise? You look into the model and then you receive the FDD (Final Disclosure Documents).  Now the real work begins to make sure that this franchise is actually a franchise opportunity for you.  No matter how great the franchise model is you need to make sure you understand fully how much you are going to have to pay your franchisor and exactly what they are going to provide for these royalty payments.  In the franchise world we have seen a lot of FDD’s that can be a bit misleading as they pertain to royalties, which can usually cause some anger between franchisee and franchisor.  As a perspective franchisee it’s time you put your mind to asking your perspective franchisor the tough questions before you invest money into that particular franchise model.  As a franchisee you can’t sit on these questions because you are the one who is investing your hard-earned money into a franchise model.  The key word is ‘invest’.  When you buy into a franchise model you are investing into a business opportunity, so make  sure you know exactly what you are getting into before you commit to a franchise.  I would also recommend that you compare competive franchises models to each other to make sure you make the best possible investment for you. 

Thanks so much for  reading and if you would like to learn more about our franchise opportunities at Illuminate Gym check us out at http://www.illuminategym.com/franchises.php or www.illuminategym.com.  Don’t forget to have a healthy day!

The second issue is how much support will  the franchisor give to you after your doors open.  I have spoken to quite a few franchisees in the fitness franchise world and many of them claim that after signing the franchise agreement and sending the check in to the franchise development company that the communication went silent.  Now sure the franchisees all went to training and they had discussions about sites, but for the most part communication went silent.  I have the answer for these confused franchisees.  The simple answer is that these franchisors were more concerned with selling franchises rather than supporting their existing franchise units.  It’s all about sales!  So as a future franchisee you must ask the question “WHAT  SORT OF FRANCHISE SUPPORT AM I GOING TO RECEIVE ON A DAILY BASIS?”

This is important to ask this question to a franchisor you are interested in working with after all, you are paying for it.  Would you start paying a car company $300-$1,000 a month without knowing what kind of car you’ll be driving??? I didn’t think so.  Just remember to ask these franchisors questions.

Thanks so much for reading and if you have any questions about Illuminate Gym check us out at http://www.illuminategym.com/franchises.php.  Have a healthy day and good luck!!