In Conversation with Luke Carlson: The Biggest Mistake When Selling Exercise and How to Avoid It
Luke Carlson is a familiar face to many in the world of high intensity training, CEO of Discover Strength, the main man behind the Resistance Exercise Conference and the instructor behind HITuni’s The Art of Selling HIT course. In this article we go behind the scenes to reveal more about Luke, his perspective on the current state of the fitness industry and some top tips for successful selling. Discovering ‘intelligent exercise’ Luke grew up around exercise, he recalls being aged three or four when his police officer father started taking him and his brothers to a gym above …
Read More15 Protocols to Make your HIT Facility Covid-Secure and Inspire Client Confidence to Return to the Gym
After what may be up to six months of minimal social interaction, probably including non-attendance at the gym, what is likely to give clients the confidence to start training at your facility again? It is useful to consider that different individuals will have different levels of concern about COVID-19, and how it impacts their day-to-day life, including going to the gym. To pick examples from both ends of the spectrum: there will be people, particularly those in high-risk groups, who may still be second-guessing leaving their homes at all. At the other end of possible perspectives there will be those …
Read MoreHIT facilities, hit by Covid-19: What to do now
Habitual patterns of daily living for billions of humans have now been disrupted in an unprecedented manner by the spread of Covid-19 and the global reaction to it. As members of the fitness industry, as facility owners and personal trainers our community has been significantly impacted. Indeed, it has been estimated that around 90% of gyms around the globe have temporarily had to close their doors as governments introduce measures to slow the spread of the virus. Protecting those most at risk Why have businesses been shut down over a virus that for a majority is likely to be …
Read MoreA Template for Resistance Training, Updated for 2019
One of the questions that I asked James Steele to elaborate on during our recent interview was: if he were to lay out a template for personal trainers introducing clients to resistance training/HIT, how would such a template look today? Let’s explore his answer, as well as James Fisher’s input into the elements that make up the template. Steele starts out by highlighting that his template is best considered as a base that can be built on and experimented from, to fit the individual client and their needs or as James puts it “their context”. The following is a pragmatic, …
Read MoreThe story behind Bill DeSimone’s course on integrating Functional Training with HIT
We have recently had the opportunity to work with personal trainer, author and speaker (NSCA, Club Industry, REC) Bill DeSimone to create a new course titled Functional Training: A Biomechanics Approach to Integrating FT with HIT. Controversial? Some seem to think so. And I get that reaction, if you had told me I would be involved in presenting a course that includes FT ten years ago I would have likely scoffed too, I was younger then and thought I knew damn near all there was to know about exercise. I started my career in personal training in 2000 and thankfully …
Read MoreIn Conversation with Adam Zickerman: What’s changed since Power of 10?
This is a further blog post in a series featuring outstanding individuals from the HIT community who we spent some time with on our trip to the US earlier this year. In this post, we feature Adam Zickerman, owner of Inform Fitness and author of Power of Ten 10. Adam’s serendipitous career in exercise Adam has been a successful gym owner since the late 1990’s. In fact, 2018 marks his 21st year in the business of teaching the principles of sound strength training, but how did it all begin for him? He had always been athletic as a kid and …
Read MoreHow to Get People to Make the Right Fitness Choice – The Cognitive Biases at Play
Busy week? Take a moment to reflect. What do you remember? Visualise conversations, training sessions or content that just sticks out. Do you recall every specific detail? As humans, we can’t compute everything. Trying to figure out what you need to know and what you don’t is exhausting. Our smartphones have become more advanced than computers from just a few decades ago. We cram information gathering into every spare moment. Shopping, exercising, listening, scrolling – we can do it all at once. Attention spans are down, accessibility is up. Our brain uses a few simple tricks – quirks of the …
Read MoreIn Conversation with Fred Hahn: 20 Years of HIT, the Golden Age of Nautilus and Intermittent Fasting
Those of you who have already read the blog post overviewing our recent trip to the US will know that we got to meet up with some great individuals and business owners from within the HIT (High Intensity Training) community. This is the initial post in a series of more in-depth articles about each of the people that we got to meet, first up: Fred Hahn. A career in fitness: Fred Hahn Fred has had a passion for exercise ever since he became a member of The Charles Atlas Club when he was 10 years old. Flash forward to …
Read MoreTop 25 resources you’ve not heard of before on managing and scaling your fitness business
As a founder of a fitness business, you need to be a best-in-class marketer, lead strategist, CFO, product designer and every other role involved with running a small company. The risks and psychological challenges of being all things to all people are real. Even the most confident entrepreneur with a winning business can get burnt out trying to do too much. I’ve curated a list of essential content to help you scale your business. Recommendations come from a mix of small business owners, academics, founders who have started and exited businesses, and scientists. Sift through the list, pick one and …
Read MoreHITuni goes to the US
The first 30 minutes of the drive required much focus as my brain’s default mode network (DMN) was unable do all the work required to safely drive on the right side of the road. Which was now indeed the right side of the road, and not the left. It hit home that months of planning were now a reality as we drove from Newark airport, New Jersey, toward Cranbury. We were headed to Optimal Exercise, the facility owned by Bill DeSimone. Those who don’t know Bill’s work yet need to catch up, he has already written two hugely valuable and …
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