All posts by NTrainers

Finding a Personal Trainer for 2017 Fitness Goals

Should You Wait Until 2017 to Find a Personal Trainer?

It seems every year that once Thanksgiving has past, the next three to four weeks in the office are spent getting ready for year end.  Why is there this strange slowdown of activity and why does it have to affect our outlook on our own health and fitness?  If you want to stay or get healthy, why should you wait until 2017 to start looking for a personal trainer?  Really, there is no question.  Start now!

The first and biggest reason…

Because you are motivated at that moment.  If you don’t take advantage of your own motivation, when will you EVER do it?  Deciding you want to get fit means displaying a level of readiness.  The hardest part is getting started.  Choosing to start of the right way with a fitness professional is by far the right way to go.  Especially, if you are normally on of the unmotivated crowd most of the time.  A New York City personal trainer will start off with a health history questionnaire and a fitness assessment.  Knowing where you are will help them get you where you want to be as you progress through your workouts.

Second…

Your body doesn’t know days, dates, and holidays.  Isn’t it silly how we tell ourselves ‘I will start after the holidays’ or ‘I will start on the first of the month’.  What does that mean to your body and your muscles?  Absolutely nothing.  While it may take a few days or more to find and schedule work with a NYC personal trainer, there is nothing preventing you from searching for a trainer today and then heading out for a walk or dropping to the floor for some pushups or sit ups.  Get moving.  You will have something to tell your personal trainer when you meet with them in a few days.

Finally,

Fear.  Fear shmear.  Throw fear out the window.  You have nothing to be afraid of here, except not starting at all.  You won’t fail.  Start exercising today and you are already doing better than 80% of all Americans.  Start working with a personal trainer in your neighborhood and you will be better than 95% plus.  Unfortunately, as a society, we are very sedentary.  If you tell people you exercise, you are actually the exception not the norm.  Crazy, right?!  You will be the person that motivates others

Bottom line…

Insert almost any cliché here.  Why wait?  Just do it.  Why put off until tomorrow what you can do today.   There is no better time than the present.  Or any other you want to throw in here.  Get started today.  Workout through the holidays.  You’ll be glad you did.  Find your New York City personal trainer today!

Election of Trump and Personal Training

Could the Election Outcome Affect New York City Personal Trainers Pockets?

Almost three weeks since the election, I feel this is a relevant question.  

Many business owners in all industries, ask the question every election.  “How will this new president’s policies affect my business?” Regardless of where you stand on the candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, it’s fair to wonder whether a Donald Trump victory could help or hurt your career as a personal trainer.

To be fair to personal trainers, I don’t think of the question in the same manner as other industries consider the question.  Presidents don’t put personal training legislation on their campaign platform.  And to be clear, Donald Trump makes it clear that he sleeps four hours a night and does not exercise.  However, after watching the way some things have gone, there could be good things in store for personal trainers. Particularly, the stock market.

Let me be clear, before continuing, this is not a political piece nor an endorsement of the outcome.  Just a simple observation.

More wealth means more

If the stock market is any indication of things to come over the next several years, there is the potential for a lot of wealth to be created with perceived pro-business policies. Since election day, the market is up about 5% overall, with some sectors much higher.

To be blunt, the financial industry accounts for a lot of the jobs in New York City.  Traders, investment bankers, analysts, and others, plus their legal teams could be busy over the next few years.  Then there are financial technology firms.  The list goes on.  If they make more money, more of them will be looking for personal trainers.

Personal training is still somewhat of a luxury product despite it becoming more mainstream.

The bottom line…

New York City personal trainers could see an influx of a lot of new prospects who have new found wealth because of the President-elect and his policies.

Again, this is not meant to inject political opinion, but rather to highlight a scenario that could play out as a result of the presidential election result.

Set up your NeighborhoodTrainer profile today and be ready when they start looking!

Benefits of Hiring A Trainer

November 17, 2016

 

5 Top Benefits When You Hire a Personal Trainer

Do you find it difficult to stick to an exercise program?

How many times have you set new fitness goals only to lose interest in a couple of weeks?

Working with a personal trainer is one of the easiest, fastest, most successful ways to improve your health and fitness. In fact, these days, personal trainers are used by people of all age, economic, and fitness levels to make lifestyle changes.

How do you know if hiring a personal trainer is the right choice for you? Consider the following things a personal trainer does:

Accountability

You probably find that when you exercise on your own, it’s easy to skip a session here and there. Additionally, you might even give up, since there’s no one keeping track of what, or when, you work out. On the other hand, when you work with a personal trainer, you have to check in on a regular basis, which means you more likely stick with your training program.

Motivation

Knowing you are scheduled for regular sessions can boost your motivation to continue with a workout regimen. To begin with, you may brainstorm ways to overcome your biggest obstacles to exercise. Following that, it will be easier to choose activities you find most appealing that you think you’ll keep doing. The bottom line is, you usually keep doing what you enjoy, and you get results from consistency.

Instruction & Safety

The first thing to remember is that exercise safety is the number one priority. In reality, anyone can do a workout from a magazine, but cookie cutter programs can lead to injuries. To that end, personal trainers teach you the proper way to perform an exercise movement.

Additionally, a personal trainer watches you perform the movements, and corrects your technique to reduce your risk of injury. The result is you perform each movement correctly, and maximize your workout effectiveness.

Equally important, any special considerations (existing medical condition, post-rehabilitation, medications, injuries, etc.) into account when creating your program.

 

Alleviate Boredom

Did I say fun? Believe it or not, exercising can be fun! To put it differently, personal trainers know varied exercises, equipment, and techniques can make your workouts both fun and effective. Because you know, when you choose exercises that keep you interested, you’ll more likely stay on track to reach your fitness goals.


Results

The bottom line is that a customized exercise program keeps YOU in mind. Also, if a specific exercise does not work for you, it’s easy to change it to one better suited that has the same benefits.

Finally, you adjust your routine as your fitness level improves to make sure you reach your unique health and fitness goals.

Manhattan In-Home Personal Training

While you may have fitness goals, at the same time, your daily schedule or personal obligations often interferes with the time you have. Or perhaps, you simply don’t want the obligation of a gym membership. With this in mind, I provide personal training sessions in your home, a private gym, as well as a private pool. To put it differently, training in your environment means convenience, less excuses, and privacy.

In fact, my unique commitment and dedication is to you. Fitness isn’t about being better than someone else… it’s about being better than you used to be.

Contact me through Audacious-Aging.NYC®, to get started with my in-home or aquatic personal training programs, to achieve the best you are capable of being. Inspiring an active, healthy, and vital life, now and tomorrow.

Cold Weather Exercise Tips

November 16, 2016

alejandro terrazas unleash fitWays to stay in shape in cold weather

1. Time to change the wardrobe. 

If you love running outdoors or cycling but hate the treadmill or
stationary bike, then the best way to keep it outdoors is by having the
right workout gear. The winter clothing technology of numerous sports
brands like NIKE and UNDER ARMOUR, make clothes that can make you feel like
its summer out again!. Having the right gear will keep you warm during the
winter months.

Coach Al’s Gear tip: 

Top: NIKE PRO HYPERWARM AEROLOFT 

Pants: NIKE PRO HYPERWARM. 

2. Take advantage of bootcamps, HIIT, Yoga, Pilates and many more. 

Staying in shape in the winter is often means spending more time in the gym
than we’d like. This is where group classes come in handy, with numerous
ways to keep you engaged and on the edge while also becoming part of a
team. From boxing classes to HIIT(High Intensity Interval Training) I
promise you that winter will go by without you even realizing it.

Coach Al’s tip: 

You don’t have to take a class everyday – they are a good way to keep you sane and engaged to focus in your fitness goals. 2-3 classes a week should 
do the trick. 

3. It is time to take the stairs. 

Taking the stairs is great way to burn some calories, so if you skipped the
gym and want a quick leg workout then stairs is the only way to go up!

Coach Al’s stair workout: 

Stairs too easy for you? Time yourself to see how fast you can get to your floor without skipping a step. Once you beat your time make it harder by skipping a stair. You’re welcome! 
4. Ice skating/ snowboarding! 

Have you ever tried skating or snowboarding? If not don’t let this winter
go by without trying one of the most fun and yet challenging winter
activities. Both are great total body workouts! Ice skating can be done
outdoors or indoors while snowboarding might require you to travel. Both
are pure fun and a true test of your entire body. So gather your love ones
or a group of friends and enjoy!

Coach Al’s sweet spots tip: 

Bank of America Winter Village at Bryant Park Rink, awesome spot to discover your new skills.
Belleayre Mountain, which is about 2 1/2 hours via car or bus.  This is the safer place for people that are beginners who want to have a fun without any hectic competition. Plus, it’s a beautiful view once you get there! 
5.  In home workout with a fitness professional or video workouts. 

    What better way to workout without leaving your house huh? Yup having a coach come to you to train you is probably the best way to keep yourself in check. Let us do the traveling in a snowy day, trust me we train for it, I would assume.
If you think you still need more motivation or your coach can’t get to you well you have video workouts. Now in days there is so many workouts on the net you can actually stay for hours looking for the ones you like, but it also opens up for diversity in different ways to workout in home, given the space and the type of equipment would make things a bit easier. So let us do the traveling – all you have to do is get ready to burn some major calories with a great workout, or video!
(No NETFLIX until
you do a workout first – just saying!)

Coach Al’s tip: 

If you are looking for great workout videos online check out Men’s Health 
You Tube channel, with hundreds of workout videos for women and men. 

Ready for more tips and motivation from Alejandro, contact him today!

Personal Trainer Search With Rod Ciardullo

In your search for a personal trainer…

In your search for a personal trainer, be sure to hire someone who will create a specific and detailed fitness program individual to you. It must take into consideration your current fitness level, prior exercise experience, health history, any current medical issues, your goals and the amount of time you realistically can/want to dedicate to the program.
Your chances of succeeding are far greater when you and your trainer are in alignment on all of these points, and when together, you create a clear plan for achieving your goals.
 
Often times, when I’m meeting with a prospective client for the initial complimentary session, we touch on all of the above briefly and also do a sample workout, so that you can get a feel of what the workouts might look like.
At the next session, we get into greater detail by filling out a health history form, asking lots of questions about your past fitness experience, current fitness level and nutritional habits.
 
Together we also formulate your goals and do some fitness tests and assessments as benchmarks. Then I go to work creating your plan, ready to implement it starting with the next session.
Hire a trainer who takes the time and effort to get clear on where you are at now, and where you want to get to. A trainer who then formulates your individual plan, to safely and quickly get you there, so that together, you create extraordinary results.
Contact Rod to get started on your own fitness plan today!

Personal Trainer Gyms Upper East Side

November 14, 2016

Options Abound for Personal Training Gyms on the Upper East Side

I spent a lot of time during the month of November visiting many of the personal training gyms around New York City that welcome independent trainers.  In fact, as I now run my finger down the list my count reaches twenty drop ins.  More remarkable than that is the the fact that there are still more for me to see before the end of the year.   And still more to be discovered.  It is amazing to think how the number of training gyms has grown in the last five years.  Alas, while these fitness spaces are scattered throughout New York City, a large concentration are on the Upper East Side.
From the 60’s to the 80’s, there is a variety of Gyms welcoming independent personal trainers.   I was lucky enough on this day to find a parking space on East 92nd Street between Madison and Park Avenues.  (It’s the small victories, like free street parking, that can make a big difference in the day.) This was perfect since it was near my last stop for the day, Core Fitness, at 86th and Madison.
exceed fitness nycI made my first stop if the day at Exceed Fitness on Third Avenue and 83rd.  A quick hello to Catherine, the manager, and a visit to the trainer’s lounge on the lower floor then off to my first of the two Remorca Fitness locations. (I love when places have a trainer’s lounge or break area.) Today would be my first visit to the second floor of Remorca Fitness on 74th Street.  I was very impressed.  I met Giray and caught a glimpse of a well equipped, intimate training space.  In between, I made my first visit to Madison Independent madison independent training gym nycTraining Gym, also in 74th street.  Boaz could not have been more welcoming.  It was a long anticipated meeting.  The space is welcoming for almost any type of client and training style.
Next it was into the flagship Remorca Fitness location in East 64th Street.  Dennis has areas for some hardcore power lifting, as well as equipment for physical therapy and even a massage room.  I also got a chance to spend some time talking to Dennis.  If you want to learn a little about the remorca fitness nyc
history of personal training in New York City, talk to the studio owners.  They all have an insider’s view.
Core Fitness Upper East Side NYCFinally, I was onto my last stop, Core Fitness, where Michael Margulies had so graciously offered to host the NeighborhoodTrainer Meetup event for some Manhattan personal trainers.  Core has a lot of unique equipment for some serious strength training and even boasts a cryotherapy chamber.  I was joined by Andy Lopez of Kettlebell Kitchen and Bryan Daddio of TurboStrapp.  We were to out on an engaging event for all attendees.
On this particular day, I was able to visit 5 different gyms for personal trainers, while still passing by others I had visited on previous days.  Stay tuned, I will tell you about those days soon.

Personal Training and Treadmills

November 7, 2016

Where Does A Treadmill Fit Into A Personal Training Session?

My first instinct is to say nowhere.  Why should anyone pay to have a personal trainer stand alongside of them while they walk or run on a treadmill.  But, that would be shortsighted.

Sure, most people just jump onto a treadmill and crank it up to their desired pace either walking or running, and just go for a certain length of time.  However, if you take the time go explore the treadmill you are using or if you start treadmill shopping for your own machine, you will find that many machines have built in workout programs for interval training, hill work, even downhill training, and much more.  So, when it comes to using a treadmill during a personal training session, a personal trainer may still find some interesting uses for it.

I do have one rule.  Unless there are special circumstances, if your warmup is being done on the treadmill, do it before your personal training session starts.  Don’t waste five or ten minutes chatting with your personal trainer about the night before when you could better use those minutes at the end for some stretching or an extended workout.

When to use it?

First, you simply be using the treadmill as an active rest in between sets.  Perhaps your Upper East Side Personal Trainer has the treadmill set at a walking pace.  As your recover from a set of bicep curls awaiting the next set, you may walk for thirty seconds, jump off and start your next set up curls.  It’s a pretty simple strategy to help keep your heart rate elevated.  For those better conditioned athletes, a speed walkers pace may be in store.  Be warned, if you do leave the treadmill running for this activity, make sure others in the gym know that the treadmill belt is running to avoid any accidents.

What if?

You are a running coach training a runner and doing some interval training.  Of course, if your workout for the day centers around sprints and speed training, you may be spending an extended amount of time on the treadmill.  At that point, having your personal trainer standing alongside of you at the treadmill makes perfect sense.  They most likely planned a workout for you ahead of time and now are going to help you execute on the plan.  Executing the plans depends highly upon pushing the right program buttons at the right time.

Bottom line…

Don’t pay your New York City personal trainer to stand alongside of your treadmill workout if you are just warming up or doing a static jog.  That’s a waste of money.  Get a personal trainer who is there to drive you forward.  That, among other things is the true benefit of a personal trainer.

Find a Staten Island Personal Trainer Today

Find the Perfect Staten Island Personal Trainer in a Jiffy

Residents of Staten Island understand better than anyone about how beautiful it is, and how exciting it is. You’re close to all the action of New York City, yet you’ve got that little escape from it all. If you’ve been thinking about upping your personal health game, then it’s probably time to take on the services of a personal trainer.

A Staten Island personal trainer is someone who will assess your current physical health and then build a program that works for you, and helps you achieve your goals. This trainer will then meet with you at regular sessions to ensure you are taking the steps necessary and performing the exercises properly.

Now to Find a Trainer

Once you’ve made the big decision to hire a trainer you may be left wondering what you do next? If you aren’t a member at a gym, then you likely don’t have access to a trainer. Well here’s the good news, finding a trainer is easier and faster than you may think.

Getting your hands on a State Island Personal Training guide is an excellent way to find contact information. The guide can even give you details such as whether you’ll visit the trainer at their location or if they’ll train you at home.

There May be Help at Work

Another place to check is with your employer. They may offer referrals for Staten Island personal trainers, which can make the process very easy and fast. It could even be that your employer has a gym on the premises with its own staff of trainers you can use.

Insist on the Perfect Match

In the end you want to be sure that you’re insisting on the perfect match when it comes to personal trainers in Staten Island. You want one who you work well with, and who understands your goals.

 

Benefits of Having A Personal Trainer

October 31, 2016

People hire personal trainers for so many different reasons.

Here are some of the main categories for which many of those motivations stem from.  The underlying intrinsic reasons usually fall into these areas.  Sometimes more than one.  Which one is yours?

benefits of hiring a personal trainer

Do I Have Enough Personal Training Clients

How Many Clients Does a Personal Trainer Need?

Lately when I speak to personal trainers about their business, I ask three quick questions.

How many sessions do you currently do a week?  How many would you like to do each week?  Finally, how many clients do you think you need to reach that many sessions?  These three questions are vastly different and help to shape what needs to be done. Overall, what one really needs to figure out is how many clients does a personal trainer need to reach their financial goals?

First…

Are you training enough sessions?  Some NYC personal trainers only have 10-15 regular personal training clients to reach their desired number of personal training sessions, since they require a minimum of 2 sessions or more per week. That means you are training a minimum of 20-30 sessions per week.  Add in a few clients who do 3 sessions a week.  This is risky, but can be financially rewarding with less client administration.  But you’d better be good at what you do.  Losing a client has a greater impact when they are 10% of your business.  If you are looking to train 35-45 sessions per weeks just make the proper scheduling adjustments.

Next…

Do you have enough client diversity?  This goes back to the above.  Being able to fill your schedule with only a handful of clients has its advantages.  However, if a client becomes ill, travels for business for a week, goes on vacation, etc. these missed sessions can really hurt your personal training revenue.  Think about having clients of varying levels of participation in your book of business.  Single sessions, two and three days per week.  This will allow you to weather the cancellation storm better or when you lose a client.  For instance, you may find that a single session client is looking for more sessions.  You’ll also have more clients to offer make up sessions to when the opportunity presents itself.

Something to keep an eye on…

Are you managing cancellations?  Cancellations can wreak havoc on your income if you are not carefully monitoring it.  For example, if every week you have one cancelled session your losses add up into the thousands of dollars.  That’s real money! At $100/session, that is $5,200.  At $75/session, it is still a $3,800 loss.  You can’t dismiss that either.  These cancellations could be one simple reason to fall short of your goal.  Watch this activity.  Fill in those cancellations when you can.  Don’t just sit idle.  Keep a list of fill in clients for these occurrences.  Offer clients who missed a session a make up session. Lastly, be firm on your cancellation policy.

And this, too…

Are you charging enough?  It all comes down to the math, right!  It’s great to be busy, but don’t undervalue your services.  Your clients have to understand what you mean to them and what they mean to you.  They also need to know that you work for them even when you aren’t training them.  That is a value of your service that you should price in.  After doing all of your calculations, you may realize you are $5-$10 lower per session and may need to raise your prices to meet your goals.  Make sure you are getting what you are worth.

Finally…

Do the math?  This where you start to put everything together.  Once you have figured out the number of personal training clients, sessions, and your session rate, see how it all adds up.  You may want to experiment with a few different variables so you can see how one cancellation or even one additional session per week can affect your totals.  It’s good to create a few different models to understand how different factors can affect your overall benefits.

If you’ve done everything right…

Your projections should equal your goals.  So, you’ve run the numbers and checked them against what you want to achieve.  Do you have a match?  Have you exceeded your goals?  Are you below?  Having a match or exceeding your goals is a positive sign.  If you are below, go back and answer the questions again.  Do you need to train more session, increase your rate, or go out and find new clients?  Being a New York City personal trainer can be a grind, but it can be a rewarding grind if you do it right and pay attention to your business details.