News and Updates by Rachel Holmes

It’s the first Bank Holiday of the year and boy are we all ready for it! The first quarter of 2011 has literally flown by…new classes, brilliant conventions, new tours and new downloads, so now it’s great to take a few days off and chill out with the rest of the UK. I’ve been getting so many emails over the past few months about how to become a presenter and how to build a good fitness membership site, so I’ve been working on a  sparkly new mentoring package that will deal in depth  all of those areas. The package is set to launch mid May so I have been busy, writing and preparing that this week. I’ve also been filming new downloads outside as it’s been such beautiful weather . If you scroll down you will find the latest  19 minute Functional Fitness Pilates, Tennis Ball and Sequence  download.

In this week’s newsletter you can read my top tips to becoming a presenter, plus a useful article about employing other trainers in your business by Katie Bulmer-Cooke, as well as regular features from Jayne and Marv. Lisa Cuerdon has written about her first Hip and Thigh Super Masterclass in Oxford, so hopefully plenty to keep you inspired over the Bank Holiday weekend.

Jo Kicked of her Zumba day in Bolton and is set to repeat the 2 Zumba classes in London 30th April. Kelly’s Balls Bands and Body Conditioning hits Bolton on the 30th with tons of new material for your Stability Ball and Equipment Free Toning Classes.

I tweets loads of Tips and Information ,so if you are not on Twitter then come on and join in. Twitter is a great source of inspiration and information from all sorts of people and such a great way to promote your personal brand, fitness business and classes. You can follow me https://Twitter.com/RachelHolmes

I want to be a Presenter – So what do I do? by Rachel Holmes

I get so many questions about presenting that this article is all my top tips on how to become a Presenter. I hope it inspires you. I have been tweeting tips as well about how to become a Presenter, so make sure you follow on Twitter as well http://twitter.com/Rachelholmes for more top tips

1.Get as many qualifications as you can. Attend as many workshops as possible ,educate your self to the max. Go to EVERYTHING, conventions, conferences, workshops the whole caboodle.

2.When you attend workshops and conventions watch presenters how they speak, lecture and organise their workshops. Notice the set up of the day, how you are welcomed and how the information is presented to you. Notice the mix of practical and theory. Ask yourself how did it feel? Was the presenter interesting, funny, serious, make notes about the things you liked about the workshop and how the speaker presented themselves and the information

3. Decide what are you going to present – masterclass, workshop, seminar, lecture – Who is your audience? Group X Instructors/Bootcamp Instructors/Personal Trainers/Business Development

4. Create your workshop, write it, practice it on a test group and film it. It must be unique, researched and polished. Create workshop notes, outline, slides and power point if its a lecture.

5.Do a “test presentation” for free in front of a test group. Get a friend to film clips ready to starting marketing yourself and your fitness presentation on your website and social media.

5a. Start a Facebook Fan Page and open a Youtube account, Begin Tweeting every 4 hours minimum and begin to create an audience..

6. Begin to promote yourself as a presenter, put video clips of you speaking and presenting on your Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Websites.

7.Network with other presenters, introduce your self on social media. Tell us what you do and what you are aiming to present. Many  convention organisers ask me what’s new and who is up and coming. Show me and other presenters what you can do…

8. Create several different presentations to offer convention and event organisers.

9.Create an electronic Portfolio to email out, include video clips, resume, CV, qualifications, biography, PPL, Insurance, presentation info

10.Create a short, punchy Biography about you written in the 3rd person that organisers could use for event publicity

11.Build your personal profile and brand using social media and your website.

12. Look at the Fitness Industry and what EXACTLY other presenters are doing. What can U do that is DIFFERENT, where will you fit in? You have to offer something that is  unique to you and your skills. Don’t be a copy cat be an innovator!

13.Hone your writing skills and offer articles to blogs, newsletters an magazines. Post your articles on social media.

 

My New 90 day Mentoring Programme will cover over 12 weeks:

Becoming a Presenter/Speaker/Workshop Presenter Locally and Nationally, Personal Branding and USP, Creating a Membership. Start selling online workouts and DVDs, How to develop an online product to sell, Writing Skills, Blogging, Working Social Media properly. How to Outsource work you don’t want to do, Marry up your off line Business with your Online Business, Marketing and Sizzle, Create Seminars and Webinars, Business skills, Smoke and Mirrors! Work Smarter not Harder,

It will be a 12 week Mentorship and you can work through it at your pace…By the end of it you will have ALL of my secrets into how I did all of the above. You will have to do home work and get a weekly call with me to push you forward.  I’ll be taking on Instructors to Mentor starting Mid May. If you are interested then email me NOW RachelLHolmes@aol.com please put in the subject MENTORING. You must be Motivated and Positive to get on the Mentoring Programme!

 

Fitness Pilates Tennis Ball and Standing Sequences April 2011

Code:FPMG	Fitness Pilates
	Rachel is back with more Tennis Ball foot and ankle work plus new standing matrix and multi plane sequences. This download is all Standing and uses functional tri plane movements PLUS its 19minutes long! This is progressive Fitness Pilates. Click here to view
	3 Tokens	Length: 19 mins
	£5.99	Size: 70 MB

 

Jayne Nicholls

The spirit of an expert is to be right but the spirit of a learner is that anything is possible, I read this the other day and it really hit home. We are all fitness experts by profession but I wonder how much information we pass on to our client base. Our job is to teach fitness but it is also to educate those who come to us for the ‘fitness experience’. Do you feel that you optimise your time with them and reach your potential as an expert when you are teaching? We have discussed at length the problems that arise from formulaic teaching despite it being a brilliant base level model and perhaps the biggest issue is that we as fitness experts are not allowed to express our wealth of knowledge when teaching someone else’s material. This is a problem I had with the delivery of information to the Corporate market. I wanted to constantly inform and progress my information but had to stick to the powerpoints and the script, pretty much. This type of delivery lacks spontaneity and opportunity. Consider the most interesting conversations that you have with people, are they the ones in which you talk about the same old things or are they the ones in which you move off on tangents and learn something new, interesting, personal about your company?

Whenever I see a new face in class I try to chat to them about their exercise history and reason for coming. Today in FFYoga a new face told me that his past experience of Yoga was a flowing class that appeared to be designed for the needs of today’s society – he was talking about Body Balance – what a brilliant observation, it was great to hear an opinion that was not based upon his personal enjoyment of the class and enabled me to communicate with him in a new way via ‘you might find this interesting…………’

Everyone who comes to our classes deserves a percentage of 1 to 1, specific information related to who they are and what they want. By personalising our communication with them they will feel more rewarded by the whole experience.

Let me know your thoughts jayne@groupxtraining.com

 

Why Baby Heidi Makes My Business Decisions Now!

8 months ago I gave birth to the most beautiful girl in the world, baby Heidi, and becoming a parent turned my world upside down in more ways than one. Not only has she brought so much joy into my life but she’s also taught me a HUGE amount about business, and kicked me outside of my comfort zone and into making some decisions I should have made years ago.

With my husband working shifts, there is no way I can be out training clients and teaching classes 4-5 nights per week like I was before. So my choices were…give up classes and turn down clients OR bring another pair of hands on board.

This was a MASSIVE decision for me…you see, I’m one of these control freak types who is completely anal about EVERYTHING to do with my business! But I knew that if I wanted to continue to earn great money and be able to give Heidi the best things in life, it was a decision that HAD to be made.

And boy am I pleased I made it! I know only work 1-2 evenings per week but am still able to run and take an income from 5 group fitness classes and a small group personal training course.

So who did I trust with my business’s reputation…the fabulous Alex. She’s amazing! We are so alike…her passion and drive is as high as mine, she wants to grow the business, and she is super keen and always wants to learn!

Next question…how did I find her?

Well, she’s an ex client, who worked with me 1:1 and got fantastic results and she was also a newly qualified instructor.

For me this is the perfect combination for 2 reasons…

1. She knows how I work; she knows methods and most of all she knows they work.

2. Being brand new to the industry she hadn’t been tainted by negative health club, minimum wage, maximum work, jealous instructor type environments. Instead she’s keen to learn and get stuck in.

I would encourage all fit pros out there, looking to take on an assistant trainer, to look for someone just like Alex. Even go as far as identifying an existing client and suggesting they get qualified.

To maintain Alex’s motivation and to make sure that my business values continue to shine through all aspects and avenues of the business I do 3 things…

1. Have Alex attend my classes and vice versa (and provide each other with feedback)

2. Have a development catch up every 6 weeks, to plan new class content and discuss what improvements we can make to the running of the business

3. I DON’T pay her by the class! Why? If I did, it wouldn’t matter to her whether she had 5 or 50 people in the class. Also, she has no ability to increase her income unless she works more hours (I wouldn’t wanna do that so why should I expect someone else to?). So instead I use a profit share plan, with me taking 30% and her taking 70%.

I absolutely LOVE Alex! She gets what I’m all about and shares my mentality, plus it means I get to bath, and put my baby girl to bed 6 nights per week…PRICELESS.

You see, I’m not chasing 6 or 7 figures (if I make that then great), I’m chasing a lifestyle that enables me to spend the maximum amount of time with my family…something you really can’t put a price on!

I hope this article helps you take the often tough leap outside your comfort zone and into a better work/life balance.

Katie Bulmer-Cooke

Planning for Summer Holidays – Children’s Bootcamps New Niche Market? by Rachel Holmes

I’ve been talking a lot about Niche Bootcamps aimed at different populations. It’s really important that you know who your target market exactly is.

What is the profile of your customer? How old are they, where do they live, what do they read, do they go to work, do they have children etc etc

For example my target profile for Fitness Pilates Bootcamp is female, 45+, works part time, middle income, kids 15 – grown up, has tried weight watchers, slimming world and is constantly following faddy diets, has had back problems or injuries in the past, finds exercise hard,

ViPR – Marvin’s Story

3 years ago a friend of mine introduced me Michol Dalcourt. We sat at the back of the sports hall at Loughborough University and he proceeded to show us a video of him throwing around a rubber tube with 8 holes in it.

Having spent the last 10 years studying fitness and trying to think of my own invention that would shape the future of training and conditioning I respected the simplicity of the product. You can throw it, kick it, roll it, lift it, tilt it – or call it a name when the exercises became hard. Often people over think ideas and especially exercise. I always use the example of the guy who invented milk bottle lids. Or Velcro. Simple. Effective, can’t live without it, made him a millionaire. Think how simple Les Mills was to think of! or Zumba! These are not rocket science ideas and I know for sure years of scientific research weren’t done, if any! But fantastic, worldwide dominating ideas. And ViPR (love it or hate it, is one of those ideas)

The exercises are based on the evolution of weight training. There are multiple loads (7 different weights) and the programming is based on where your hands are, feet are, hold of the ViPR and the movement pattern you want to achieve. When I say the evolution of weight training here’s what I mean. Strength training is brilliant. Maximal load, increase density of tissue, power output (overall strength) benefits sports performance, makes you look like a walking tree. Perfecto. Training for a purpose also is great and equally worthwhile. Agility, mobility, balance, coordination and endurance are all examples of benefits of sports conditioning. A merge of these two concepts would be the use of the ViPR. I don’t think it discourages strength training or over promotes functional training. The only difference between if you like it or dislike it is UNDERSTANDING it.

PTA (Personal Training Academy Global) hit this point right on the head on their advanced mentorship programme.

“Before understanding the tool, you first need to understand the science and have a system of use” – Rodney Corn

If you can’t simplify that then let me help you further. If you just want exercises and be told how to do something then you do not understand what true education means. You need to know why and how first. When this happens you will have endless amounts of ideas, exercises, and fun and learn to love exercise for its freedom and not for its restrictions that are caused my myths and legends.

Fitness has changed… the way we understand fitness has changed. Because we know more now, than we did last week, year or century.

The ViPR is a whole body integrated workout (the whole body has to work together and spread force throughout the whole system in order to be successful) it allows the body to receive forces safely and allows for whole body movement.

This means that you end up with all of the strength and functional benefits – together.

ViPR stands for Vitality, Performance and Reconditioning. That means that the course teaches you everything from beginners-advanced. From pre-hab to total body shock.

I invested early. I now have 50 of my own ViPR’s they are my only work force. I love them and take them all over the place with me.

If you want to know more about ViPR, courses or purchases then let me know or FitPro can help out as well. Ask for Gemma. She’s the woman who arranges the courses.

If you want a demo or have a gym you want me to bring the girls to then I am more than happy to. I also teach at the fitness fiesta events as well.

Currently working on the group exercise class for ViPR as well and will love to show you how that works later on in the year.

Until now. Please let somebody show you the ViPR that UNDERSTANDS it. There are millions of uses of the ViPR but just like every other programme that rolls into health clubs, the product gets diluted. No Bicep curls or shoulder presses with the ViPR please.

Enjoy

Marvin Burton marv@fasterglobal.com

Hip’N’Thigh Masterclass Tour, Oxford with Fitness Presenter Lisa Cuerden

The Hip’N’Thigh is a resistance band that you can very comfortably strap around your ankles to add to any type of workout to make it more challenging.

It is suitable to be used for a wide variety of classes: Body Conditioning, Aerobics, Aqua, Circuits, Bootcamps, Mums and Buggies, Pilates, Yoga, or add something different to ZUMBA classes!

It is also a fantastic piece of equipment to use with your Personal Training clients, for Rehab, Older Adults, or to make any exercise harder by adding more resistance to the legs.

On Sunday I ran the first day of my Hip’N’Thigh Masterclass Tour and it ROCKED! I taught 3 different types of classes: 1) Hip’n’Thigh Aerobics and Tone 2) Hip’n’Thigh Circuits 3) Hip’n’Thigh Fitness Yogalates.

I opened it up to both Fitpros and Fitness Enthusiasts, Fitpros could come and learn and get some ideas on how to use the hip’n’thigh and fitness enthusiasts could just come and have a fun afternoon of exercise also giving them the opportunity to purchase the hip’n’thighs to use at home along with a dvd I have made.

As it was such a beautiful day we managed to take the second class outside as the studio doors opened up onto a huge field so I cranked up the music and we did the circuit/bootcamp class out in the sunshine – AMAZING!

The feedback from the day was fantastic, plenty of hip’n’thighs were purchased, looking forward to hearing the feedback from the classes that are going to be running. My one token male that came to the day is in the Navy he purchased one hip’n’thigh to show the guys and is looking to purchase a bag of 20 to run classes on the ship.

Thanks to Rachel and Jo and Infitness Music we had the best tunes to workout too which is sooooooooo important, H’N’T Aerobics and Tone I used both Poptastic and Disco Divas, H’N’T Circuits I used Dance Anthems 2 and for H’N’T Fitness Yogalates I used Fitness Pilates Classic Mix!

If you go to my facebook page Lisa Cuerden you will see a video clip from the day so please add me if you haven’t already!

If you are interested in attending the Hip’N’Thigh Masterclass Tour or would like to host a day at your club please contact me for more information: 07887533811/lisa@lisacuerden.com.

Look forward to hearing from you and have a great Easter Weekend.

Lisa Cuerden

www.lisacuerden.com

www.vibecycle.co.uk

Have a brilliant Easter Bank Holiday!

Best Regards

 

Rachelx