7th Feb Instructor Newsletter

I’ve just spent the last 7 days in Cape Town visiting friends and checking out the exciting South African fitness scene. It’s very interesting to see the innovative programs, gyms, boutique studios, outdoor workouts and brands that make up the fitness landscape.

Virgin Active are the main players over here and the gyms are like 5 star hotels, luxurious and immaculate, boasting the best equipment and facilities I’ve ever seen in the world. The gyms are rammed from 5am until 10pm as the country has such an outdoorsy fit and healthy lifestyle.
Funky, boutique gyms line the shore front with super buff Cape Townians spilling out, flexing their muscles, 6 packs and bodies beautiful.
The UK’s very own Ceri Hannan heads up the whole of Virgins SA Group X across 101 clubs and has developed unique and bespoke classes for the Virgin brand.
The latest class is called 24 and is Ceri’s brainchild. 24 is a HIIT workout consisting of 24 body weight exercises that updates every 12 weeks. 24 classes are boasting class numbers of 70 – 80 people and it’s a huge success in SA. My little trip has given me loads of ideas and new concepts I will be implementing in the near future.

Jayne Nicholls and I will be back in SA in April delivering UNITE for the Virgin group, which we are both so very excited about.

Kick Start Fat Loss – New Detox

14 Day Detox starts on Monday with 14 new workouts, mindset audio coaching and, of course, the most up to date fatloss information and detox. You can book on click here

UNITE 21st March IFS Blackpool

If you would like to catch the live training with Jayne and myself we are holding a pre-convention at Blackpool on the Thursday 21st where we will be going through all 3 releases, including the brand new releases with our new Pure Energy Mix. Unite is coming together brilliantly and is the perfect mix of Fitness Pilates and Freestyle Fitness Yoga. We created it for people who enjoy a hi-brid mind body class that delivers great results to cool, funky, chilled out music. You can book Unite Pre convention place here

Music

Pure Energy have released the latest Mind Body 20 which is the disc we will be using for the latest UNITE release. Check out Mind Body 20 here I have designed it with an uplifting vocal side and a more chilled out non vocal side for all styles of mind body classes.

We are also putting the finishing touches to a new chart HIIT release which will be collaboration between KSFL/Rachel, Steve Watson, Ceri Hannon and Marvin Burton and we will be showcasing this at IFS.

Predictions

As I’ve been away this week sampling new classes, gyms and programmes, I asked Steve and Ceri – Directors of Chrysalis Promotions, about their personal future fitness predictions.

Ceri Hannon – It’s not what you are doing it’s how you do it.
Customer Service and getting the basics right. It’s all about the customers’ experience. With so many new classes and formats it can be difficult to decide exactly which way you want to go, but customer service and giving the customer exactly what they want is key.
Pay attention to detail, create an experience in every class, deliver what the customer wants and exceed their expectations. Every brand is trying to get this right and its paramount to the success of the small owner.

Steve Watson – Steve is extremely passionate about Instructors getting back to basics, teaching skills and how instructors deliver content is key. Ensure you are teaching and not just leading.
The best freestyle Instructors have first class teaching skills that can be transferred across a wide variety of classes. A strong foundation of anatomy and physiology and really understanding the rationale and theory behind all of the class formats you decide to teach is a must in 2013.

International Fitness Showcase – 21st March

What’s hot and new this year at IFS

Physical Company are at IFS for the first time this year with Smart Core, Nordic Walking, Innovative Concepts with the BOSU. Drummond Education will be showcasing BeamFit Creator and Nordic Walking……..Back by popular demand is Piloxing and Viveca Jenson……..Antigravity Yoga are back teaching more sessions…..New Bootcamp Fitness Boys will be teaching new innovative………Pure Energy will be hosting an array of exciting new sessions. music and concepts in the Spanish Hall……..New Body Training Solutions / Natalie Weber…..Bokwa are back with more session……..Metabolic Effect….PLUS the new Chrysalis workout RUSH…..

This year’s IFS promises to be even bigger and better than ever before with tons of amazing sessions. You can book onto the event www.chrysalispromotions.com.

And the reason is?????? Sally Ghafoor

Hurrah we have said goodbye to Fanuary, with its snow, empty wallets, and wild out of control ladies answer to the Movember. Did you complete the said challenge ladies? – haha its ok I seriously really do not want to know!

So apart from picture updates of Movember and Fanuary progress, what is really the point of your Facebook page, and I don’t mean your personal page I am talking your business page.

It’s all too easy to set up a FB page and just post every now and then, but if you’re doing that you are not getting the most from it. There are over 1 billion users on Facebook so if you are not using your FB page to its full potential then you are seriously missing out.
So how do you stand out from the noise that is the news feed?

Firstly remember people go onto Facebook to see what their friends and family are up to, they scroll through on their smart phone, looking for something that will make them giggle, a photo that may inspire them or to get the lowdown on someone who constantly posts about their awful relationship. They do not go on it to buy anything, If you are continually posting this, you just become noise to them and your posts get zero interaction and when your posts get zero interaction, Facebook’s edgerank system decides that actually your posts are of no interest to that user so they stop putting them in that persons newsfeed and before you know it your posts are getting seen by hardly anyone!

First of all decide the actual reason you have a Facebook page. Is it to build fans, is it to drive traffic to your website or is it to build your email list. If you have no purpose to your Facebook page you will be missing out on leads and leads = clients.

So you keep hearing the word, create great content, but what is content. Content can be anything you post, from blog posts, pictures, soundclouds, videos, to status updates. The key with content is to ensure that what you post creates value to your fanbase. How do you do that? Well have a look at your fans, what do they talk about, what are their problems, how does your business solve their problem. Then create your content to solve that problem. Content has to be consistent and have a call to action for the fan to follow up on.

Want to know more, well we are running a FREE webinar on Sunday 17th Feb, you will learn how to optimise and brand your Facebook page, how to create cracking content for your FB page, how to grow your email list through Facebook and how to ensure you get your page noticed on Facebook.
To sign up go here
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/8843936419564195840
Happy February
The Fitness Business Hub

Boxes, Myths and Packing by Vikki Scovell

Boxes are figuring in my life this week. The kids made a cardboard box-house for the four kittens to play in: they cut windows and doors, and lovingly wrote ‘play house’ on the front. To show their gratitude, the kittens dismantled it and then ripped it into thousands of tiny bits, which they distributed over the ground floor of the house, and which I have just finished clearing up. Then a chirpy delivery man arrived and deposited 45 cardboard boxes on my doorstep, which made my blood run cold as I imagined the mess the kitties would make if they got their paws on them. This got me thinking about boxes; opening closed boxes, packing things away, ticking boxes…………………..
You remember the story of Pandora’s Box? It is given to her by Zeus (big guy, beard, Greek: you know the one) and she is told NEVER to open it. OBVIOUSLY she does so as soon as he has gone down the pub, and unluckily for her it contains no precious gold and silver, not so much as a single jewel, nor even a stash of Orange Club Biscuits or Beef Hula-Hoops. Obviously the latter discovery was crushingly disappointing, and, as if the lost prospect of a hoard of round potato snacks wasn’t bad enough, the box was actually full of all of the evils of the world which duly escaped to despoil and sully our miserable existence on earth: greed, gluttony, spitefulness, hatred , Justin Bieber…….. Oh Pandora, I guess only the lure of a tasty chocolate-covered biscuit makes this tremendous blunder understandable.
Anyway, now that your interest in classical mythology has been roused, you may be interested to know that in the same way that Pandora had a box containing all the evils of humanity, so I have drawers, cupboards and a teen bedroom, none of which should EVER be opened because they contain things of such unimaginable horror. I’m basically messy, well, not exactly messy because the drawers and cupboards are only full of detritus and unmentionable things, because at some point I have tidied the things away from wherever it was they were causing health and safety issues. So I’m messy AND tidy: MIDY. Anyway I do have to deal with this NOW, because the time has come to pack our bags, leave the windy welsh hill-top with its lovely old stone building and panoramic views of rolling hills and distant mountains, and move on. It seems like only a moment since we moved in, and it is fairly terrifying the amount of clutter and junk that we have managed to cram into every cupboard and dr awer since.
Hence the delivery man with the 45 boxes. The squished squares look useless and not up to the job. I’m fairly sure that I have 45 boxes worth of books before I even pack anything else. I spend a moment relishing the thought of leaving it all and starting from scratch, but a house would never be a home without my books and my old dresser covered in china, so it will all have to come. Part of me wonders if my nearly-14-year-old would notice if we left her too, with the cupboards well-stocked with Doritos and super-noodles. I’m guessing that when they ran out, she might post on my Face Book page (our usual mode of communication) ‘HAG (her touching nick-name for me) have you, like moved house? BTW no one has done my washing, and the super-noodles have run out: WTF?’ I dismiss the notion of abandoning her, as public acknowledgement via Face Book of child-neglect may look bad on my CV, and decide to pack her and take her too.
But I WILL take the opportunity to de-clutter, to let go some of the things which I do not use, or wear, or even recognize. It is an impossibility for me to de-clutter my library, so don’t bother suggesting it. But as I pack, I will put into boxes some sad memories, and I won’t unpack them at the other end, there’s no room at the new house for them. And it is probable that however frightening the prospect of emptying the under-stairs cupboard, it is unlikely to harbor anything which would alter the condition of the human experience, so I’d best get on with it. I will be very sad to leave this lovely house with its strange-shaped doors and windows, my thinking-step where I have spent HOURS of my life, and the views which make you stop and stare in wonder. But our new home ticks all of the boxes, and will be very special too, with views over different hills: a fresh start.
Have a great week, don’t open any suspicious looking boxes, but maybe try to put some unhappy thoughts into one and resolve not to open it again. And if you are bored with nothing to do, I have some cupboards need clearing out, and I will pay you in Orange Club biscuits.
Oh, and I forgot to mention: the last thing to escape from Pandora’s Box, was hope………….
Vikki Scovell @fitbite

Have a wonderful Thursday

Love Rachel xx