Friday, November 7, 2008

Would you fork out money for this?

I'm hoping I can persuade the powers that be at my gym to let me offer small-group express personal training. Participants would have the option of purchasing 3, 6, 9 or 12 half-hour sessions, and what they would get (along with the sessions of course) would be an individual assessment and a personalized program of corrective stretches and isolated strengthening exercises to address any muscle imbalances they might have. Clients would be responsible for doing these exercises on their own prior to the group sessions as part of their warm-up. The group sessions would consist of metabolic-density type total-body circuit training, and basically would follow a template format, meaning that I might have everyone in the group doing some type of squat, but the senior with the low back pain would get stability ball wall squats while the muscleman would get heavy dumbbell squats and the track and field diva would get jump squats. Everyone would do as many as he or she can in a minute, working at his or her own pace and taking mid-set breaks as needed, before moving on to the next exercise. And so on, until a half an hour has gone by.

I think this could be a tremendous moneymaker. Participants will be getting the support and camaraderie of a group ex class, but they'll also be getting programming that's customized to their individual needs and goals, which will make it more safer and more effective than traditional group ex (which is included in the price of membership at my gym ... and you pretty much get what you're paying for IMO :))