In my last post I mentioned that I was going to set up my own Circuit Class in my local area (Grays, Essex). So I got the ball rowing with my new website, POW! Fitness Training, not sure why I chose “POW!”, I just liked the word and saw a cool Painting the other week that had POW! On it. Its also a pretty good name to play around with, me and my brother come up with a couple of ideas for class names, i.e KA-POW!, a strength based Class, or WA-POW!, for a speed class etc. Good ah?

I’ve been looking into Venue hire, and contacted my old school, which rents out one of there gymnasiums. £25 an hour, a bit steep, and could probably get some space for cheaper than that, think Church Halls, Village Halls etc. But as its my first outing, I think id like to stick with some where I know, and after spending 5 years of my childhood at the place, I know the school pretty well. I can also use there equipment, like mats, which will save me buying a few, for now. Also, they offer a 10% discount if I book for 12 weeks. So its only £22.50 a week.

Next up was Insurance, I mentioned a while back that any Trainer working independently of a Gym needs their own Insurance. REP’s can sought you out with this, for £80 a year, with a £5,000,000 limit for injuries and death (god, I hope I don’t kill anyone). Just go on the REP’s website and follow the links.

I found out on my Circuit course I did through Future Fit, that you also need a Music Licence if your doing your own classes. This is to allow you to play CD’s you buy or to play music from an MP3 player. There are different licences out there depending on what it is you will be doing. For the use of up to 1000 songs to be played in a Fitness Class the Fee is £100. The question is, will anyone actually check up on you to make sure you have a licence? I doubt it, but I don’t fancy taking the risk, knowing my luck they would.

Finally, equipment. It is possible to set up a Circuit Class with next to know equipment really. Just have your participants do Body Weight exercise. But who would want to keep going back to a class like that? I wouldn’t. I’ve come up with a small list of essential equipment that I could use to make a pretty okay class to begin with. The list includes, 2 Gym Balls, 2 Steps, Resistance Bands, Dumbbells and a skipping rope.

I was thinking I’d need a few dumbbells, but then I thought of Resistance Bands, which can easily be used for several exercise and are far cheaper than weights.

So total cost for my first 12 weeks, I reckon, will be £600. The only ongoing Fee will be the Venue Hire. Everything else is either payable annually, or as and when I want to add/replace equipment.

Oops, I just remembered about advertising, that’s probably the most important thing. Obviously I have my website, and I can use the services of Facebook and Twitter to get the message out to my friends, but to get the word out to the masses, id need a lot of flyers and make sure a lot of people see them. Apparently 10% of the people who see your flyers will attend your class, or was it 1%? Will have to check that. That’s what my instructor said on my course.

The good thing about a lot of these costs is that they aren’t need every month etc. Once I start getting a fair amount of people along each week I don’t need to advertise the class, word of mouth is pretty powerful.

In my last post I said I had an interview with LA Fitness for a “LA Coach” role. Well i guess i didn’t get the job, as I have yet to have heard from them – w@nkers.

Not that I’m really that bothered anyway, as the job sounded pretty crummy, and has made me decide that I don’t think I really want to work for a large gym chain in one of there gyms. First of, the pay was minimum wage and the job involved me having to clean the gym. I’m worth more than minimum wage surely. People in McDonald’s earn minimum wage. Ive just spent £2500 learning how the body works, different muscle names and how they function, how to advise people to look after themselves, and LA fitness think im worth the same as some school drop out who serves burgers for a living. Fcuk that.

So im going to go it alone. After speaking to a few guys in the office, they have really motivated me to use my Circuit Instructor Qualificationand set up my own local Circuit Class, which could earn me between £60 – £100 an hour. That’s more like it. Not that I’m in this industry solely to earn money. I want to help people. And by teaching my own class I can certainly help more people that I could if I was cleaning floors.

What do I need to do to set up my own Circuit Class? So far i have this on my to do list;

• Find Venue
• Adverise it – Leafets, Website, Social Networking etc
• Create a Circuit
• Buy some simple equipment

Any thing else I missed?

Going to aim to get this all set up so i can hit the “New Year Resolution” market in January.

Will try my best to document it all on this blog, right here!!

Sorry I haven’t blogged for a while, i’ve been busy with my Nutrition and Weight Management course, which is actually very interesting and more appealing to learn about than I thought. I’ll write a bit more on that soon, promise.

So a while back I sent my CV out to a few gyms around London looking for some part time experience, well surprisingly, yesterday I got a call from LA Fitness, about a Part Time position with them as an “LA Coach”, which is just basically a Fitness Instructor with some reception work thrown in when required.

We had a 5-10 minute chat on the phone, where they asked me a few “interviewy” questions and explained a bit about the role. I must have passed the initial test as they invited me to an Interview with them on Friday and if successful, I will be offered the position.

Whilst on the phone she mentioned that as a level 2 instructor the pay is 14k (annual for full time) so would be pro-rata’d to part time etc, which isn’t much at all, but as its only a Part Time job to work around my current office job, im not concerned at all about the pay, I just want to get some experience and get in the industry.

She also mentioned that as I’d mostly be working of an evening I’d have to take some classes which they would provide training for, would that be ok? Err, yeah. Free Training and experience doing classes, right result.

Will let you know tomorrow how I got on, fingers crossed.

It just occurred to me, that I posted up the covering letter I sent to Gyms with my CV for a Gym Instructor job, but I never put up my CV. So here is it, my Gym Instructor CV:

C H R I S   S P R I N G
M: 07545 XXX XXX E: ctspring@gmail.com 

SKILLS

• Level 2 Gym Instructor
• Certified Circuit Instructor
• Core Stability and Torso Training
• Theory of Anatomy and Physiology

 

SKILLS CURRENTLY TRAINING FOR 

• Personal Trainer and Advanced Instructor
• Nutrition and Weight Management
• Nutrition for Sport and Exercise

  

 CAREER HISTORY

XL Insurance                                                                                             May 2005 – Present
Property Underwriting Administrator 

XL Insurance is a global corporate Insurance provider.

Key Achievements:

• Promoted within my first 18 months at the company to a more advanced Administrating position

My Role: 

• Liaising with Underwriters to provide an efficient service for Global Property Insurance Programmes
• Ensuring Quarterly Payment Deadlines to key Re-insurers are met
• Invoicing, booking premiums and ensuring that this is paid within the scheduled time frame
• Assist in Training of team colleagues and new starters
• Calculate and submit yearly payments to the London Fire Brigade

 www.xlinsurance.com

R.L. Davidson & Co Ltd                                                                September 2002 – May 2005
Motor Fleet Technician

R L Davison is one of the leading independent Lloyd’s and London Market Brokers, placing wholesale and direct business on behalf of a wide range of brokers, clients and other organisations throughout the UK, Europe and around the world.

My Role:

• Process Underwriting Certificates and Policy Documents
• Processing annual and ad-hoc premiums
• Build strong relationships with Underwriters and Sub-Brokers
• Liaising with Claims and Accounts department

 www.rldavison.co.uk

 
Professional Qualifications 

• Foundation Insurance Test – Pass – July 2004  

 PART TIME RETAIL EXPERIENCE

 JD Sports, JJB Sports and Debenhams Menswear                                     2000 – 2002

 To support myself whilst studying at Collage I undertook part time work in retail.

 My Role:

• Provide Customer Satisfaction by meeting customer needs
• Assisted with opening and closing of shop
• Stock Checks
• Cashier

EDUCATION

Palmers Collage                                                                                                    2000 – 2002
A Level: Business Studies and History. AS level: Mathematics 

William Edwards School                                                                                        1995 – 2000

In my final year I was appointed School Prefect and House captain, which included managing pupils in lower years and liaising with members of Staff.

English Language/Literature (C/C), Maths (B), History (B), Office Applications (C), Sociology (C), Religious Education (C), Economics (D) and Science (D/D)                 

INTERESTS

Lifting weights, spinning, cycling, playing five-aside football, music, films, internet

REFERENCE

Available on request.

So if any one has any suggestions in ways that I could improve it, let me know. Obviously most of my CV is irreverent to the Fitness Industry as I’ve spent the last 7 years working in an office.

If your a Manager of a gym reading this, I hope you liked my CV… can I have a job please? lol