just heard of some trainers are training from web cam to their clients remotely. anybody has any experience on that? i have come across with some email consultation site as well but dun really believe that training with emails really work...

anybody has any experience/ thoughts ?? coz if possible i will be thinking of really marketing myself online and stuff. cheers

Hey kicka,

It's certainly a good way to reach your clients if there is a demand and it sounds like there is. The obvious step before that is doing your own videos/workouts and posting them online for your own clients and the whole world to see if on YouTube/Vimeo, etc.

If this is something you want to do to promote your business online make sure you read up on social bookmarking, in particular how to social bookmark videos as you can generate some unbelievable traffic if you know what you are doing.

Go for it mate... Sounds like something I should start doing.

sory bro but what is social bookmarking??

you mean getting a group or sth on social networking sites or like got followed on tweeter ?

i heard lots of ppl are doing their own blog/ site on blogspot or myspace and stuff but those are primarily for information + self-introduction purpose (i suppose)... what about really hosting your training service online??

u have similar experience on that?

cheers

Social bookmarking is used for many reasons, one of which is to drive traffic and increase exposure to your website for example at sites like Digg, Delicious, Mixx, Propeller, etc. Twitter is also extremely effective at getting visitors to your site if you have one... if you don't I would highly recommend getting one. Wordpress.com or Blogger (Blogspot owned by Google) are both free to use and reasonably easy to setup.

Yes, some people would absolutely be using their sites/blogs for information and promotion, advertising, affiliate promotions, etc which are all ways of generating some income from what they do.

The main reason people use the services you have mentioned is because it takes away the need for the user to know website design, coding, etc. and you can pretty much take a video and upload it to YouTube say and then insert it on your site as part of a training service online. Look up something like online personal trainer in Google and check out a few examples of what other people are doing and try and generate some ideas from that.

If you need any directions, let me know.

hi mate,

which of the stated tools that you've been or are using regularly??

which do u think is/are most useful??

just checked out your blog... quite interesting and real loadzzz of info, how long have u started?? u did well??

Well, it's really cool to see how people find new ways of making the internet resources useful in new interesting ways.

I've been doing the online thing for a bit. At first it was a lot less formal but as word of mouth spread... it became and is still turning into something much more formal.

I wrestled with the idea of charging someone a fee for simple program design. I do that for free on forums like this. I value the integrity of information and much of what needs to be known about program design can be found for free on communities such as this.

Over time though, I realized some things.

1) some people don't feel like sifting out information on the net... they're rather pay someone they respect for direct advice

2) personal trainers in general suck beyond belief so why not give people access to decent trainers in areas of the country you ordinarily wouldn't find them

3) there's a lot more to offer than glorified program design... accountability, motivation, education, and much more. you'd be surprised how much you can gleam from web interaction.

4) it's a more affordable option for those who are financially tight

Is it as good as in-person training? Hell no. But that depends on the trainer you're comparing it to. And that's why it doesn't cost as much. It's just another tool that some people might find value in.

I do both in-person and online-training. From my vantage point, I can honestly say I've reached some of my online clients better than some of my in-person clients. But I'm not afraid to turn a client away if I feel it's not something that'll work for them.

It's not for everyone, but it certainly has it's place for some.

A major problem is just as there are a metric ton of piss poor in-person trainers out there, the same can be said about the web-based population of 'gurus.'

Lyle McDonald and I discussed this in my blog not terribly long ago if you're interested:

It's at the end of this 5th and final part of the interview

Hey Kicka,

Sorry for not replying sooner... Thanks for checking out my personal training blog, and yes I am starting to see some very solid results from the social bookmarking sites I mentioned previously. I do use them all and there are some tricks to getting the best results, but that is the case with anything mate. If you want to contact me personally, you can find an email address on the blog that will forward to me and I'd be glad to send you some information on how to do it correctly.

I have had the personal training blog for probably around 6-9 months now and if you do a search for the following terms in brackets you will see me ranked 2nd (personal training blog) and 6th (personal trainer blog) on the first page of Google which is pretty handy.

Mate, I am more than happy to share my knowledge not just in fitness but on the internet as well. It's a win-win situation depending on who you are and how you look at it, but how wouldn't want to share their knowledge with as many people as possible and get paid for it? Exactly

Thanks alot Clayton,

i got your point and yeh, thanks alot for your advice. Seems that it really started of by word of mouth and friend's site and friend's friend connection and stuff i suppose (if your SEO aren't triggered as much at the beginning).

yeh i'll try those social bookmarking you suggested but then i came up with a slightly different situation coz i'm actually hosting a platform to get PTs to train their client online and set their own price using 1:1 video conferencing.

well maybe u might think that's just a general business (coz fitness is not the only field we do) but then for sure i'm trying to get most feedback from PTs with expeirnece as possible and that's y i'm asking around here.

hope you'll find my site useful too and yeh... after some nitty gritty matters are sorted out i'll try to pull out a larger scale of promotion in order to get ppl to use my platform as a training tool to their clients... and hopefully get access to people where PTs suck at their own gym and stuff.

good to keep update and cheers!

Haley

o brother... how do u market your site? do people just bump onto you guys from google and check out your video then get to train with u online?! seems a long road if u really make that successful,

anywayz, great work and love to share

I've been communicating fitness and nutrition on the net for nearly a decade. I started a free website when I was a freshman in college. People liked my writing style and found utility in the knowledge I shared... a following grew from there.

I spent many, many hours helping people for free on forums such as this. Over time, members of large forums such as this start to figure out who actually knows what the F- they're talking about and who doesn't. Trust is born and as long as you stay honest and work your tail off to help people... you'll reputation will grow.

Interviewing the likes of Lyle McDonald sure doesn't hurt as well as putting out good articles and the like.

I don't do any fancy marketing with networking sites or anything like that. I'm sure it could help, but I simply don't have time for that sort of thing. Maybe I need to research it a bit.

In my mind, it's all about delivering a 'package' that goes above and beyond what they're going to get anywhere else. Exceed expectations and you'll obtain and keep more clients than you can handle.

I agree with Stoutman, it can be successful, and it really depends on the type of trainer you are. For me, I dont mind doing it online, obviously since I love helping people see their results, my preference is in person, however online can be very successful too. What I like to do is have the client send me a photo and weight when they start with me, and then get updates. But it can work online, and nowadays you have to be flexible enough to provide online training. I also found alot of people are intimidated or nervous to go to a personal trainer at times, and online works very well for that also......any other questions please give a shout


best regards

o alright... i see..
so u guys just basically just run your own site and try to get people who believe in online training / too nervous to get a PT to give it a shot on your site... and u just do all those SEO and talk about that on forums and stuff to gather up your very first group of clients? or working in a gym helps like u leave your site on your business card or something?? or u have affiliate sites? i just find it hard to get ppl who believe in online training : (

lots of questions.. ahha... thanks alot guys

Kicka

maybe i sense a bit of sarcasim? But online training is so much more than that. Lets put it this way, yes you are not physically with that person and you are creating a diet and nutrition plan, but if you are a good trainer it goes well beyond that. You need to reassure that client you are available via the phone and email because you can guarantee there will be questions. Also you need to be in contact with that person via phone and email just to see how things are going. It would be easy to say yeah here is your lifting schedule and nutrition plan, now run with it. But it is sooo much more than that, there is a signficant amount of time invested per online client as far as both a workout and nutrition plan. You cannot just give them a plan and say run with this for 12 weeks and I will talk to you then. As far as getting people to believe in online training, all I can say if both the client and trainer put their time and effort into it, it will be successful, just like if I were to train you in person, if you are not going to follow the routine I lay out for you and I am going to sit there with a clipboard in my hand waiting for the time to go by, it wont be successful.............