How to Separate Work Life From Personal Life When You Are a Personal Trainer

If you are already a personal trainer who trains either in-person or online clients (or both), you know that handing out your cell phone number is a risky thing. Am I right?! This is something that you can’t really deny a client if they ask for it, as that would just seem weird; however, it is much harder to find a work-life balance when you have clients texting late at night and weekends. A second struggle using your smart phone for client progress photos, or having them scattered throughout your email inbox. For one, if someone looks at your camera roll, it’s a bit awkward to have a bunch of half naked pictures on it, right? If they email them to you, it’s just another thing you have to organize into folders (yes, I know it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but if you get a lot of emails each day, this turns out to be a lot of work to organize!).

Having systems and strict work hours is important for finding that work-life balance.

As someone who runs a personal training/group fitness studio and also has online training clients–for a while, it was hard for me to get away from my work when my cell phone was constantly getting blown up from clients asking questions like “I’m at (enter name of restaurant here), what should I eat?” or texting on a Saturday night to book sessions for the following week. I couldn’t be mad because I was happy that even on a Saturday night they were thinking about their workouts; however, weekends are usually my time to unwind and not think about work.

Here are 2 Ways That I Have Used Trainerize to Help Me Find Work-Life Balance:

1. Have clients upload progress pictures into their Trainerize account

This has made my life much easier and give the client a little bit more responsibility over their progress. I now set the majority of my in-person training clients up with a Trainerize account in order to send them their workouts to do when they are not training with me. I will use their phone to take progress photos of them at my studio and then tell them to upload pictures into their app themselves. This way I can still access them through the app, but do not have to store them in my phone.

2. Get clients to use the Trainerize in-app messaging system

If you get clients used to using the in-app messaging system they will not need to text you directly to your cell phone. Just make a point to check your messages in Trainerize a few times per day on work days, and then perhaps once a morning on non-work days (or whatever works best for you). I would say the key to finding work-life balance is to make a point to not respond to client texts (especially if not urgent) late on week nights or on weekends (if you don’t work weekends). The key is to let them know from the beginning that the best way to reach you is through Trainerize messaging, as you check this often. As much as we are trainers and really care about our clients’ progress, we need time away from work just as much as everyone else. It’s much easier to do this when our phone is not being blown up constantly.

I hope this helps you use your Trainerize app to make your life easier as a trainer, and more importantly, helps you find work-life balance! The key to long term success is finding a balance between working hard and still enjoying time with loved ones and exploring the world.