Day in the life of a PT

A day in the life of a PT is a strange one as my day has to very dynamic and open to change, it’s not like a 9-5 where you can turn off your computer and go home. Personal training whether some people like it or not is a 24/7 job!

This is because PT’s like myself have a genuine passion for helping people, so even boring chores become an opportunity to learn – for example Hoovering is an experiment into which muscles are responsible - how can I train clients to find hoovering or manual chores easier? Driving becomes a learning experience by listening to podcasts, audiobooks and the audio to seminars.  Even Shopping becomes an exercise into learning about new food and what foods have come out that I can recommend fitting into a client’s life.

Everyone thinks about PT as a physical job lifting weights all day however I rarely touch a weight in my working hours. my clients will prepare the weights and equipment that they need for their next exercise during their rest periods as this helps to burn even more calories. however Personal training is exceptionally mentally draining -  people think we just stand and count. now don’t get me wrong, there are some shit PT's who literally stand and count reps, but a good PT will be looking at technique, your effort, your posture, the next progression, how that set will impact the rest of your workout, do you need progressions, regressions, more weight, more reps, do we need to change the work out completely as you just aren’t mentally in the workout? A good PT will consider all of these things and more whilst counting! These are the reasons why a good PT won’t have more than 3 sessions back to back, because mentally you need a break and probably a coffee!

Now let’s get into a typical day to day routine:
5am – wake-up and go to the gym
6am -9am – 3 clients
9am – eat and pre-workout coffee
10-11:30 – train and wash etc.
11:30 -12pm - eat
12pm-2pm – 2 clients
2pm-5pm – Client check-Ins, social media posts, research, program writing, website updates, course work, eat whatever it might be
5-8pm - 3 more clients
8pm- home time and eat, relax maybe more course work, programming. Etc.
 
So as you can see it’s a full on long day, all this time is scheduled the best we can but clients cancelling, rearranging and lateness can have a massive knock on effect. Also if we have any holiday, events or anything like that can also make the day vary.
 
Being self-employed means we don’t get sick pay, holiday pay, or anything else so if we miss a day for example because of car issues or sickness we miss out on a lot of money. Sure can use the time wisely and write programs etc, but we are paying for that time. We don’t get paid for that day off and then we actually lose more money to ‘pay for that’. now I’m not here to try and make you feel sorry for us, but this is a fact of PT.
 
But for those of us that last in the industry, it’s not the money that drives us to do this job. it’s the feeling you get when you watch a client walk out the door with a spring in their step and having the confidence to say hello to someone they would of never been able to look at because they were too nervous. It’s the transformation you see in the mentality of clients more than the physical transformation, while that can sometimes be awe-inspiring.