Feb 4, 2020
Becoming a Health Coach or Personal Trainer After 50
Is becoming a health coach or personal trainer something you’ve toyed with?
Love health? Tired of what you’ve been doing? Looking for a career with meaning and purpose you love?
This episode is full of resources and things to consider. I’ll look at both the pros and cons of starting now or getting back into it if it’s something you did “back in the day.”
In fact this episode is sponsored by the Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist certificate program. I train health coaches and personal trainers to use the Flipping 50 formula with individuals and small groups so they can both build a business and life they love and serve women in perimenopause, menopause, and beyond master their metabolism… so they’ll have the energy and vitality they want, need, and deserve.
Right now you can get one of two options for 50% off – it’s only the first 50 who take advantage of it. I’ll link to it in the show notes. Code: Certificate50
The state of the industry
I’ll give you a sort of state of the industry in this episode. If you’re thinking of becoming a health coach you’ll want to hear this.
To date an overwhelming 60% of Flipping 50 community members have expressed a preference for their personal trainer or health coach to be over 40. In fact, with most respondents it appears the older the better. Education, or training, and experience are important. But age was more important. You clearly want someone who “gets you.”
Statements like, “oh, my grandmother does that too...” from your trainer during a session are a real turn off. Even, “You remind me so much of my mom, she says that too.”
You actually want someone who can feel the difference in her knees too, and oh yes, in the gender arena… women win. You want a woman who you can share details with. Who knows it may be easier to discuss a little incontinence with your female trainer, maybe it’s that your libido needle is bouncing on zero.
You want a trainer – especially if you don’t choose to do an online virtual fitness studio like the Flipping 50 membership – who has similar life experience. If she too is pulled by kids, and her job, and her aging parents, she understands it’s not just exercise it’s “all the things” that overwhelm you.
What Women Want
So you get the idea. Women in perimenopause, menopause, and beyond would just rather train or be coached by women in perimenopause, menopause, and beyond. That’s good news and bad.
If you’re currently a match for those credentials and been in the fitness industry, we’ve grown up with agencies like IDEA – at once upon a time called the International Dance Exercise Association, and AFAA. Some of us – collectively I say that to listeners – have changed careers and chosen health and wellness second careers – but not enough. The IDEA – now health and fitness association is older but not recruiting new and younger trainers. They have too many choices.
They learn a little about a lot.
That began in the late 80’s. For those of us teaching and training then, we learned step, and spin, and slide, and interval circuit training, and isometrics, and… funk, and boxing, and the list goes on.
Now a student has all of them to consider and either goes deep into one or two, or superficially gets many. Limiting.
And still, they only learn the method, they aren’t learning YOU. Not learning your hormones, your state of being, your needed changes. They become an expert in spinning technique but not in the people in their sessions.
Why’s that a problem?
46 million women are in menopause as of 2020. Six thousand women a day enter menopause. (ACOG)
That’s a lot of women who need and want help. Let’s be serious, 75% of women ask for directions compared to 30% of men. Women make up 78-80% of the personal training clients at large chain and small fitness businesses. To be more specific it’s not just women it’s women 40-70. And of course that’s women in peri-menopause who don’t often even recognize they’re in peri-menopause. They just know they’re gaining weight and belly fat.
And a trainer who doesn’t understand and recognize what’s happening will make her worse. If she exercises and eats incorrectly based on old science and caloric deficits, she will increase her stress (cortisol level). And even recent grads are trained based on old science.
You are vulnerable
We each see 4000- 10,000 marketing messages a day. The more you’re on social media the more you see. If you search for information on weight loss, belly fat, personal trainer or health coach locators, you’ll see more messages.
I want to pause here for a moment, (not to be confused with menopause), and say this:
I contribute to the marketing noise.
I want to fully disclose that I think it is a qualified service provider’s responsibility to create a message and get it out there.
What happens if good ones don’t message you?
The messages you get are from marketers. Not fitness professionals.
Marketers understand you’re a target. They want your dollars. They care less about making it work for you, helping you, than they do about how much you spend with them.
I also want to weigh in on your limiting beliefs about money right now.
I’d love to have you listen to a podcast I did with my friend Krisstina Wise on Flipping 50 and to her podcast if it’s a fit for you. I’ll link to both a recent Flipping 50 podcast with her and to her podcast.
Women often struggle with money. When you don’t have it you struggle with it most. I say this with all respect because it is conditioning. You didn’t wake up in the morning and think this way. You woke up thousands of mornings to small messages that made you feel this way!
Comments like this are telling:
“It’s all about money, isn’t it?”- in regard to why certain venue’s couldn’t be used for meeting purposes
“She just wants you to sign up for her newsletter.” - a podcast listener’s (maybe a listener?) comment
First, it is all about money. Yes. Without money we can’t do good. It takes money, to do everything. What comments like that are about are more about your relationship with money. Because you some how believe that wanting to make money is bad. Yet we all need it.
Have you ever noticed that those who dish profitable companies don’t make or earn money? They usually struggle with money themselves. It’s not your fault! Your background, your environment growing up, your parent’s relationship with money, the “money doesn’t grow on trees” or the “all you care about is money” or having to pay your own way and struggle through it all has acquired you a feeling about money.
You’re not stuck there. There are always ways we ignore to spend less and better yet, make more. Money can be created.
Mismatched?
You may feel incongruent between enjoying finer things and saying, “it’s not about the money” and then ability to charge for your services. Often it’s easier if you work for an employer and don’t have to put a value on your own services when your money thoughts are this.
I go down this rabbit hole just a bit because a relationship with money so that you can establish fees for your services is an important part of growth as a coach or trainer.
Second, oh yes I do, but only if you’re someone who wants help, isn’t finding it nor satisfied now or accepting aging as it’s been shown to you before. The only way I can help – even if I can see how I can help you – is if you put your hand up and ask. The first time you do that with me is to subscribe to our email to get notices about new research, upcoming programs, live free and paid events. Random bits of information do not help you move consistently forward.
Is the women who says, she just wants you to sign up for her newsletter someone I can help? No. But you might be.
I saw this first in National Treasurer…
If you see a problem and you have the ability to do something about it, you have the responsibility to act.
It is my responsibility to tell you that you have options. The way you’ve been taught, I’ve taught, exercise 20 and 30 years ago was wrong. That I never do endurance training if I don’t have balanced hormones. That yes, I do 20-30 minutes a day of cardio or weights or yoga… and that is it. No, I don’t tell you one thing and do another.
There are women who want to believe that I don’t do what I tell you to do because it lets them off the hook. Don’t be one of those. If you don’t understand how it works, please ask!
Whether you are certified now as a trainer or health coach, you were once, you want to be. Add Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist to your knowledge pool is a wise investment. You’ll understand it more for yourself. You’ll live it, and you’ll understand how to identify, help and support women and the obstacles they face so you can give them the breakthroughs they want, need, and deserve.
Becoming a health coach after 50
You are a perfect candidate, listener. If you work with women and seamlessly provide joint-worthy workouts and progression but don’t really speak hormone balance into that programming, your business and your clients’ outcomes and your legacy and influence will be limited.
If you’re already working with a trainer or want to locally, reach out to see if there is a Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist in your geographic area. We’ve got a directory for those who’ve passed the test at the end of the advanced training.
I’d love your questions and comments. Add them below!
You’ll find links discussed in the show notes at https://www.flippingfifty.com/certificate
Flippingfifty.com/specialist (use certificate50)
Resources: