According to Planet Fitness CEO Mike Grondahl, personal training is little more than “renting a friend”. Grondahl observes in his letter written to PF owners that selling personal training is a fraud, and doesn’t fit the “no judgement zone” model. He continues, stating that the company plans to use the no personal training rule as a marketing tool.

Oh boy, where do I begin?

First and foremost let me say that after training over 25,000+ sessions, and working with hundreds of people in my career, I’ve built a pretty strong case against Grondahl’s assertion that selling personal training is a fraud, and condescending. The life altering results I’ve produced over the years fly in the face of the ignorant mess that is currently coming out of his mouth. The whole Planet Fitness business model is the biggest  fraud in the fitness industry. Let’s barebones a facility selling a bogus “no judgement” philosophy, fill it up with as many people as we can paying ten bucks a month, and bank on the fact that without proper guidance most of them will never use their memberships. Rinse, repeat.

For this guy to talk this way about personal training displays an uncanny ignorance of what the proven benefits are, and his complete lack of understanding of how to make it work in a club. A strong group exercise program, and a solid, systemized personal training program are the 2 biggest member retention tools in a club. Having skilled, qualified personal trainers servicing your members fitness goals is most often the tipping point of their success in the club. This is common knowledge in our industry, and for Grondahl not to acknowledge this, and built on it makes me wonder how he became CEO of a major club chain.

While I agree that overly agressive personal trainers is not condusive to a member’s positive experience in a club, delivering results is. It takes a the right trainers being trained and led by the right managers to produce consistent results and enhance the total member experience to make your club a success. If you aren’t prepared to do that, then I guess stopping personal training in your clubs makes sense. But to me, that’s the laziest move to make. The best way to create raving fans of your club is to deliver results, so to use no personal trainers as a marketing tool is essentially saying “we don’t care about helping you reach your goals, join our club”.

Good luck Planet Fitness, I believe you’ll be out of business within ten years. More and more clubs are figuring out that the best way to beat your club is not to reduce prices, but to add more value to their memberships. I believe with this bonehead move, you’ll soon be the ones playing catch up.

For the details of this story read it HERE.

Fat loss expert Chad Smith is a Hagerstown personal trainer, and Co-Owner of Home Team Fitness Training, a personal training company that specializes in 30 minute fitness solutions for busy people. Visit his website http://www.hometeamfitness.net, or say hello on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/hometeamfitness.