Personal Trainers as a Leading Indicator

On Sunday I was working out with my personal trainer. I could do aerobic training until the cows come home. A long time ago I ran marathons and ultras. But in 1978 I broke my ankle and that slowed down my racing career.

A couple of years ago I decided I was getting out of shape and hired a guy who is very skilled at his trade. John Armour has a degree from UC Davis. Over the time he has been able to move an immovable object (me) to get into some weight training. I can see a lot of progress compared to where I began.

John is an intelligent person. He has a good gift of gab. But he also has the right mix of motivational skills to get me to do things I would not do on my own.

On Sunday, we talked about the declines in his business. He made a comment that "trainers go before maids." He described how his customers have declined over the last couple of weeks in a number of industries that have been hit by the recession.

That made me think about who would hire a personal trainer. On the one hand are the old guys like me that want to either get back into better shape or simply want to get in shape. On the other are the people I was when I was running that want to become more competitive. When I was running marathons we had a group of runners who played off each other. We made our own energy replacement drink - experimenting with various concoctions. We read a lot about prior trainers like the legendary Percy Cerruti - but mostly we were making it up on the fly.

The odd thing about his business is that it is mostly by personal referral. This is not a service that one can easily advertise.

I had not thought about the dynamics of his business, although when I did it all made sense.