Working at Equinox

Recently, Equinox released an article that talked about the personal training career path and the hardships of said path. They likened working at Equinox to “The Hunger Games” where it seems young trainers are pitted against one another to secure as many clients as possible for minimum wage.

The reality is, that whenever you start any career whether that be accounting, acting, marketing or personal training, you're going to face a lengthy path to success. So, while I understand that it may be frustrating for the author of this article, to have to endure long hours for minimum wage, that's going to happen in any career you choose. But, what the author doesn't talk about is that they chose to trust a corporation to ensure their success in personal training rather than taking responsibility for their success, working at it and SHOWING up.

Equinox is long known for misleading their new hires with promises of the infamous 100k salary but do not disclose the unpaid hours of work you must put in. Many other corporations market similarly and then create false expectations that are not fair to the naive hires that believe them, but the reality is- neither is life.

If someone was truly interested in becoming a personal trainer they would research the industry and do their homework to set their personal expectations. Upon doing that they'd learn that the first 2-3 years of training are not easy ( neither is any other career). They'd also learn that while you can become certified rather quickly, success takes a long time to secure. See, in other industries, candidates are required to graduate from a trade school or endure months of an unpaid internship program as a bare minimum to begin their career and work with clients.

What I'm getting at, is this article isn’t a fair representation of what a personal training career looks like- rather it's a pity party for those too lazy to work hard.

There are over 40 Equinox gyms in New York City, and this article only takes into consideration one person's opinion and sells it's as fact. Why wouldn't they try and interview the most veteran trainer and the newly certified one to share an unbiased view.

In my book How To Become A Successful Personal Trainer I interview a spectrum of trainers who share their various experiences while working as a personal trainer. While I ONLY interviewed the success stories, but I also took the time to highlight, in detail, the path that’ll need to be traveled along the way.