One of the biggest software complaints I hear from trainers is that it’s really hard to find an appropriate app or software service for your small or sole-trader personal training business. This is very understandable, and I can point my oft-used wagging finger at a couple of causes:

So, I decided to try to do something about this and I’m preparing a new section to my web site- the Personal Trainer Software Directory. Here, I will aggregate any apps and software products I come across that are specifically targeted towards personal trainers and their business, with a strong focus on sole-trader and mobile-type personal trainers.

You will be able to browse the directory and view summaries of the PT apps. I’ll describe what they are, what they do, how much they cost, what platforms they run on, who makes them, and more. I’m even hoping to be able to write up the occasional review where I’ll go into much deeper detail on some apps and do the hard work of evaluating how good they are for you. The directory will be a great way for you to keep informed of new apps as they’re released, and existing apps that are updated with new features.

My goal with the Personal Trainer Software Directory is to give personal trainers a single place they can turn to when looking for software to help them and their business. I hope this will:

If this directory works well, I plan to replicate it for health clubs and PT studios and introduce a Health Club Software Directory.

I should have the first cut of the directory up in a week or so. The directory might be a little light on to start with, but I’ll be doing my best to add to it as much as I can.

If you know of any products you think belongs in the directory, tweet me or contact me via my contact page and let me know!

I’ll be making an announcement on Twitter when the time comes.

Stay tuned!

Mike.Ryan.

I have served in many different roles in the fitness industry over the last 20 years. I have been a front desk receptionist, an equipment maintainer, membership consultant, cleaner, club manager, gym instructor, personal trainer, class instructor and so on.

And I like to think I was good at most of the jobs I had- with a few exceptions. Group exercise instructor (or- as we liked to be called back then- aerobics instructor), is one of these. I absolutely loved teaching classes, but I suffered from two fatal flaws; firstly I lacked the creativity required to keep choreographing fresh routines and music (we didn’t have your new-fangled Les Mills programs where all the hard work is done for you). Secondly, I was unbelievably accident-prone! It seemed like every second class would result in some bizarre mishap caused by my over-enthusiastic instructing techniques. I once had to end a class early because I somehow managed to backwards-Easy Walk my way into a milk crate-type container used to store spare hand weights. I got my butt firmly stuck in it. It required the participants to ease the crate and me onto the side to help me out. I was too sore to continue the class once they’d freed me. And don’t get me started on the time I grapevine right off the stage into the stacked up Reebok Steps…

So, when you combine my lack of imagination for new routines and my proclivity for stunningly embarrassing accidents, it’s understandable that my classes rarely broke the 10-15 participant mark (even in peak times). Even then, I’m sure they just turned up for the comedic value, in the same way some people watch NASCAR racing in the hope of seeing a crash.

But believe it or not, that’s not my secret shame. My shame is that as far as the club manager was aware, my classes were quite popular, because the log book at the front desk regularly showed between 15-20 participants attending my class. Because I used to fudge the figures! When each class finished and I made my way out to the front desk to sign the book and write how many people attended my class, I’d be doing the kind of mental maths that bordered on self-delusion. Hmm, let’s see, I noticed a couple of members accidentally walked in the wrong door during the class, so that’s two to add to the stats. And the membership consultant touring that prospect showed them the aerobics room, so that’s another one.., no.. two…

I was thinking about the kinds of tasks club management software is used for these days. I was thinking about how hard it would be for me to get away with my class creative accounting if I were still teaching (it’s a fair bet if I was still teaching, I’d still have to fudge my figures as not only do I still lack imagination, but I also now lack any sort of co-ordination that would allow me to follow a routine any more complicated than jumping up and down). Today’s club management software often have features in them designed to alleviate the administrative burden of tracking class attendances. So short of cracking open the database and manually manipulating figures when no-one is looking, I’d be very quickly exposed for the kind of instructor I really was.

The reason this has come up now is because I helped design a new feature for the new version of ClientConnect- a studio and club management solution- that has just been released by PulseTec Solutions. Called Class Sign-In, it is a dramatic overhaul of how ClientConnect processes member check-ins, and aids in automating the process of tracking attendances to your group exercise or other type of group classes. In effect, it seamlessly combines traditional member check-in with session tracking, completely eliminating the need for the instructor or trainer to fill out a ‘class log’.

Put another way, it is a system that would utterly thwart my ritual of adding ‘GST’ to my class numbers.

Now to be sure, preventing figure fudging isn’t the reason Class Sign-In‘s has been built into ClientConnect. At best, it is a bonus consequence of the feature. The feature was designed to allow clubs and studios to dramatically speed up class and session processing times, reduce human error (where even one missing session can cost your club significant money) and reduce the administrative burdens on your staff who are charged with recording when members attend sessions such as group PT. It is a very powerful enhancement to ClientConnect.

And one that I’m glad didn’t exist when I was an instructor.

Have fun!
Mike.Ryan

Kelly Sanders of the excellent PT Business Success site published an article recently that I thought I’d pass on to you. In short, Kelly suggests many trainers fail to adequately track and monitor key indicators of their PT business such as conversion rates. And just as important as tracking these figures is knowing how to interpret them and what to do with them.

It’s not really the focus of this blog to help you with the latter (there are many others far more qualified than I am for that), but the former is absolutely my jurisdiction. Unless your PT business is very small, I have always advocated the use of a capable, professional, dedicated software solution for managing your business administration. Put another way, in order to be able to effectively monitor and analyse your business performance, you need an effective computer system that can generate the data you need. Otherwise- as Kelly suggests- you’ll likely find yourself throwing everything in the “too hard basket” and your future as a successful trainer just got less certain.

The importance of good studio management software isn’t limited to just the automation of laborious administrative duties such as tracking sessions, making bookings, storing client contact information and so on. The right software makes the compilation of the necessary key statistics and data for business performance analysis a breeze. In fact, if your chosen software solution is properly designed and specifically targeted to the fitness industry, I’d even go as far to say that it would have almost all of the data you need for business performance analysis in it already, simply as a by-product of it doing its job.

Take Kelly’s example of conversion rates. Calculating conversion rates is a trivial exercise if you have the following two pieces of basic information: how many enquiries you received for a given period, and how many new clients you acquired in that same period.

(I’m being simplistic here and assuming that all newly signed clients are also considered prospects up to the point they signed up.)

So even if your software doesn’t directly give you your conversion rates in a nicely formatted report on screen, it’s very easy to derive that information from data that your software almost certainly already has. You aren’t required to manually record any additional information or employ a separate system just so you could track conversions. You already have the information. You just need to do as Kelly recommends and go looking for it.

As the saying goes, if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. My job is to advise you on tools for measurement- your computer systems. So don’t just think of your computer as a way of reducing admin burdens. It’s also a gold mine of data that can help you analyse your business performance, which is just as vital as other mandatory aspects of your business like marketing and professional education.

Oh, and if you’re a personal trainer, I recommend subscribing to Kelly’s newsletter. There’s lots of very useful information and advice to be found for your PT business.

Have fun!
Mike.Ryan

A standard recommendation I make to fitness businesses is to make sure that the computers at your club should only ever have the minimum software required to perform the tasks that are required to run the business. And no more. Too often I see computers at health clubs and studios that are littered with every piece of garbage software the Internet can spew out. These computers are readily recognisable too; they’re the ones with dozens of icons on the Windows Desktop, all squeezed in there so tight that you’re lucky you can still see the Windows wallpaper behind them. They are the ones that have icons sitting there that you have no idea where they came from or you’ve long since forgotten what they’re for.

And not coincidentally enough, they’re often the ones that are owned by club managers who email me for advice about why their computers are running so slowly.

One of the nice things about Microsoft Windows is that it is a platform upon which you are free to do anything you wish. You can install whatever you like, run your computer in any way you see fit and because of its ubiquity, there is no shortage of software applications available for it that do pretty much anything you can imagine. However, this freedom comes at a price that I believe you shouldn’t have to pay.

If you’re serious about viewing your computer systems as professional, first-class tools for your business, then you should treat them as such and institute a policy for you and your staff that nothing should be installed or changed on any of the computers that hasn’t been rationally identified as necessary for the successful operation of your business.

Or put another way, only install the tools you need and no more.

This means not installing that game you heard was fun to play, not installing that tool that promises to ‘speed up your computer’ you saw advertised on a web site, and perhaps surprisingly to a lot of you- not installing everything you are given on the CD-ROM’s that came with that new printer you bought from Dick Smith. Let me tell you WHY you shouldn’t be installing anything on your computer.

You are what you install

Being in the fitness industry, I’m sure you’re probably sick of the cliché “you are what you eat”. Guess what? That applies to your computer too. Your computer is what you install on it. If you eat junk, your health can suffer. Likewise, if you install garbage on your computer, your computer can turn to garbage too.

Here’s why I recommend you should only install the bare minimum you need to run your business, and no more:

• Reduce bit-rot.
• You maintain a cleaner, faster computer, which means faster performance and less crashes.
• Reduced attack vectors.
• Less risk of compatibility problems.
• Simpler, faster system recovery.

Here’s a brief explanation of each one.

Reduced bit rot

Bit rot is the term used to describe the gradual degradation of your computer’s performance and reliability due to a variety of things, ranging from orphaned registry entries to hard disk sector corruptions to bugs to compatibility issues between various system and application files. Over time, as you have installed more and more applications on your computer, and files have been created, moved, deleted and so on, weird little things start mysteriously happening to your computer without any apparent reason. Strange crashes start happening randomly, the system starts taking forever to right-click on a certain file type for some reason, some icons change to be plain white squares, etc. And a complete wipe of your hard disk and fresh re-install of Windows seems to be the only cure. Although much less of an issue with Windows 7, bit rot is nonetheless a seriously aggravating problem and is exacerbated by indiscriminately installing unnecessary apps on your computer.

Bonus Community Service Announcement: don’t bother with so-called system cleaner applications such as Registry Cleaners that you see advertised on many web sites. Their efficacy is questionable at best, and at worse, they do more harm than good by screwing with your system in ways that can only be resolved by pulling out your cheque book and putting an IT professional’s kids through university.

Maintain a faster, cleaner computer

Too often, I have remoted into a club’s computer system to perform some technical troubleshooting only to be presented with a computer that is the equivalent of a teenager’s bedroom. The Windows Desktop is littered with dozens upon dozens of icons pointing to useless apps they have installed over time and forgotten about. These apps have thrown their library files and icons around your computer like a teenager throwing their clothes and school books on the floor. And the vast majority of these icons were for useless little utilities that contribute nothing to the operation of the computer or the business.

And much like the teenager who doesn’t know where to begin when you tell them to clean their room, all this cruft makes backing up your valuable data much more of an intellectual exercise than it should be. You now have to determine what needs to be backed up and why.

Reduced attack vectors

Viruses and malware are an ever-present threat to your club’s computer systems. An attack vector is the term used by security professionals to describe the specific technique or vulnerability a bit of malware exploits in order to gain access to your computer. Attack vectors include ports opened necessarily, bugs in Microsoft Windows, poorly chosen passwords, insecure WiFi connections, etc.

By far, the most common and porous attack vector is the user. With all the improvements to recent versions of Windows and Internet Explorer, the bad guys are finding fewer attack vectors to exploit via pre-installed software or are finding it harder to attack, so are turning to a much easier target- you. Users unwittingly install malware that comes as attachments in emails, use weak passwords and so on. Additionally, third-party software products like Adobe Reader are often targeted because of their ubiquity and frankly, their susceptibility to coding errors.

Less risk of compatibility problems

Most software running under Microsoft Windows make use of what are called libraries. These shared libraries provide common services to applications that they can use to provide you functionality. This includes things like Open and Save File dialogs. Along with libraries, many applications make themselves at home on your computer by making changes to your system that they deem necessary to run successfully.

Unfortunately, the more applications you install, the more likely you’re going to encounter a situation where two different applications have decided they both want different versions of a shared library, or need different settings on your computer. And this can often lead to incompatibilities where one application doesn’t like the library version or setting the other application needs.

So the computer equivalent of a neighborhood skirmish breaks out in your system and things start going wrong. Apps start crashing or misbehaving, your computer suddenly decides it no longer wants to print, and so on.

Simpler, faster system recovery

If the unthinkable should happen and your system gets hosed one day due to hardware failure, virus infection or similar, appropriate disaster recovery measures much be undertaken, and this often means a complete system re-build. System rebuilds are no small task. I personally throw myself willingly into this madness with my own computers at least once every three to six months (I’m a tad OCD when it comes to the cleanliness of my systems). And depending on how much stuff you have installed on your computer, it can take up to an entire day if not more to fully reinstall Windows and all the software and settings you need to be productive again. This means more money and longer downtimes. The less software you have installed, the less expensive it will be for you.

My recommendation

Institute an IT policy in your business: do not install- or allow to be installed- anything that is not absolutely required to do your job. No games, no browser toolbars (for the love of God, please avoid browser toolbars!), no utilities, nothing. That shiny new digital camera you bought to take photos for your monthly newsletter to members will work just as fine using the tools built into Microsoft Windows and Mac OSX, so resist the temptation to crudify your computer by installing the garbage on the CD-ROM that came with the camera. Such software is almost always thrown in with third-party devices as marketing differentiators and aren’t necessary except to tick some marketing boxes.

That’s why I have a certain respect for ecosystems such as the Apple iPad. Yes, there are serious limitations and restrictions on what you can do with them, but on the other hand they don’t allow you to clog up your system with unnecessary cruft. And therein lies one of the main reasons why the iPad ‘just works’.
It works because it protects you from yourself.

By limiting what gets installed on your computer to only what is necessary to run your business, you stand a much better chance of enjoying a well-performing, defect-free computer for a number of years without having to pay money to someone like me to come in and fix things.

Have fun!
Mike.Ryan

Due to a frantic and almost desperate effort to complete some projects that were required for the expo, I have neglected this blog.

Now that things are slowly getting back to normal, I’m going to resume posting articles. There’s still so much that needs to be written for you. Some upcoming articles you can look forward to include Part II of my series on using Microsoft Excel to track prospects, a series on network servers and their roles in the health club of today, a whole lot of Windows 8 stuff plus more.

Stay tuned!
Mike.Ryan

As an IT professional and self-professed expert in technology for the fitness industry, it is surprisingly easy for me to admit when I get things wrong. Luckily it’s rare, but I have made some monumental mistakes in the past. I have made technical errors that have had quite severe consequences; I’ve given advice that in hindsight may not have been the most appropriate; and I’ve made predictions that had all the accuracy of a blind man playing Frogger.

And it is this last point that brings me to my greatest tech shame of all that I’m not too proud to share with you today.

You see, back in 1993 I wrote an article for a community newspaper in Perth in which I proudly and loudly proclaimed that the INTERNET IS A FAD!

That’s right. I actually wrote (in my usual verbose style) that the Internet- and everything it stands for- is nothing but a fad that’ll die out quicker than the Vanilla Ice flat-top hair style I had at the time.

Looking back on it now, I suspect my attitude was due to nothing more than my distaste of the fact that all the tech journals of the time kept going on and one about this new-fangled emerging Internet thingy, taking valuable column inches away from my favourite topics of the time- databases and computer games.

My arguments justifying my position ultimately rested on false assumptions. At the time, the Internet was not much more than extremely rudimentary web pages of static text with a few animated flying toasters and blinking text, all on a grey background. Email existed, but had next to zero utility because no-one else I knew had an email account. And there were some other Internet venues available such as IRC and Usenet, but as far as I could tell they were only good for downloading ‘not-safe-for-work’ images (which I only did- often- for research purposes!). So based on this, I ignored the one fundamental fact of tech life- that technology never stands still and it always improves exponentially until such a time as it becomes not only ubiquitous, but it becomes such an integral part of our daily lives that we take it for granted. Today’s Internet is an absolute marvel. It is still based on almost exactly the same technical underpinnings as it was back in 1969 when the ARPANET came to life (a true testament to the foresight and brilliance of its creators!), but with the advent of things like HTML5, JSON, JavaScript, CSS3 and so on, the Internet is nothing like it was when I made my claim.

It was only when I started my first gig as a club manager that my mind started changing. One of the benefits of being the manager of a CBD-based health club is that you get a lot of free stuff! (well, I did anyway :-). Apart from the usual movie premier tickets and sample bourbons, I was given a free Internet account by one of Perth’s first ISP’s to try out. Because the club I was managing was in the heart of Perth’s business district, our membership base was predominately professional, including lawyers and stock brokers (we were in the same building as ANZ’s head office and next door to the Stock Exchange). As such, many of them had email addresses for work. And this was finally the excuse I needed to use the Internet for more than my ‘images research’. Ahem.

It didn’t take long before I started to see the value in this technology and began to realise this was only the beginning.

So there you have it. My secret shame has been aired for all the world to read. None of us are perfect I guess. You never know, it’s entirely possible I will be vindicated and the internet will one day disappear. And on that day, I vow to bring back my beloved Vanilla Ice haircut.

Have fun!
Mike.Ryan

There are two ‘facts’ that have not changed at all for the more than 20 years I have been working in the Australian fitness industry; the first is the golden 10% statistic where 10% of the population regularly participate in exercise. The second is that there is a concerning lack of information technology expertise with comprehensive, real-world, fitness industry experience.

Addressing the “Golden 10%” is outside my skillset, and is the domain of the many, many sales/marketing and retention consultants, experts and gurus that have saturated the industry. What I can do however is attempt to address the dearth of fitness industry-specific IT information that is available to club/studio managers and others who have an interest in ensuring they are getting the most out of their computer systems for their business.

Health clubs, studios and trainers have unique IT needs. On one hand, a computer is a computer. What works for any small business around town will technically work for any health club. On the other hand, your average small business doesn’t have to contend with issues such as protecting your computer from the humidity that comes with a nearby wet area. Nor do they generally have to concern themselves with the differences between the high traffic/low latency needs of a reception computer and the low traffic usage of the office computer. How about the issue of using iTunes to pipe music through to the gym floor? So yes, a fitness industry business is in many respects no different to any other business, but it is also quite different in others. Our industry has it’s own specific conditions, requirements, traps and tricks.

I feel for the average club manager these days. Not only are they fighting the ongoing battles they always have with staff management, attrition, financial management, marketing and so on, they now also have the very rapidly changing technology landscape to deal with. Members’ expectations on what clubs offer via their Web sites are increasing. Commoditisation of facilities is forcing competitive differentiation to come more from services, which increases the need to rely on technology to manage this. And mobile. Oh boy. Mobile. The wholesale embracing of mobile tech is placing a whole new level of pressure and expectations on clubs, personal trainers and studios.

And it is in these areas I aim to do my part in addressing the dearth of expertise. Through this blog (along with various other mechanisms to be announced) I will be offering you the benefit of my 20+ years of fitness industry-specific experience and knowledge. I aim to help you get the most out of your technology investments, ensure you make appropriate purchase decisions for your business and ask the right questions when shopping for technology. I will offer tips, hints and tricks you will find interesting and valuable to your business.

If you have any questions, topic requests or feedback, I’d love to hear from you, so please use this site to drop me a line.

The Australian fitness industry is becoming more reliant on technology for efficient business operation, service provision to members and clients and competitive differentiation. Technology trends change and evolve far more rapidly than those surrounding exercise, nutrition, classes, member retention, and so on. However, whilst there is an abundance of information and education available in these other areas to those working in a fitness business, there is precious little on information technology specific to this industry.

This site is dedicated to helping you keep informed on the latest news in the world of computers and technology that can benefit your club, studio or personal training business. It aims to keep you abreast of the latest technology that is of interest to the fitness industry, educate those who make technology purchase decisions and provide helpful hints, tricks and advice to help you leverage information technology to give your fitness business an edge.

Who am I to be offering such advice? I have over 20 years experience, having paid my dues in just about every type of job in the industry from cleaning to personal training to reception to sales to club management. You name it, I’ve done it. Sometimes successfully, other times not so much. On the technical side of things, I have spent the last 15 years deeply entrenched in all aspects of computing for the fitness industry. From humble beginnings doing nation-wide technical support for Creative Sports Technology (old timers in this industry might remember the good ol’ Profit Center software!) all the way through to my current labour of love, ClientConnect (a personal training studio and small club management suite). I have consulted to, designed and implemented systems and assisted almost 500 fitness clubs and studios around Australia.

And it is this experience that has taught me one thing- this industry needs a cheerleader for tech. It needs someone to don the geek hat and help those less geeky get the most out of their technology. I humbly offer myself for this task.

I will be posting regular pieces on tech with a very strong emphasis on how it applies to the fitness industry. If I feel it’s important to the industry, I will keep you informed on the latest computer news. I will offer advice and suggestions for getting more out of your systems. My overall goal here is to try to elevate information technology’s status and importance in the fitness industry to the level is deserves to be- right near the top!

If you have any questions or feedback, then I’d love to hear from you. I can’t promise I will be able to answer everything, but I’ll do my best. If you have any requests for topics you’d like to see covered, let me know.

Have fun!
Mike.Ryan