Running a One-Trainer Business: Rut's Story

Coach Rut, owner of CrossFit Kansas City/Boot Camp Fitness and author of a number CFJ articles on dumbbell training and other topics, has been in the training business for a good long time now. In this question-and-answer forum, he addresses a bunch of our questions about his moving out of the big-gym employee environment to start up his own training business and finding both business success and sustainable work-life balance. His story is just one version of how these things can go, but it's an interesting and instructive one.

How long have you been training folks? In what kind of environment?

My fitness coaching career began at a fitness center in Lawrence, Kansas, in the early 1980s. The facility was a Nautilus-based center. For the era, this was a revolutionary machine based strength and conditioning facility. They had a variety of equipment and a training concept. The facility was largely machine-based, but it was a good launching pad regardless.

Due to an aggressive approach to my improving my own strength and fitness, I took mediocre talent and became a productive football safety at the small-college level. After college, I wanted to take this experience to aspiring athletes in other sports.

Over the next twenty-odd years I worked as a strength and conditioning coach at two universities, tinkered in therapy environments including cardiac rehab, ran commercial gyms, and managed a corporate fitness center. Eventually I moved back to the training floor and later started a private fitness practice of my own.