PT Brighton

Pt Brighton

I’ve worked as a PT in Brighton and Hove for many years now. I thought I’d sit down and just talk about some of the good, and not so good progressions I’ve seen in the industry in the last couple of decades!

Years ago being a PT in Brighton was somewhat a rare thing. When I started personal training I could count on two hands the fitness coaches in the town, now it pretty much seems everyone I talk to has their personal training qualification!

This has been both a good and a bad thing. Years ago most people who were training clients saw PT as a vocation, myself included. I spent years working on my own body and fitness goals even going to University to study physiotherapy before training anyone else.

Fitness, health and improving student’s lives through what I’ve learned was and always will be what I do. Nowadays it seems people rush into personal training after literally only a few years of training their own bodies. When it comes to PT experience counts. In the same-way I wouldn’t trust a new tattooist on my body, you are always taking a risk with any PT who has trained for less than 10 years.

So Brighton and Hove now has a massive amount of newly qualified and inexperienced Pt’s but what is the flip side? It does mean that the culture of fitness and health has taken off in Brighton, which is great. Brighton to me feels what L.A is to the states. In Brighton to be fit and take part in some form of regular exercise seems the norm, which is quite different from other UK towns. No longer is it seen as a distasteful thing by the intellectual now to actually take some pride in looking after your body. You’re as likely to see the local Brighton hipster powerlifting, as you are to find him twiddling his beard while reading Chomsky and drinking a cold brew coffee.  This I thoroughly approve of. Taking care of your body, mind and intellect is the intelligent thing to do.

The gym culture has changed somewhat in Brighton and Hove too. It seems that the big chain gyms in Brighton are slowly getting their stranglehold of the city, the personal trainers included. I’ve always worked in freelance gyms where I can apply my PT trade without the need to hard sell to clients on the gym floor. 

PT's in Brighton in Gyms

Personal training shouldn’t be about being a salesman. It seems that with the progression of big chain gyms like Virgin Active and Fitness first, this is what most new PT’s are actually being taught rather than the skills of actually being a personal trainer, which should be based around how to coach, the fundamental movement patterns of fitness and health and nutrition. Not how to force your services on people not even looking for a PT service on the gym floor. Coupled with the fact you are more often than not paying double for an inexperienced personal trainer in a chain gym. I hope this isn’t the way of the future.

There are some great PT’s in Brighton though who have been training for many years and are worth the effort in seeking out. Alongside some great P.t studios in the area.