What are consumers looking for when they come to your gym or studio? Sure, they want great workouts and access to the latest equipment in a welcoming, fun environment. But above all, they really want to attain their health and fitness goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At our gym\u2014One on One Fitness in State College, Pennsylvania\u2014we\u2019ve learned that lasting, consistent client success depends on intelligent nutrition and habit-change strategies. Thus, we\u2019ve pivoted from workouts to wellness to help clients succeed\u2014and to differentiate our business. We focus on three areas: fitness, nutrition and lifestyle habits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019re making this happen with a new job title: the nutrition\u2013fitness hybrid pro.<\/strong> We recruit registered dietitians who love fitness, and then we train them to be fitness professionals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s an incredibly exciting\n opportunity for the right people. These RDs interact with clients in \nways that they wouldn\u2019t normally, as clinical dietitians. Moreover, they\n help clients in ways that a dietitian or personal trainer, \nindividually, could not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI became an RD because I \nhave a passion for helping others,\u201d says Haley Golich, RDN, LDN, a \nrecent addition to our team at One on One. \u201cThe nutrition\u2013fitness hybrid\n position enables me to promote healthy living, help clients set and \nachieve health goals, and contribute to the prevention of chronic \ndisease. It is the ongoing interaction with clients that intrigued me \nthe most.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n We employ four RDs and are recruiting more. Here\u2019s what we\u2019ve observed since implementing this strategy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hiring\/recruiting quality fitness professionals<\/strong> can be a significant challenge because it\u2019s so hard to find that \u201cgem\u201d of a personal trainer who is competent, professional and (of course) looking for work. The nutrition\u2013fitness hybrid position lets us recruit outside the pool of personal trainers and kinesiology students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen I went off to \ncollege, I couldn\u2019t decide whether I wanted to study kinesiology or \nnutrition,\u201d says Bethany Paszkowski, RDN, LDN, another member of our \nteam. \u201cThey both interested me, and both would allow me to achieve my \nlonger-term goal of helping people. This position is perfect for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n When hiring an RD, you\u2019re \ngetting someone who is dynamic, smart and organized. Five years of \nvigorous education forces a person to develop many of the professional \nskills required to succeed in this role. Although RDs don\u2019t have a \ndegree in kinesiology, they quickly develop an intellectual understanding<\/strong> of the science and prove that they can consistently apply it in a fitness setting. Bottom line: You\u2019re not hiring a \u201cproject.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This position has a strong allure<\/strong> for the right kind of RD. After all, RDs rarely encounter so much diversity in their tasks and such a committed client base in clinical or community nutrition jobs. \u201cI\u2019ve worked as a registered dietitian in both the public health and clinical settings. These settings can be challenging to impact change,\u201d says Golich. \u201cBy combining nutrition counseling along with fitness consulting, I am able to impact clients in a comprehensive way to elicit the most positive change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Teaching RDs<\/strong>\n about fitness is a time-consuming but straightforward process. \nConversely, dietetics is a complicated, multifaceted subject that will \nsoon require a master\u2019s-level education. Thus, the model works only if \nyou start by hiring RDs. Turning trainers into RDs is rarely achievable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n RDs are used to making a \nhealthy salary, so you will have to pay them competitively. You will \nhave difficulty competing against the pay of a clinical setting. \nHowever, we don\u2019t try. Instead, we attract people strongly motivated to \nengage in our holistic wellness opportunity. We provide a 5-week \ntraining program whose value is clear to the people we hire. They \nrecognize that our team will teach them a trade and that we\u2019ve made an investment<\/strong> in them\u2014knowing we won\u2019t see a return until well after they start. In a competitive marketplace,<\/strong> fitness businesses have to differentiate themselves and generate new sources of revenue. In our market, a lot of gyms and clubs are doing the same things: offering different spins\/pricing on group training and selling supplements. Although many businesses succeed tremendously on this path, we think the competition will only get stiffer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We believe that creating a \none-stop shop focusing on fitness, nutrition and habit change is a \nwin-win that helps our business while giving our clients the best \nopportunity to succeed. We hired our first full-time RD in 2015, and our\n nutrition program became profitable after about a year, mainly through \nindividual counseling sessions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of the most \nsignificant benefits are intangible. Having RDs on staff clearly \ndifferentiates us from our competitors and solidifies our position as \nleaders in our field. RDs also get nutrition clients interested in \nfitness, educate our community and contribute to our social media \nupdates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What are consumers looking for when they come to your g […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[40,59,60,61,73,75,88],"class_list":["post-2973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-update","tag-business","tag-fitness","tag-fitness-business","tag-fitness-nutrition","tag-hiring-the-nutrition","tag-hybrid-pro","tag-nutriion"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/millionairemag.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/millionairemag.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/millionairemag.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/millionairemag.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/millionairemag.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/millionairemag.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/millionairemag.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/millionairemag.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/millionairemag.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/millionairemag.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Advantages to This Professional Model<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Our Pool of Hiring Candidates Is Wider<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
RDs Have Advanced Skills<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
RDs Enjoy Career Satisfaction<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s Easier to Turn RDs Into Trainers Than Vice Versa<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The Investment Will Pay Off<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\nHow the Nutrition\u2013Fitness Model Improves Your Business<\/h2>\n\n\n\n