SERIES: RUNNING A FITNESS BUSINESS | The Evolution of Fitness, w/ Mike Salazar

Mike Salazar owns and runs Evolution Fitness in Chicago, Illinois.

Evolution Strength and Conditioning is a training facility that offers personal training, small group fitness classes, and private access memberships.

Mike tells us about:

• How he started lifting weight
• 2004 - Starting work as a personal trainer right out of highschool
  • Working in the corporate gym for 4 years, learning the Ins and Outs of the business while attending college for Sports Management
• 2007 - Leaving the corporate gym and renting his own space to train people
• 2009 - Writing his business plan and opening his own 1500 sq.ft studio without investors
  • Providing a venue for independent trainers to run their own operations under the Evolution banner
• 2013 - Expanding from the 1500 sq.ft space to 6000 sq.ft
  • the power of word of mouth and client relationships
• You can't franchise intangibles
• How his trainers fit into the Evolution business model
  • Don't undervalue yourself
  • The work we do outside the client session
• What Evolution Fitness offers
• A gym should run like a well-oiled machine, but should be flexible enough to be unique
  • trainer communication and program proposal
  • Interviewing new trainers: Mike's #1 question
  • Trainer buy-in to the Evolution brand
  • Personality deficiencies that trainers need to be willing to work on
  • When to turn trainers away
• Clients will trust just about anything you say - A Question of Ethics
• The Windy City Kettlebell Club and the Windy City Invitational
• Shooting the Optimum Nutrition commercial
  • gaining legitimacy in Chicago
• The Chicago Kettlebell Classic
• The Chicago Longcycle Championship
• How he added kettlebells to his bodybuilding conditioning
• The benefits and empowerment that kettlebells can offer
• Kettlebell Sport athletes are a special kind of crazy
• Who does the kettlebell programming at Evolution Fitness?
• How Mike is balancing his strength training with his kettlebell training
• When Mike had to back off the kettlebells
  • Specializing in one lift
• Will Mike return to competing in bodybuilding, or be forever on "the bulk"?
• Kettlebell Sport is for any bodytype.....unless your jacked?
• Becoming an internship site for the Loyola College Exercise Science program

 

Check Mike out!

https://www.instagram.com/evolution_chi/

http://evolutionchicago.com/

 

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