From the Bachelor to one of Australia’s leading PT’s, we talk to Sam Wood

We speak with founder of 28 by Sam Wood, on what it takes to be a successful Personal Trainer.

Before he was known as one of Australia’s hottest bachelors from television show The Bachelor in 2015, Sam Wood was already well and truly on his way, to be a successful celebrity trainer.

He founded one of Australia’s largest personal training gyms The Woodshed in Brighton, Victoria in 2005; which is a training destination designed to help achieve personalized fitness goals, with the right support and accountability. And, then went on to successfully launch Gecko-Sports in 2007; which is a sports program designed for children to help them with the inspiration and confidence they need to be more physically active.

With the exposure of The Bachelor and with over 16 years-experience as a personal trainer, Sam was able to successfully launch 28 by Sam Wood; a new lifestyle program personally created by Sam, to provide Australians with the right nutritional advice and exercises to help them achieve their fitness goals. Especially when he; like so many other Australians, struggled with fitness goals when he was younger.  And now, nearly 100,000 people have tried the 28 by Sam Wood program in less than two years.

Sam loves working with people of all ages, to help them achieve their fitness goals, and from a young age knew he wanted to be a personal trainer.

“I was sick of being skinny when I was young. I discovered the gym really helped me out on muscle and gain a lot of confidence.” He said.

But with a massive increase of gyms in Australia, with the number growing from 667 to 824 in only a few years, Sam believes the quality, passion and drive of personal trainers has diluted in a now heavy saturated market of health and fitness in Australia, with more than 900,000 Australians paying for a personal trainer; according to Roy Morgan Research.

“I have been a trainer since 2001. And in that time, I have completed roughly 50,000 training appointments with clients. During this time, I have seen many transformations and triumphs. Shared times of laughter, and tears. And even endured the odd tantrum or two from many of my clients. But most of all, I have established many life-long friendships along the way.” He said.

Relationships, Sam believes are no longer established between many new PT’s and their clients.

“I was an over enthusiastic sponge when I was young. I would bounce out of bed at 5am six days a week for a 5.30am start of training my clients straight through to 9pm. My usual day would consist of training clients, university studies, more training with clients, sleep and then repeat.

“Was it a long day? Absolutely. But every PT session was worth it, as every session was a different workout, with a different personality. And I loved every minute of it.” He says.

As a young trainer, Sam was working at a gym in the trendy bayside suburb of Brighton, in Melbourne’s East.

Surrounded by some the best schools Melbourne has to offer, Brighton is full of wealthy, hard-working business people and plenty of inspiring entrepreneurs and retirees, who put a lot of value on their health, and who enjoyed passing on their wisdom to Sam, during many training sessions.

“Sure, studying an exercise science degree whilst training allowed me to put practical application into the theory on a daily basis, but the real learning came from clients. Spending two, sometimes five hours of uninterrupted time with some of Melbourne’s most successful, generous and inspiring people has absolutely helped me grow to where I am today.

Outside of my clients, I was also very lucky to have trained alongside bodybuilders, elite triathletes, and champion boxing coaches, all of which inspired me to train harder and be a better trainer.” Sam says.

If you want to stand out in the field of being a personal trainer, Sam’s advice is:

“I gave everything I had to this career, by making sure to give my clients all of me at every session. A great trainer will realise the needs of their clients and even extend that well after the session is over. They also need to genuinely care and show a high degree of emotional intelligence. No session, training block, motivational techniques or communication methods should be exactly the same as another client. It isn’t called PERSONAL training for no reason.”

Rebecca Wilkinson

Beauty Editor

Rebecca is a freelance content creator and beauty editor for Bondi Beauty. She is a pescatarian, who may yet become vegan. She loves all things beauty, health & travel, has a weakness for coffee and is obsessed with cats and yoga. If she's not answering her mobile - it's probably because she's trying out the latest beauty trend, like massaging crushed pearls into her skin for the ultimate collagen and vitamin boost to skin cells.

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