May 23, 2018
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/
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