Essential Qualities for a Successful Career as a Fitness Coach

The months passed, the fitness qualifications were passed, and knowledge was passed on. But it was a two-way exchange, with Mel saying she learnt a great deal from working with such a diverse group of people, who hailed from every corner of the world.

If vibrant ethnic and cultural diversity are the keys to a creative, vibrant community, then, as Mel discovered, they are also a valuable source of coach learning and development.

For example, when she made the decision to branch out into performance coaching, she didn’t have to go far. The opportunities beat a path to her door.

“I remember training a South African who was a Brazilian street fighter – a sport that I had never even heard of. I did some research, worked with him and that training with a purpose really ignited my desire to get more into the performance side.”

As Mel continues to recount the early part of her career, the character traits that served her so well spill out one after another.

I ask her what her advice would be to other coaches about demonstrating adaptability, an eagerness to learn something new every day, and the importance of stepping outside of your comfort zone.

“Just grab any opportunities that come your way. Don’t say no just because you haven’t done it before.

“My advice would be to apply yourself to the environment you are in, and if it’s something new, be prepared to learn and learn from others. You have to be open to different ideas and different opportunities.

When Mel’s now husband was posted to Norfolk with the RAF, she brought the curtain down on her London calling and moved to Norwich, while becoming a fitness manager for Bannatyne’s in Lowestoft.

“It was a huge culture shock to move from Camden to working in a quiet fishing town.

“I had to adapt again, but in the back of my mind was always that wish to one day own my own gym.”

Fate intervened when she was headhunted by Lowestoft College to develop their Level 3 Diploma in Sports Coaching, Gym Instructing and Personal Training, which led to her becoming a full-time lecturer.

Then in 2013 things moved full circle and Mel moved back to Kent, with the goal of “finally getting my own brand and my own place”.

After coming up with the brand name Amazon24 Fitness, she found opportunity in the unlikeliest of places.

“My son joined a local football club, and the owner of that club bought a small village hall to create an indoor space for the children to play football. He laid Astroturf down on the hall floor and put some netting around and transformed it into a cool five-a-side pitch for the kids. There was a room out the back and I asked if I could rent it.”

It is worth stressing at this point that the effectiveness of those qualities needed to be a successful fitness coach are multiplied when they are cemented together by good old fashioned hard work.

Mel has worked at the coalface her entire career and has diligence and dedication in spades. Even when she was working full-time as a lecturer, she was running exercise classes in her spare time “to keep my hand in”.

So, when opportunity knocked and she started her own business, Mel was already prepped and primed for some hard graft to build up her client base.

“I did some classes at local clubs, which gave me the opportunity to get my face known in the local area, and I picked up a few PT clients by going to their homes or to the local parks.

“Some of the girls really wanted to do some strength training but didn’t want to go to the gym, so I started a ladies’ only strength programme.

“My client list grew, mainly through word-of-mouth referrals, so I expanded by taking over the other room at the end of the hall.”

In 2016, she was able to go fully self-employed and left her job at the college.

Still keen to diversify into performance coaching, Mel gained her Level 4 Strength and Conditioning qualification, and then, mindful that building strong professional connections is one of the most valuable career skills fitness professionals can possess, capitalised on having formed a positive relationship with GB Judo team member Nina Solley – who she had worked with at MidKent College.

As the saying goes, you have to speculate to accumulate.

Mel believes networking is instrumental for professional growth: going out into the coaching community and connecting with like-minded people.

Simply ‘putting yourself out there’ can result in a goldmine of opportunities, as Mel found out when she struck gold through chatting to the Programme Development Manager for British Cycling’s para-cycling squad at a coaching course.

“He reached out to me a few weeks later and told me about a young person near me, Matthew Robertson, who was on the pathway.

Mel studied while working at the college and building her own business and graduated with an MSc in Strength & Conditioning.

It proved to be a springboard, with Mel getting a job at Volleyball England. She is currently the strength & conditioning coach for the Great Britain men’s sitting volleyball team.

In March 2020, the rollercoaster took a turn for the worse. Things suddenly spiralled downwards, and Mel feared the wheels would come off and she would “lose everything”.

You’ve guessed it… Covid struck, and the future of the entire fitness industry was thrown into chaos and uncertainty, threatening livelihoods and forcing coaches to quickly reinvent themselves by moving their business online to survive.

“I’d just left the village hall and relocated to the leisure centre where I first started out as a fitness coach. I leased out an area and the plan was to form a connection with the University of Kent, which was right next door, and build a happy and healthy community.

True to her positive and proactive nature, Mel chose ‘fight’. But she wasn’t just fighting for herself; she felt an unselfish obligation to support others in her community.

From the feedback she received, Mel has good reason to believe the Facebook Lives and online Zoom sessions she hosted during the national lockdowns helped to boost people’s physical, social, emotional, and psychological well-being. She knows for certain that the generosity, solidarity, and sense of community the sessions generated helped to reinforce her own psychological resilience and lift her mood during these difficult times. “We helped each other,” she says.

As the heartbeat of our local communities, coaches are catalysts for positive change, and were key to helping our nation recover from the disruptive effects of Covid-19.

As Mel explains: “I taught out of the garden and in my kitchen at first and by the end of the first lockdown had completely renovated my garage into a studio.

“I started working for Her Spirit after a contact of a contact had reached out – delivering some strength sessions online – and built up a library of online classes.

"It was important for me to be able to give back and make sure they could stay in contact with each other and continue deriving all the health benefits of engaging in regular exercise.

“We had a real laugh with it on Zoom. And for some, who lived on their own, it was their only real social interaction. We’d sit there for ten minutes after the session so if anybody just wanted to chat, they could socialise.

“One of my main sayings through Covid lockdowns was ‘we adapt and conquer’.”

Then, smack, bang in the middle of the pandemic, Mel was delivered a further body blow, when her gym was served with an eviction notice.

“That was a horrible process. Mentally it took me to quite a dark place. I didn’t see a way out of it.

“I thought, ‘what am I going to do now?’ I did start to question – like I’m sure many other fitness professionals did – whether this career was right for me. The answer was ‘yes’.”

Mel reflects on that time of adversity through a positive lens, as it taught her to treat trials and tribulations as something to be overcome and solved, not accepted.

Having cultivated a growth mindset throughout her career – where you believe in your capacity to learn and develop your abilities – Mel was able to influence positive change, even admitting, “it was probably a good thing, looking back now.

“It forced me to take the next step, which was to find something that was completely my own and make it into exactly what I wanted, with my rules and bringing in people that I know really wanted it and needed it.

“It gave me the push to take that massive financial and emotional risk to keep everyone together. So, I went hunting for a new place all my own, and I’m in it now.”

A happy ending to this chapter of her story, and further grist to the mill for those coaches who embrace the ‘adapt to thrive’ philosophy.

Coaching is all about people. To help people achieve their needs, wants and dreams, coaches must focus on the ‘why’ to guide the ‘what’ and the ‘how’. This requires coaches to build quality relationships built on understanding, trust, and respect.

A coach must therefore possess outstanding soft skills – and know exactly how to harness them.

“I think if you’re going to be a coach, you’ve got to be good with people and it is probably embedded in you,” says Mel.

Mel knew that her people principles and behaviours were conducive to forming strong and loyal coach-athlete relationships the moment Covid rules were relaxed, and she reopened the doors of her gym. The connections, continuity, and goodwill she fostered resulted in people “chewing my arm off” to join.

“People who don’t particularly want to go to the big corporate gyms or those big spaces, they come here and still get the training, but also the togetherness and the social connectivity. And that is my main aim: to create that community.

“It might be a slow-grow in terms of members, but I want to look after the people I’ve got so the retention stays high. Whether they come for group fitness, PT, S&C, for the ladies-only strength programmes, Para-lifting, powerlifting, I am on first-name terms with every person, know what they do and which town or area they live. Everyone gets the personal touch, and I’m proud of that.”

I thank Mel for giving UK Coaching readers a valuable insight into her life as a successful fitness coach, and when I finish summarising the myriad takeaways from our conversation, she caveats it with a nugget of advice reminding coaches that the price of success is hard work and perseverance: