Anthony Renna, founder of ContinueFit.com, explains how COVID-19 has forced trainers and coaches to adjust to the digital age in order to find work and thrive in the fitness industry.
Renna is the author of “Be Like the Best: A Guide to Reaching the Top in the Fitness Profession.” In the age of the coronavirus, we talked to him about how to keep fit and keep spirits up, as well as his professional background and his advice to listeners to enhance themselves physically and mentally. Here are some highlights from Anthony Renna’s interview with Muscle & Fitness, or you can watch the full video above.
His recommendation to keep fit during quarantine:
“Get off Netflix. I can tell you right now at strenthcoach.com what we tried to do, it was like, what can we do to help to give people an opportunity to come on the site? So instead of $1 for three days, we went $1 for 30 days. It’s okay to give people an opportunity to come on. We had like 200 signups. Now we’re trying to keep up with that. We’re trying to provide resources for people, but other people are doing that as well.”
On how to improve as a person, taken from his book:
In discussing some lessons from his book, “Be Like the Best: A Guide to Reaching the Top in the Fitness Profession,” Renna brought up a deep talking point. “A good man learns from his mistakes. A better man learns from other people’s mistakes, but the best man learns from other people’s successes. So by looking at all of those, you know, you have your own mistakes.”
His mindset on making his clients his priority:
“When I was in the bar business, I had this saying, ‘Don’t worry about the people on the line.’ So I worked for, you know, celebrities in New York City and all these different bars and everybody always wanted to be there. So at some point the place had become really crowded. So I would go up to security. I said, ‘Don’t let anybody in right now.’ And I would walk around, can I move around? That’s No. 1. Am I moving around comfortable? How’s the temperature? How’s the music level? Can people hear it? Good. Let me look at my bartenders. Everybody’s fine. Good, security give me five people. They come in, they’re like, ‘Hey, we got a line.’ I don’t care about the line. Those people are not my customers. The people that are my customers, the low hanging fruit are in the bar right now and I think people tend to worry about marketing all the time. Wait, first of all, worry about retention.”
His thoughts on the gym game changing due to coronavirus:
Renna emphasized in his interview that despite all the great fitness programs and products that we have today, your success rate is dependent on your drive and commitment. So as the world changes, your dedication to fitness must be spot on. “What’s going to happen now too is if this thing lasts two months, you’re going to see a lot of the gyms from the bottom. They’re going to be gone and the cream’s going to rise to the top right. And our world is going to be different when we go back and you better be prepared for it.”
On sustaining group workouts:
Pre-pandemic, group workouts classes were at their peak. Now with the rules of social distancing, that has been taken away from those looking to sweat it out with others. Renna thinks there are still ways to have that community engagement through fitness. “We’re going to want that engagement. We’re going to want somebody that’s taken care of us that’s being there for us… Go text those people, give them, get on the phone with them, do a little bit more for them. People are going to want that. They’re going to come out of this wanting a little bit more. They’re not gonna want to crowd into a group that are going to be like, wait a minute, cause this is a little weird right now. It’s going to take some time to get back. I think we’re going to be back fine with that.”
