Building a background of our
Personal trainers (PT)
respondents…
Requirements of a personal trainer The chart generally gives an overview of what
Occupation
requirement a personal trainers should meet. Knowing
The occupation spread, illustrated in the image to the right, shows the
actual needs of a personal trainer. As demonstrated,
occupations of all our respondents. As show, many of the respondents
most people require a personal trainer in order to gain
were students, making up 36.5% of the occupations shown. Other
physical results and relating this to our gender graph it
occupations listed include fitness coaches, police constables and
can be argued that most people in the 27% might be
estate agents, as well as a trampolining coach, life guard and care
women as they care more about their physical
assistant.
appearance (Barbour, 2013) (the guardian, 2006). There
this information will help us come to a conclusion on the
was also a very high response rate to people wanting a personal workout plan, specific to them to maximise results as users whom are using the gym to loose
Gender
weight will want a different workout plan to those whom are tying to gain muscle. As well as this, 44 respondents wanted their personal trainer to give them a dietary plan as explained in the previous graph.
Our questionnaire was answered by 85 people, 38% of these were male and 62% were female. We asked this question, along with age and occupation, to get an idea
Gender and personal trainer use
of the type of person responding to the questionnaire.
We asked this question with the aim for understand
An assumption can be made that females are more willing to participate in a questionnaire like this or use
Introduction
which gender prefers to use a personal trainer. The results clearly show that generally most of our
the gym more, however this may be bias, based upon the
Our aim is to analyse data, which will be collected through questionnaires, to find and compare correlations and differences to draw up conclusions from the
individuals we asked.
data we have collected. This data will also be compared to previous research to draw up accurate conclusions. Our research topic was looking at the attitudes
Age The most common age group to answer the
respondents do not use personal trainers. There is very little difference between female and male usage of a
towards personal trainers and the reasons why they may or may not be used in todays society. We chose to carry out research on this topic as we all share an
personal trainer, with 12% of male respondents using
interest in fitness and have contacts within the industry to help with this research topic. From the results we collect from this, we will transform the responses
one compared to 15% of female respondents. Talking to
into a statistical presentation which will be used to measure, analyse and visualise the results. To do this we will carry out relevant tests to prove or disprove a
a personal trainer, he said that he has an equal split
null hypothesis that supports the background research.
between men and women who he trains at his gym
(Roach , 2013).
questionnaire was people aged between 19-25 years old, whom account for 59% of our results. This backs up our
Our results are based on a questionnaire which was distributed online to members of the public in the local. Out questionnaire was sent to two different gyms
research found in our literature review which said a third
whom distributed it out through email to its members. We had responses from 85 people, from different ages, occupations and personal income brackets. The
of gym users are aged between 16-25 years old (Dickman, 2015). The second highest age group we has
Age and personal trainer use
results were collected over a period of 3 weeks, with support from local gyms and sports centres.
Looking at the graphs we can see that the elder respondents used a personal trainer more than younger
responses from were gym members ages between
respondents. There is no research that proves this so this
26-35, making up 20% of the results. We didn't receive
analysis may be bias to the people we asked. To get a
any responses from gym members aged between 36-45,
better knowledge of personal trainer usage in the 56+
so we can presume that less people of this age group use
category, we wold of had to target this demographic
the gym.
group to gain more responses. With the average wage of
OUT OF
a student of £3,201 per year through paid work, they will
85RESPONSES...
Income 51% of our respondents have an income of £10,000 and under which is what was expected. This is because 31 out
60HAVE A GYM
not have much disposable income to be able to afford a personal trainer which is why the there is less than 5% of gym users using a personal trainer of ages up to 25
60
(Department for Business Innovation and Skills, 2014). In comparison to this, age 26-35 are 12x as likely to
RESPONDENTS
of our 85 respondents are students, whom generally have a low income as show by research by the government
53
which shows that students earn £3,201 on average per year through paid work (Department for Business
Innovation and Skills, 2014). £11,000 - £15,000 was
MEMBERSHIP AND
second income level of our respondents which make up at 13%, compared to those whom earn between
ONLY
32
TO
Members of a gym...
THE
The results from out questionnaire show that 71% of the respondents currently have a gym membership, compared to 29% whom do not hold one. There are many reasons as to why not all gym users will have a membership, such as they might not be regular users so will
Expenditure on a personal trainer We asked this to measure the age groups that spend more money on personal training From age 19 to 56+ the graph of how much people spend on personal
53
WOMEN
MEN AND
training within this age bracket fluctuate. The graph shows that people between the ages of 46- 55 spend more money visiting their personal trainers and the
RESPONDED
people who don’t spend at all on personal trainers are
QUESTIONNAIRE
in the 18 or under bracket. We can assume that the people in the 46-55 age bracket are more likely to start being cautious about their health and wellbeing, also because they are going towards the retirement age they will
12USE A 31 CURRENTLY
Member of a gym
25
‘T 25DON
32
£36,000—£40,000 whom only make up of 2%.
have a personal trainer than people ages 25 and under are.
PERSONAL TRAINER
benefit more by paying per entry, or they may travel a lot and do not want to be tied into only being able to use one gym.
AND 73 DON ‘T
Hours spent in the gym
have less dependants hence more money to spend. Comparing this with the 18 or under bracket they are likely to spend their money on
73
different things are their income might be very limited and also they have the availability of the internet so they can educate themselves on personal training.
ARE
Time spent with personal trainer per week
STUDENTS
The graph illustrates the amount of time people spend with personal trainers. The graph generally gives an idea that most people who use personal trainers do spend a lot of time with them. More than half of our respondents only spend between 1 and 2 hours with a personal trainer
12
per week, this could be as a result of the cost of it or due to other commitments they may have. More than a quarter of respondents spend even less time than this, with their personal trainer sessions lasting less
The bar graph illustrates the amount of people who took our survey in relation to the number of hours they
than 1 hour per week. This would support our results which show that peoples main aim for a personal trainer is
spend in the gym per week. The results clearly shows that most respondents spend less than an hour in the gym,
for motivation. Having a short session each week would avow this as it will make people want to work hard to achieve
meaning people generally just visit the gym for a short workout. As a result of 71% of gym users having a membership,
goals set with their personal trainer.
there is no need to have long workout sessions as membership generally allow you unlimited access to a gym. The second highest is 20 respondents who spend 5-6 hours a week who would frequent users of the
Time spent at gym and personal trainer usage
gym. Over 90% of the respondents use the gym up to 8 hours a week.
Here this chart shows the how the use of a personal trainer affects the amount of time spent in the gym. By the results
Gender and membership
showing us that people who visited the gym for less than 1 hour a week didn’t use a personal trainer this is likely to show
The reason this question was asked was to determine whether your gender affected your
that there may be a lack of confidence in the gym and so they become discouraged or scared and so rarely visit. There is then a steady increase between personal trainer usages with time spent in the gym up to 3-4 hours. Beyond that point the
likelihood to have a membership at a gym and are more likely to spend more time at the
results would suggest that people are then more comfortable with the gym and require less help from a personal trainer.
gym. From are responses we can see that males on average are more likely to hold a gym
The anomalous result is the 25+ hours group that both use a personal trainer. This may be someone who has lots of money
membership compared to that of females. This surprised us as are literature showed us that
or someone who may be training for an event, for example a boxing match who will require lots of advice and motivation.
females would use the gym more due to the way they see the gym an important aspect of
An online article by quora tells us that a fighter will train around 24 hours a week. Therefore this is a possible scenario for
life to help with their physical appearance. We can see that 75% of males who responded
our results. (Bouche, 2012).
had a gym membership compared to females at 68%.
Source of gym advice Here this bar chart shows us the respondents’ source of gym advice and information, this means that people who are new to learning about using the gym will often turn to sources that are private such as online videos or photos, friends or family could be for members who are introduced by their family or in fact go along to the gym with a family member who has been going longer. The least popular of the places for
Conclusion
advice was magazines books and journals. This will be the effect of modern technology advances, with such a large supply of advice and tips
Looking at the research we conducted, we can see that overall our research has widely proven any previous ideas and previous conceptions that we had before carrying out the research.
online and due to it being online so readily available the reliance of books, journals and magazines has diminished. 20 years ago, books and
Comparing our results to other research we can see small differences, however differences such as the male to female respondent rate would average out if we were to ask a larger audience. From
journals would have been more prominent. There are many articles explaining the Internet
the research have been able to draw out correlations and patterns within our results leading to backing up or disproving our previous research. Looking through the research we have been able to
take over from books. Including: an article by “The guardian” and “Slate” with the link
group together information that is then able to draw out a picture of the customer base that a typical gym would be aiming their service at. Therefore we have created an important document
at the bottom. (Flood, 2015) (Arnold Ratliff 2013).
that would be valuable to a gym as this would be useful to provide services to accommodate modern day needs. It is important, as the needs of a gym user today would be different to a gym user in the 80’s. The use of the Internet has changed the way we learn and communicate and so naturally it has altered the role of a personal trainer. We can see that the respondents were more inclined to go to the web to search out advice when compared to 20-30 years ago this would not have been possible.
Importance of diet plans The reason we chose the question was to see if people were actually interested in diet plans. From the results we can see that 75% of the respondents found the information important of very important and only 25% of respondents said information about diet plans from personal trainers was irrelevant or not needed. This shows us that diet plans important for most gym users who use personal trainers. If you are spending money on personal training, eating right is a must and asking personal trainers for advice would be the first place for many people to go. Others will use the internet for help but if you have a personal trainer you might as well get all you can from them.
References
Department for Business Innovation and Skills (2014) BIS research paper number 115 student income and expenditure survey 2011/12 . Available at: https:// www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/301467/bis-14-723-student-income-expenditure-survey-2011-12.pdf (Accessed: 11 December 2015).
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Barbour, N. (2013) Why women feel bad about their appearance. Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-human-beast/201305/why-
Flood, A. (2015) Sales of printed books fall by more than £150m in five years . Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/13/sales-printed-
women-feel-bad-about-their-appearance (Accessed: 10 December 2015).
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Bouche, P. (2012) Top stories. Available at: https://www.quora.com/How-many-hours-a-week-do-serious-amateur-and-professional-MMA-fighters-train
Roach, L. (2013) Bath personal trainer. Available at: http://www.bathpersonaltrainer.com/ (Accessed: 7 December 2015).
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The Guardian (2006) You’re so vain. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/feb/12/features.woman5 (Accessed: 10 December 2015).