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Day in the Life

A Day in the Life: Personal Trainer

For our Day in the Life series, we look at the daily work habits, schedules and routines from people in a variety of roles and careers around the world.

Melita Augerinos, Head Coach at The Lean Lab

Melita Augerinos is the Owner & Head Coach at The Lean Lab, a personal training and coaching studio based in Melbourne, founded by herself and Olivia Orchowski.

I have always been a hands on, on the go type – so no desk job was ever going to be on the horizon for me. Starting off as a swimming teacher in my late teens (15yrs -19yrs) I always thought teaching primary was what I wanted to do.

Little did I know that sitting in a uni lecture was definitely not for me. I shortly transitioned into the fitness industry – first on the reception desk greeting the lovely members, to completing my personal training certificates 3 and 4, to then progressing onto the gym floor assessing and assisting new members.

I really thrived over a couple of years building up my own client base, further educating myself, reading, attending seminars, and learning from other coaches – where I finally met the Ying to my Yang, Olivia Orchowski my current business partner.

Fast track a few years and here we are! We have opened our first amazing personal training/coaching studio, The Lean Lab, which is everything we had envisioned.

My mornings start with a 5am alarm most days. I didn’t choose the early morning life, it chose me! After snoozing a couple times (delaying the inevitable), I rise from my warm cozy bed to get to work (The Lean Lab) for a 6am start.

Whether it be running our amazing female classes or coaching my personal clients I am at the gym 5-6 mornings a week. I aim to train myself 3-4 times week because it is what made me fall in love with training others in the beginning.

Daniel Gullo, Personal Trainer and Owner of The PT Coach

Daniel Gullo is the Head Trainer at the Fitness Forum Health Club, and the Founder of The PT Coach, a new business he launched that provides workshops for newly qualified personal trainers.

A typical day in my life begins with a 4am alarm clock and I’m out the door before 5am. I’m doing personal training most of the day, but block an hour of my day out for my own workout. This is really important and something I’ve learned to do, as previously I would plan my training around my working day.

I normally finish up by 4-5pm and head home. Once home, I spend about an hour on professional development. This includes doing work for my new coaching business, reading books and doing research. By 7pm, I sit down to dinner with my wife and then we spend time together for the rest of the evening until going to sleep at about 10pm.

Sinead Phadraig, Personal Trainer & Owner of Assthetiwear

Sinead Phadraig is a personal trainer and owner of Assthetiwear, a retail clothes brand that she launched during last year’s COVID-19 lock-down.

A day in the life of me:

7:00-8:00am – Gym/swim or run depending on my training schedule.

8:30- 5:00pm – Teaching my grade 6 students in the classroom.

7:00-8:00pm- Outdoor bootcamp class where another personal trainer friend and I train up to 30 clients.

8:30pm- Home, eat, meal prep and bed.

My days very much resemble this except for Thursday and Friday where I now have more time to work on other side projects and train myself which is my passion.

I am currently training for the Half Ironman in Geelong so these days away from the classroom are devoted to long bike rides, swims, runs and gym. I also train some clients one-on-one on these days too.

Eric Bach, Strength & Conditioning Coach & Fitness Blogger

Eric Bach is a strength & conditioning coach and fitness blogger, based in Denver, Colorado. His work has been featured in publications like CNN, LifeHacker, T-Nation, AskMen, Bodybuilding.com, Roman Fitness Systems and Huffington Post.

My day starts with creative work and some self-care. As long as I create something each day, I know I’m moving the business forward.

5:30 AM: I fire up the coffee maker and take my Sunny, my two-year-old golden retriever out for a walk. I’ll read until 6 or 6:30 while drinking my coffee.

6:00 AM-7:30/8:00 AM: Writing and content creation. This could be anything from articles to sales materials or social media posts.

8:00 AM-8:45 AM: Film video content/ publish social media posts of the day.

9:00 AM-10:00 AM: Another longer walk or weight training.

10:00 AM: Shower, dress like an adult, check email, and jump headfirst into my day.

11:00 AM-5 PM: My tasks vary wildly, from sales and marketing meetings to coaching calls or working on more significant projects.

5:00 PM-6:00 PM: Check email, social media interactions to cap off the day. To finish off this period, I recap the day and spend 15-20 minutes planning for tomorrow.

Having a clear-cut plan when I rise allows me to attach each morning with a clear strategy and focus.

6-7:30 PM: Cook dinner, unwind with my wife or go out for dinner.

7:30 PM-8:30 PM: If I’m particularly slammed, I’ll throw in another 60 minutes of work. If not, I’ll do something around the house, unwind with a walk (weather permitting), or kick back and read or watch TV.

10:00am-10:30 PM: Lights out.

Lachlan Rowston, Co-Founder of The Mind Muscle Project

Lachlan Rowston is the Co-Founder and Director of Creature Fitness & Co-Owner and Host of The Mind Muscle Project podcast.

Currently I direct the gyms and lead the senior staff members. I also manage the gym’s marketing and sales. For the podcast we record 3 shows per week in the studio and create on going content with our designers and producers.

I try to always get around to the gym during the week just to help lead the amazing coaching team and I’m always striving to stay in touch with what’s going on down on the floor so we can have a more meaningful effect on the changes to the overall direction of the business.

On a typical, I wake up at 6 am. I stay off electronics for an hour. In the first hour I like to set the tone of my day.

I have a special recipe I’ve designed in a smoothie to maximise cognitive energy and alertness. I’ll drink that whilst running through my 3 personal and professional wins from the day before. I try to also fit in some breath work and meditation as well.

After that routine which I usually do Mon-Fri and parts of Saturday and Sunday, I start my day. I walk to the gym and listen to my audio books.

From here I like to meet with the coaches and run over some basic operational stuff and squeeze in my training.

After that I head into the podcast studio in the city via car, wrap up any intro or recordings we need to and work on the current plans in the show.

I’ll head back home usually for some intense deep work on the days most important tasks which some days could look like building out new parts of the website or creating online content for the gyms.

The day ends with me at the gym again talking with some of the members and having some in-person sales. After that I go make dinner with my partner usually at her place so I’ll drive in again to the city.

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About Author

Hey there! I'm Hao, the Editor-in-Chief at Balance the Grind. We’re on a mission to showcase healthy work-life balance through interesting stories from people all over the world, in different careers and lifestyles.