In this episode of Getting Raw, host Richard Mark Toutounji interviews Adam Jacobs, the National Campus Director of the Australian Institute of Personal Trainers (AIPT). Jacobs discusses the rapid growth of the fitness industry in Australia, citing statistics that suggest a 252 % increase in fitness instructors by 2020 and noting that 60 % of Australians lead sedentary lives while only 15 % hold gym memberships. To meet rising demand, AIPT operates a nationwide network of 93 campuses, extending training to regional centres such as Alice Springs, Dubbo and Albany. The institute partners with local gyms and franchise chains (e.g., Goodlife, Genesis, Club Lime) to deliver practical, hands‑on training alongside online theory, ensuring graduates are industry‑ready. Jacobs highlights a key gap in trainer education: many graduates hold a Cert IV in Fitness but lack practical skills, which AIPT addresses through its gym‑based delivery model. To further support trainers, AIPT offers a Diploma of Business for Fitness, covering marketing and basic business principles. Jacobs also advocates for private‑health rebates for personal training, arguing that preventive fitness should be reimbursed like medical procedures. The conversation touches on employment guarantees from partner gym chains, the organisation’s staffing model (≈40 full‑time staff focused on education rather than sales), and the diverse demographics of students, including a 72‑year‑old graduate. Finally, Jacobs explains AIPT’s branding shift from bright orange to a more subdued black for staff uniforms while retaining orange for trainers, symbolising the institute’s aim to “paint Australia orange.” The interview provides insight into AIPT’s strategy, industry trends, and the challenges and opportunities facing personal trainers in Australia.
Chapters
Welcome to Getting More. It's Richard Mark Toutounji, and today I have a special guest, Adam Jacobs. Welcome aboard.
Thanks, Richard.
Now, I've chatted up with Adam a few times, been out and had a drink or two. And you're the National Campus Director for Australian Institute of Personal Trainers.
That's right.
And I thought, what a better person, because I came up with a report the other day. I was flicking through startupsmart.com.au, so it's talking about the 24/7 clubs and that sort of stuff. And I wanted to sort of— they had a statistic in here, and you know, you're in the trenches, you're working with people that want to become personal trainers that are calling up every day to change their careers. And I thought, what a better way to ask you this question because they've put a fact in here which it's pretty, you know, it's a big growth in fact. And I wanted to sort of get your opinion on it. If you think this is, where do you think this is at? You know what I mean? Sure. So they're sort of saying there's 22,000 fitness instructors operating in Australia. It's gonna increase to 252%, which will add an additional 57,592 instructors by 2020. What do you think about this report? Is this a lot of hot air, or do you think that's where the trend is going at the moment in regards to the calls you're receiving, the people inquiring about being personal trainers?
Well, if we think about it, 60% of Australia right now lives a sedentary lifestyle. Only 15% of Australia have gym memberships. But what we are getting a lot of is an information overload released by government, released by production houses, released by just industry reports explaining that being fit and healthy is the way to really live a good lifestyle, how it affects all aspects of your life. So the more education we get out there, the greater the ability we have to touch, I guess, that 60% who live a sedentary lifestyle or that 85% who aren't going to gyms. So if we touch them, there'll be a demand for more personal trainers. And with the demand for more personal trainers, there will come that supply.
So that's where, you know, possibly in main capital cities, it may be towards the filled-up gap possibly, but you're saying the regional areas are still an open market of a lot of people wanting to become fit and healthy.
Yeah, well, we have a setup which allows us to access those markets.
Let's talk about that setup because you guys are very different to most where you've got over 90 campuses around Australia. Talk about that.
That's right. We offer education in 93 locations around Australia and we're still growing. What we want to be able to do is provide education to areas like Alice Springs or Dubbo or Albany in Western Australia Not just the major capital cities. And that's the way that we will access the market and satisfy that demand.
Well, that makes sense. I mean, you're satisfying demand that doesn't have it at the moment. So you can only imagine how that growth is going to happen in a few years' time, especially with more shows coming in like The Biggest Loser that are all popping up. It gets people talking about the subject topic of overweight and obesity in Australia. In regards to that, I mean, you know, the government's always putting out great statistics like this to say, you know, there's this percentage of people overweight, there's 50% of people overweight in Australia. What are they actually doing about it firsthand? I mean, I know, I mean, I just joined, I just switched private health insurers the other day and I don't think I got any free personal training sessions in my promotion. I mean, is there actually, are we actually getting to that level now?
The government does offer some sort of funding opportunities, but I do have a gripe with the government. I think we need to lobby something and that is, You can get healthcare rebates for things like going to get a massage. Sure. Right? But you don't get any healthcare rebates for personal training. But all of a sudden when you're in the hospital and you're getting stents put in after having a heart attack, your private healthcare fund covers it. So why wouldn't we address the issue before you're lying in a hospital bed? So my big thing is getting the industry to really lobby government to be able to offer Private healthcare rebates for personal trainers and personal training sessions.
And I guess I think, you know, all that will happen in time, especially as we grow more of an industry body and we get more people involved in the industry. It becomes a bigger concern and we've got more people to actually lobby that and get the result, do you think?
Yeah, I like to be optimistic. So I always say that we will get there one day, but it takes a lot of people really knocking on doors and really pushing hard, yeah.
To do it, to really get it going. So in regards to what else AAPT does to get it out there, I mean, you mentioned before that there's 90 campuses, right? Now I'm assuming that from what I know of AAPT over the past few years is that you can actually use individual successful business owners teaching this education. Is that how you do it?
That's right. We partner up with business owners around Australia who have good facilities to co-deliver our education.
Okay.
They deliver the practical aspects and we deliver the theory online, and we support them with our education team via the telephone. But the biggest problem the industry faces is that people come out of their education with a piece of paper and it says they've got a Cert IV in Fitness, right? But they have no practical education. They've got the theory side of it, but when it comes to actually teaching someone, for example, how to do a bench press, They have no idea.
Right.
So what do we like to do? We use these business owners to deliver their education in a working gym and not a classroom. And this gives them the highest level of practical education we can possibly afford to provide a student.
So the school of hard knocks, actually get out there, get their hands dirty, and do some work and just see what it feels like to actually lift that bench press with a client involved.
Yeah, that's right. In a real industry environment with the focus of getting them industry ready at graduation.
Got you. So, let's talk about that too because, I mean, I speak to so many personal trainers every day and I had my personal training business a few years ago. The biggest problem I found, Adam, was that they can be trainers, they can be great trainers, but they don't know anything about the business and the marketing. There's so many people come to us and they join Meet Your Personal Trainer and they've got no idea about marketing. Are we actually— what are we doing in regards to that? How can we help that?
We like to further education. I mean, we're an education business. So, the more education we can provide to anyone, the better it is, you know, from our perspective. So, what we like to offer is the Diploma of Business for Fitness. So, that specifically is about upskilling fitness professionals in the area of business, but relating to what they do. Yeah. So, it touches on things like marketing and it touches on You know, basic, basic business principles. I'm not going to pretend that they're going to leave being an accountant, right? But it definitely fills a couple of gaps that we have identified when it comes to running a successful business.
Who's actually putting these courses together?
So we work with industry as well as our team internally. So the biggest benefit we have is the fact that we work with so many industry partners, we are able to get the tap on the shoulder and say, hey, This is the gap that we're seeing in people's education. Can you please plug it? And then what we do is we work with our education team and industry experts to build the courses.
So it sounds to me there's a few different places where the IOPT can go. You can come in as a personal trainer, you can do your course, you can do the extra educational courses, but then you can go back and actually, once you know more about the industry, you can actually go and now be a campus. Is that correct?
That's right. What we're always doing is we're looking to basically put campuses in areas of demand. So if you are a campus director that, that is able to go through our induction process and satisfy a couple of the requirements, I mean, we don't just take on anyone by any means.
Who are some of the campuses you have aboard at the moment in regards to the gyms and the clubs you're working with?
We're associated with everyone from independents to big franchises. So for example, Goodlife Health Clubs, Genesis Health Clubs, Clubs have come on board, Club Lime in the ACT, and those big chains believe so much in our product that they offer an employment guarantee.
Is that right?
Which means that if you study through them or through us and graduate by going through their campus, they will unequivocally offer you a job at the end of it.
So we get the big red stamp of approval, you know, guaranteed to get the job at the end. That's awesome.
Well, that's how much they believe in the course, and that's how confident we are as well.
That's great. And that's really obviously making it easier for someone to go through the APT model, go through the courses, to know that, you know, they do a good job and they can get a job at the end of it. That's, that's pretty good.
Well, the piece of paper is very nice, but people generally want to be in the industry after they've done it. They want the job. They want the job. So yeah, it definitely facilitates that employment outcome.
That's, that's, that's a very good initiative, I think, to, to make sure that, you know, because when people are switching over to personal training, a lot of them are coming from Careers that they've established over 10, 15 years and they've got a super payout and they go, let's change careers. And so I think that's very important, especially to get the industry at a level that people can compare it to, okay, I'm going to go work a full-time job in the city or I'm going to be a lawyer or an accountant. Like, they're actually getting a job, a career. I think that's very important to hand out.
I agree. And people join the industry for many different reasons. It can be for a passion for helping people. be because they absolutely hate their existing job.
What's the worst, what's the weirdest situation why people wanted to do an AOPT course? You have any good stories about that?
I don't have good stories about the weirdest situation, but I do have an interesting story about our oldest student. Okay. What age do you think would be our oldest student and oldest graduate?
Oldest graduate? Oh, I don't know, 50?
Yeah, if you add 22 years to that, you'd be right. Right. It's 72 years old.
72?
Yeah, and obviously that person isn't going to be, you know, out there and running marathons, but his focus was for his own personal education and he wanted to help people of his age demographic as well.
Well, that's amazing. And that comes back down to the statistics that say, well, more personal trainers and there's more people in Australia that can be healthy and fight this obesity epidemic that we have going on at the moment.
Yeah. And we've got to remember that personal trainers don't have to be 6'4, buffed and bronzed and have, you know, a 6-pack and muscles coming out.
Mate, look at your muscles. What's going on? That's what I thought we had to do. I just like to be active.
I'm not active in the industry and, you know, I just, I think I'm a pretty run-of-the-mill type person. But I think that this industry is for anyone. And that's the important thing. If you have a passion for helping people and if you have a passion for health and fitness, it's a really great industry to get into.
And I think that's definitely changing. Obviously, you know, you look at the stereotypes, the Arnold Schwarzenegger back in the heydays, and then you look at trainers now, there's such a diverse, because, you know, in the day you're saying 15% are in the gyms. Well, where's the rest of the percentage? What are they doing? These are the people that need to be touched, that need to be given help, that need to be guided for someone that can actually, you know, respond to and actually have that same level with as well. So that's very important, I think, and that will change as we keep growing.
Spot on. Body sculpting was one part of fitness, but remember there are so many different parts of fitness. And for me, whenever, you know, someone asks me what's a good thing to do and I ask about their background, I mean, I always say even if you just go out there and kick You know, if you kick a footy with your kids and you do half an hour of, you know, walking a day, that will get certain outcomes. And that reduces the rate of heart attack by about 62%. Right. So the stereotypical thought of you have to have muscles and you have to body sculpt, I mean, that is a focus, but it's not the only part of the fitness industry.
No, there's so many different levels.
Yeah.
Hey, one more question. Talk about AIPT. This is a business show and I'd love to know What APT Business is about. I mean, how many staff— you've got 90 campuses. How many staff do you actually have in your business office, Brisbane office now?
We have approximately 40 full-time staff, and that consists of a full-time education team. The thing that I want to focus on is a lot of registered training organizations, their sales team is their biggest division where they just want to sell the product. That's not the case with us. Our education team is our biggest team. They constitute the most amount of people because Because we believe that students need to be supported throughout their studies. So because we have so many in the education team, it really allows us to give a quality education. The other aspect about it is we have 93 campuses around Australia, and each of them have a couple of personnel who help deliver the education. So it's quite a big organisation now.
And you know, last time I saw you guys, I swear, I don't know if I'm going blind, but last time it was in orange, now it's in black. You're like a football team, you change colours depending if you're home a game or away, or what are you doing?
Well, what we were tired of having is every time we were standing on the side of the road, the traffic would stop thinking that we were a traffic warden because that bright orange vest, it did stand out, but we thought we'd become a bit more humble and go the black route and a bit more formal. So that's where we are now.
You've still got the orange on the personal trainers. I love it, love it.
Orange won't change. We say that we want to paint Australia orange, and that's still the colours. But, you know, when we're out to stop people from being blinded by the light, so to speak, we like to dull the colour a bit.
Well, thanks for coming in, Adam. Thanks for clearing up, you know, thanks for clearing up some stats that are coming out all the time. I always like to basically get on Getting Raw the right people to answer these questions, the ones that are actually in the trenches doing the work and actually figuring out, is that the case or not? So thanks for clearing that up, and I'll see you around.
Thanks for your time.
Thanks to you. I'll see you next time on Getting Raw.
