How much vengeance can $100 buy?
Dylan Roberts is about to find out.
He’s one of 16 coaches at Innovative Fitness who will be put through their paces by their clients next Friday (Nov. 25) at the company’s annual Train the Trainer event to raise funds for various charities across British Columbia.
The Port Moody location, as well as the studio in Coquitlam, are directing their proceeds to help KidSport Tri-Cities.
KidSport local director, Chris Wilson, said the effort has raised more than $52,000 over its three previous associations.
Effort being the operative word, said Roberts, who expects some of his clients to come up with creative and gruelling ways to exact a little payback.
Here’s how it works: For a minimum $100 donation, a client gets 10 minutes to become their trainer’s trainer, inflicting upon them the kind of pain and barked instructions they endure every time they climb aboard the air bike or step up to a weights station.
In the four years Roberts has been subjected to— er, participated in — the Train the Trainer event, he said he’s eaten pies from a trough while doing planks, dragged a camper van through a parking lot and completed a fitness circuit while wearing a full hazmat suit and carrying a 25-pound weight.
“I never know what to expect,” Roberts said. “The clients challenge you in fun ways, but the next day you end up feeling pretty stiff.”
Matt Dinsdale, the studio manager at Innovative Fitness Port Moody, said Train the Trainer is one of several ways the company tries to give back to the community that also include a charity golf tournament and an adventure race.
He said not only does it challenge his team of trainers to be their very best, but it helps cement the connection they’ve forged with their clients.
It also gets competitive.
“For some coaches, it becomes a test for them to see who can take the most.”
Roberts said the challenge helps build a sense of camaraderie amongst the trainers, as they spend the days and weeks leading up to it becoming brothers and sisters in arms, preparing and steeling themselves for what they might be tasked to do.
“We can look back on it as real team building,” he said.
Dinsdale said, since the company started the Train the Trainer event 14 years ago, it’s become a highlight of the calendar that’s supplemented with raffles, beverages and food to turn it into a social occasion that allows the trainers and clients to interact at a different level.
And really, he adds, who wouldn’t like the chance to push back after being pushed to their own limits time and time again?
It’s all about being “accountable,” Dinsdale said.
