New Fitness Tool: The Telephone

Don't have time to meet your personal trainer at the gym? Now you don't have to. Just get fit by phone...

(Knight Ridder Tribune) - Some of them called because they wanted to wash the taste of their last failed diet out of their mouths. Some needed information on eating better and exercising. Some of the women who called Heather Moreno's phone coaching session just needed a kick in the pants.

Whatever their reason for calling, 18 employees of St. Joseph Hospital in California last week "met" with phone fitness trainer Moreno in the group's 20th and last conference call. The hospital had hired Moreno's company, People Fit USA, for an employee fitness pilot program.

This conference call was not much different than the 19 that preceded it. People dialed in as their schedules allowed, listening for the 30 minutes Moreno spoke on scientific diet studies, exercise equipment information and ways to stay motivated. A few clients asked questions, but most didn't have the time. Their busy schedules are, after all, a big reason fitness coaching by phone was so appealing in the first place. At the end of the half-hour, only three of the nurses and hospital administrators were able to say "goodbye" before hanging up.

This is exercise training and motivation building for the truly harried.

Moreno is one of a growing number of phone coaches, professional trainers who dole out exercise and diet advice on the phone for people who don't have the time or money to meet with personal trainers at the gym. These coaches, and those who "meet" with clients on the Internet, have been around for years. But the practice of telephone-based fitness coaching has boomed in the last year, with 60 new trainers joining the Association of Fitness by Phone Coaches.

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