How to Write an Effective Fitness Bio

I’ve read thousands of fitness bios over the years as both a fitness enthusiast, editor, and business developer. Unfortunately, very few have sounded professional, no matter how amazingly qualified the individuals were. Here I’ll discuss five steps you can take to ensure that your fitness bio does the job you need done.

First off, what is the point of a fitness bio? Just like any professional looking for more business, the point is to instantly establish enough credibility to get your potential customer to the next step. The next step is much more simple than buying your product or hiring you. The next step is to get them to read more about you.

You’ve probably heard of an “elevator pitch.” If not, here’s the basic definition:

A 30-second pitch that explains what you’re good at and what you’re trying to achieve.

The basic requirements are that it should be no longer than 30 seconds to deliver orally. Since we’re talking about a fitness bio we’re going to translate that into 3 to 5 sentences of written text.

This may be a little bit of stereotyping, but many of the fitness professionals I’ve met have been long-winded. Sometimes, you can’t get them to shut up at all! This is not a good trait when it comes to writing an effective fitness bio. Let’s put it into perspective.

What a Bad Fitness Bio Looks Like

Imagine that you just read an interesting fitness article. It wasn’t the most amazing thing you ever read, but it was enticing enough to make you read the whole thing. You scroll to the bottom and you glance quickly at the author’s information box.

The box is about 500 words and full of certification names and abbreviations, school names, and gym names. There’s about 200 words that deal with nothing but how the author got into fitness in the first place and there’s only one mention of the author’s business and website. How likely will you be to click on the website and learn even more about the author? Not very.

Do qualifications matter? Of course! Is anyone going to care about them if they’ve never heard of you before and have no specific reason to seek your advice, service, or product? No! Qualifications belong on your website and are farther down on the decision process of your potential customer.

What a Good Fitness Bio Looks Like

A good fitness bio should address your ideal customer, instantly explain your skills, and establish what you’re trying to accomplish. A fitness bio that does all this requires quite a bit of business development, so we’re going to make the process simpler.

For now, your fitness bio should do ONE THING, and only one thing. It should get the reader to click on your link (either to your website or one of your social media accounts). THAT’S IT. Step one is to avoid the temptation to try to accomplish everything at once. How do you write a fitness bio that accomplishes a click? Follow these steps.

STEP 1: Define What You Do in One Sentence

If you ask most fitness professionals what they do, most of them will come up with an extremely broad statement about how they can help anyone lose weight, live healthier, eat better, build muscle, and become enlightened both physically and mentally in a single bound. This is not impressive or unique and is more likely to earn you a slap from an educated fitness enthusiast rather than a handful of money for your service or product.

You really need to look at what you offer and figure out how to explain your core competency in a single sentence. To start, answer these questions (these are mainly based on personal training rather than diet, but should still give you a basis for figuring out your specific value as a fitness professional):

1. What training tools do I use most often?
2. What training techniques do I use most often?
3. What is my number one rule for improving my clients?
4. What phrase do I use the most often when motivating clients?

When I was a trainer I specialized in kettlebell training using complex movements for short periods. My number one rule was that a little bit of training done consistently everyday could satisfy most people’s training needs. My regular motivating phrase was “It doesn’t matter what you’re lifting now; it matters what you’re lifting tomorrow. Always be progressing.”

Squeezing all that into a single sentence can be tough, but here is how I would do it:

I use complex kettlebell training to help people consistently improve themselves over the long term.

Does that statement COMPLETELY encompass everything I do? No. Does it sound professional and give a hint of what I actually do? Yes.

As the owner of MegaMad Industries, I use website design and graphic design combined with email, social media, and content marketing strategies to get small businesses online. I then educate them how to use each component themselves so they can continue to develop their businesses online with or without my help. Here is how I would squeeze that into a sentence:

I get small businesses online for the first time and teach them how to keep growing with or without my help.

STEP 2: Add Your Most Enticing Qualification in One Sentence

This can be a tough one for people who have spent 10, 20, or 30 years gaining degrees, certifications, masters, doctorates, etc. in the pursuit of fitness knowledge, but it must be done. You must boil all of that expensive knowledge into a single sentence that will keep your reader’s interest.

The good news is that just like any good marketing campaign, you’ll be testing your sentence and refining it as you go (same thing with every step). You may think that your obscure functional training certification is your most interesting qualification only to find that your prospective customer doesn’t know or care about it at all. No problem! Just switch it out and test the next one.

The fitness industry allows professionals and companies to show their results in the near and short term. If you say that your method helps people lose fat, you could do some tracking on your customers and find out exactly how much fat they lose on average. Same thing for performance results (mile times, pull up maxes, deadlift maxes, etc.), muscle mass results, physiques, etc. If you say you do something and have no direct evidence, do you really do it? If nothing else you should have testimonials that support your claims.

With that in mind, your qualification statement should include your results. As the owner of MegaMad Industries, I help small businesses get online and gain exposure. Many of them have NEVER had an online presence or made online sales, but have since I began working with them. Since most of the specific sales number are confidential, I have to get a little vague, but my qualifier would be something like this:

My services and online training methods have resulted in millions of dollars in sales for small businesses.

STEP 3: Add Your Goal in One Sentence

Figuring out your goal is a crucial step in business development. It allows you to refine your offering, increase your value, and establishes a direction for all of your marketing and sales efforts. If you don’t have a goal, figure it out as soon as possible.

In relation to your fitness bio, it should relate to our objective to get your target market to click to find out more information (never forget that in any of these steps). Most of the time, this will relate to delivering the specific result that your prospective customer is interested in. It’s also another opportunity to give more information about your offering.

This phrase can actually be the most flexible one you use. Tailor it to your prospective audience and make it as interesting as possible. Here are a few examples of some goal statements:

• Joe’s goal is to expose the dangers of GMO products through his book, NON-GMO FOREVER.
• Kate is seeking to help middle-aged women to realize their athletic potential through a 90-day workout system.
• Juan uses high intensity training methods to increase muscle definition in professional fitness competitors.

As a small business consultant, I tailor my goal to fit both the article and a specific offer.

Mark’s objective is to get small fitness businesses online and making money using his Get Up & Go Website Package.

STEP 4: Include Your Name, Company Name, & Website

The lack of this information annoys me to no end. I’ve had to search out and contact some writers to get their information after unsuccessfully searching for it online. I know that some fitness professionals have several business names, but that really doesn’t matter. There is only one business name that matters when you write your bio, the one that targets the person you’re talking to.

Make sure the first or last line of your fitness bio includes your organization/brand/company name, your name, and your primary website (if it makes sense). For me, it would look like this:

Mark de Grasse is the owner of MegaMad Industries. Find out more at MarkdeGrasse.com.

There you have it! Sit down and spend 30 minutes to create a unique and enticing fitness bio. Don’t waste all that time that you spent writing articles by ending them with a lame fitness bio.