The Times on Online Personal Trainers

In December, Geezer reported, the L.A. Times looked at fitness podcasts, focusing on the running centric RunCast Weekly, a site that, incidentally, looks a lot better now than it did then. Now the East Coast Times, that big paper out of New York, gets around to writing about online personal  trainers, pointing out their great appeal to the many people who are intimidated by classes down at the health club.
The Times cites sites like Podfitness.com, iTrain.com,   and iAmplify.com, and quotes John Spencer Ellis, president of the National Exercise and Sports
Trainers Association, an industry group serving fitness professionals, saying that since the start of the year, he has seen a sharp rise in the number of
trainers posting audio clips online. Video is also there, of course, but as the Times points out, it’s a bit harder to use on an iPod. Could online workouts take a bite out of health club revenues? Sure, says the Times. In-house personal trainers generate more income for clubs than any other add-on service. The piece quotes Pamela Kufahl, editor of Club Industry’s Fitness Business Pro, a trade publication, saying that clubs may respond by distributing their own multimedia workout clips.