Personal Trainer in Tampa, FL

Tampa is mostly a scheduling problem. The people I train there are not short of places to work out — there is a gym in the building, and another one two blocks away. They are short of an hour that survives contact with a working day, and of a reason to use either.

I come to you. Your home, your garage, a park, or the gym you already pay for — and there is no travel fee anywhere in Tampa. You do not need a membership, and you do not need to buy equipment before we start.

Where we would actually train in Tampa

• Your building's gym. They are small and that is genuinely fine. A set of dumbbells, a bench and a bit of floor is enough to build real strength; I have written good blocks around less.
• Your apartment or condo. If the building gym is three machines and a treadmill, we do not bother with it. Bands and a few light weights, in your own room, at the hour that actually works.
• Your own gym. If you pay for one, we use it, and I will show you which half of the equipment is worth your time.
• A park. For calisthenics and conditioning, and it beats a treadmill in every month that is not August.

An hour that survives a working day

Nobody in Tampa has ever told me they could not find a gym. What they say is that the week ate the session — a meeting ran long, traffic on the way home, and by the time they were free the will had gone.

So the session comes to the building rather than the other way round, and the hour is chosen to be the one that survives: before work, or straight after, in the gym downstairs, with no drive on either end. Removing the travel removes most of the excuses, because most excuses are really about the twenty minutes either side.

It also means a programme written for a small room. Three or four movements done properly with dumbbells and a bench will build more than a tour of fifteen machines, and it fits the space your building actually has. If the week goes badly anyway, we move the session rather than skip it — a missed week is survivable, a missed month is how people end up starting again.

What it costs

Buying a block brings the per-session price down, from $45 to as low as $32. Every session in a block can be personal training, calisthenics or boxing — mix them week to week. The full breakdown is on the main page.

When I train people

Weekday mornings from 6am right through the evening, and weekend mornings. The booking page always shows the times that are actually free — what you see there is what is left.

Who is coaching you

I am John Beaunissant, NASM-certified, CPR and First Aid certified, and I was an athlete long before I was a coach — soccer, basketball, boxing, martial arts. I bench 315 pounds and hold a freestanding handstand, and I coach both ends of that, so when your goal changes you will not have to change trainers.

Four years ago a car hit me on the driver's side: bulging discs in my lower back and neck, ligament and cartilage damage in a knee. For months the only things I could train were biceps curls and leg extensions, and I designed my own way back from there. So when you tell me your back hurts or your knee will not let you run, I am not reading it out of a textbook. More about that here.

Common questions

How does parking work if you come to my building?

Tell me when you book and we will sort it — visitor parking, a spot on the street, whatever your building does. It has never been the thing that stopped a session.

Is there a travel fee to Tampa?

No. Tampa is in my area along with Riverview, Brandon, Valrico and Apollo Beach.

My building gym is tiny. Is it worth it?

Almost always. The limit on most people's progress is not the equipment, it is not knowing what to do and not being consistent. Both of those are fixable in a small room.