Wow.
I know this varies widely from box to box, but $50-75 an hour? Perhaps this is my naivity speaking, but I would think your box would have to be doing pretty darn well to justify paying your trainers more than, say, an embedded systems engineer…
cough, cough.
At our box we are closer to $18-25 an hour for group classes. We also provide Personal Training, which pays the trainer a higher rate which is dependent a little on whether the client was brought in by the trainer, or was a pre-existing member of the club as well as who is doing the actual programming for the PT sessions. Newer trainers often rely on our head trainer to design the programs until they get more experience, and their cut of the PT income reflects that reliance.
This can be an interesting discussion though. Should a CrossFit trainer expect to make a 6 figure salary based solely on leading group classes? How much is our training actually worth?
This being a capitalist society, my thought is that a trainer’s value should be evaluated on a supply and demand basis. I would find it almost impossilbe to believe that what this trainer is offering your box demands payment of over $100k a year (based on a 40hr work week) when so many people out there are chomping at the bit to be part of CrossFit and become trainers.
I do believe that a well qualified and competent CrossFit coach deserves to be paid more than someone leading spin classes at the local GoboGym. But the pay rate has to be based on the actual state of the market in which the box finds itself.
If he is actually the only person in a 100 mile radius that knows anything about training/CrossFit, maybe you are stuck. But I kinda doubt that is the case.
If he actually thinks he is a $100k a year trainer when there are other suitable options available, then he’d have better have pretty compelling reasoning to back that up.
If your box is doing well enough, and you value your trainers enough to pay them into the 6 figure range, good on you! But if your box is not doing that well yet, and you don’t see that value in his training, I don’t see the necessity in meeting such high demands.
