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Life Time Academy in MN

Has anyone heard of the Life Time Academy? Is this facility really an accredited NCAA program? I can find very little information on this program, what I do find mentions it is a NASM program and is also a NCAA program. I keep tying to find information on the courses it offers, along with statistics or reviews of the program. I would like to know if this program is worth the price and is an actual program. Has anyone actually attended this facility?

Comments for Life Time Academy in MN

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Lifetime Academy
by: Anonymous

I have heard of it and it's expensive!!! Why would you spend thousands of dollars on a NASM prep course with no guarantee of employment (what if you do not want to work for Lifetime?) Don't waste your money. Purchase the NASM books and DVD's, attend a workshop and you will pass the cert.

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Lifetime Academy
by: Anonymous

It's not a real school it's a health club trying to take your money! Lifetime is a billion dollar company. Buyer beware. Go to a real school. What happens if you do not want to work for Lifetime??? Will they help you get a job at a different fitness facility? I highly doubt it. Go to a real school that will help you with job placement (Equinox, LA Fitness, Urban Active, Anytime Fitness, Fitness Together....

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No Work Life Balance At Lifetime
by: Anonymous

I was a former personal trainer for Lifetime Fitness in Colorado. I recently left because I was burned out and overworked. The pay was awful for the amount of hours I had to work. The only pros were my colleagues. What they don't tell you is that you are a Salesman first, Janitor second and Personal Trainer third. You will not be able to keep your job if you do not sell. You need to be able to sell everything from their supplements to expensive Garmin watches to their metabolic testing. You need to sell so much crap to your clients you forget that you are are just trying to help them lose some weight and feel better about themselves. Before you commit thousands of dollars to their program talk to some Lifetime Trainers who are not drinking the Cool-Aid or get online and read employee reviews. The reviews are all the same-Too many hours and very little compensation.
You are better off working for a company that will compensate you if you are going to be a Salesman.

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Lifetime Academy
by: Anonymous

Talk to trainers and dieticians who have worked there before you give them 10K!!! Read the online reviews.
What happens if you want to train for a competitor?

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LOW PAY TO NO PAY
by: Anonymous

The greatest downsides of working at Life Time is the pay. Any job or title below General Manager has a mediocre pay. Unfortunately, most "Team Members", which are your every day employees in each department have only received a raise because of the minimum wage rate going up. Life Time Fitness specializes in making all of their employees do a lot for little pay, which is one of the reasons why I decided quit. If you do not know the mission statement or finish your online classes before a certain time, you are removed from the time clock until you correct those errors. Their mandatory online education courses (LTU) for every job are an insult to the intelligence all employees, and the time required to complete most of them isn't suitable for one sitting, like they should be. Lastly, promotion of their "Team Members" is something unheard of at the club I worked at, and rising within your department for everyone is difficult due to their ludicrous requirements.

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Horrible
by: Anonymous

The pay and benefits are horrible ! There is no Career Planning for people that want to progress with the company . The training program needs a lot of work ! You basically learn on your on

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Fit-in and stay fit or you will be ousted very quickly
by: Anonymous

Discrimination against the "experienced" worker. Again, you might get hired by a General Manager who truly wants to hire a dedicated, loyal, hard worker, but those traits don't matter if you look over 40. Look around, most department heads and general managers are in their 20's. Life Time executives are barely in their 40's. Their image is everything and they strive to project a young, fit, hip image. So, either fit that image or be satisfied being banished to washing towels in the laundry room, out of public eye.

Don't be a thinker. Life Time executives have figured out how to run the company perfectly and you are not being hired to contribute your unique thought and ideas. You are expected to execute their thoughts and ideas instead. If you ask "why" or you challenge the status quo, they will feel threatened, view you as an outsider, and begin the process of squeezing you out of the company. Generally, they do this by telling you that you are not a "good fit" for the role you are in and will offer you an undesirable transfer or demotion. If you don't like that offer (which they are banking on that you won't), then they will let you resign your position immediately. Sometimes, if they know you weren't born yesterday, they will offer you a modest severance.

Life Time promotes people to leadership positions who have no idea how to lead people. They follow the "Peter Principle" in that they promote the best employees, thinking they'll make the best leaders. But often, they don't know anything about hiring, interviewing, onboarding, performance management, coaching or counseling. If you do take a position with Life Time, be sure to get copies of everything they put in your employee file and also be sure that they do your performance reviews on time. I knew employees that had been working at Life Time for more than 3 or 4 years that had NEVER had a performance review or a pay increase.

I speak honestly of the above issues because I witnessed them first-hand, unfortunately. I was behind the scenes, in meetings with upper management, conspiring how to oust the people that simply didn't "fit in" even though they were actually fantastic people and fantastic employees. Believe me, I saw the celebratory high-fives and "fist bumps" occur in the offices after an employee's life had just been rocked with a demotion or termination. It was the most stressing part of working for Life Time Fitness and I am thankful every day that I am out of that shallow, backstabbing, hypocritical environment. I could go on and on but I think I've made my point.

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Unhealthy Way of Life Company
by: Anonymous

I expected the company to follow their "Healthy way of Life" motto, but they only care about your wallet. They expect the employees to sell, sell, sell the companies products every single second of every day. They constantly force their trainers and employees to bombard you with nutritional products and costly programs.

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Not The Healthy Way of Life Company
by: Anonymous

All they care about is money, They preach about how its a Results Based Culture for the client when in reality its a Revenue Based Culture because all that they talk about in meetings is how to increase revenue instead of how each trainers clients are progressing.

They put you through a 40 hour certification before you start your first day as a trainer and instead of teaching you training techniques and ways make you a better trainer they spend the entire 40 hours going over what to say to members to get them to buy things from you

They will hire a "trainer" who can't even teach something as simple as proper squat form as long as they can sell

Have mandatory meetings 3x a week and do not pay you for them

You work in 100% commission so if you are not training you are not being paid yet they require you to work a 9 hour shift and expect you to clean the building when you are not training and pay you 0$ for it and you get in trouble if you are not cleaning

You get PTO but if you want to take off for the holidays you must put in for it months before or you wont get it and if you don't get it you lose it they will not carry it over or pay you out for it

They put so much pressure on you to sell that you become as inconsiderate as the CEO is and will do anything to make a sale even if its convince a member to buy a product they do not really need because if they don't buy anything you don't get paid and will not hit your quota..(so much for it being all about the member)

They have countless amounts of online training they require you to do that are completely pointless and they do not pay you to complete them if you are a Trainer or Sales Adviser

You are pressured by management to participate in the club events, classes, and training on your non working hours so on top of the ungodly amount hours they make you work they expect you to spend your free time taking a class or "getting involved" in their events that they hold that they will still make you pay for.

Ive never been at a job where the turnover rate was so high that an entire department had a whole new staff within a month.

If you have no family, friends, personal life, or bills to pay, and if you like being treated like you're worthless this is a great job for you....good luck
Advice to Senior Management – Stop lying to your employees we know its all about the money, stop pretending you really care about the members.

You get what you pay for, dont expect to get the best out of your employees when you give them barely any pay

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Under Paid and Over Worked!!!
by: NO PAY

LTF True Mission and Vision
Bleed and Sell
Bleed and Sell
Rinse and Repeat
It's all about the revenue stupid!

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Are You Making Them Money
by: Anonymous

You are expected to give up your entire life to work at Life Time. There is no work/life balance and managers are treated poorly. If you request to take PTO you only get 7 days and there are no sick days or holidays off because they are open 24/7 year round.
If you don't hit your revenue goals you are guaranteed to be demoted or terminated even if everything else is perfect and set in place.
When you ask for help or give ideas they will usually turn them down and then you will get in trouble for not fixing the problem.
Lastly, there is a ton of turnover and employees are always looking for a new job. LTF is like a mezzanine before they find their dream job or anything better, which is everything.

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Slavery
by: Anonymous

Be prepared to become a salesman. I'm a RD and PT, and against my better judgement after going through their orientation I stuck with it for a bit. It's all about selling overpriced exercise, supplements, and metabolic tests and meeting monthly revenue goals in a 100% commission based environment. If this sounds good to you then by all means, but I got into PT and the fitness environment to help people exercise correctly and impart my dietary knowledge. A few other issues I had were that they had mandatory hour long calls on Fridays (unpaid) which was one of my two days off. After I obtained Lifetime's PT certification, they also wanted my to obtain their weight loss certification, which would have been 20-40 more hours of testing/work.... They wanted me to obtain this cert of theirs on my own time which I wouldn't have had a problem with if it could be used elsewhere, but it's only recognized through LT fitness. Also, their gyms are pristine everywhere the customer would see. However, behind closed doors the offices of employees are abysmal. Think chicken wire and no sheet rock with 2x4s exposed bad. It's just such a top heavy/corporate company that I couldn't stick around.

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Horrible Place to Become a Personal Trainer
by: Anonymous

Work 45 hrs to 60 hours a week and have to stay and work 12 hours on the last days of the pay period if you do not hit your revenue goal the manager of training sets. If you have a bad month you are on a performance improvement plan and if again you do not make enough they can let you go not for productivity for other little thing like parking in wrong area, no name tag or BS like that. They micromanage like crazy. Before accepting a personal trainer job ask your self do you have a soul, and if so move on.

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Don't Do It
by: SCAM

What a scam! This "healthy way of life company" is only concerned with the HEALTHY SIZE OF YOUR POCKETBOOK!

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Military Time Fitness
by: Anonymous

Worked my a** off, with little recognition. Poorly compensated. Like working in a gulag.

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Arrogance and Money
by: Anonymous

As many others have stated, this company cares about 1 thing; money! $$$ Management bases all decisions on sales goals.

Those who fall for this corporate logic do so without thinking: Endless days slaving to hit a monthly sales goal....only to do it all over again next month.

This company abides by the motto "SELL SELL - Get the members credit card on file and charge it until they beg you to stop"

Employees are as appreciated as the toilets we use every day. Use it, abuse it, move on! Irregardless of your employment history, you can and will be termated at will. This company prides itself on firing experienced employees to save a few hundred $ on not paying vacation time...ouch.... NOT a company you should work for!

Company culture prides itself on "premium" product when really the only premium product they offer is the EXERCISE EQUIPMENT.

No staff count as premium product. In my experience, the staff are a group of thoughtless corporate followers and yes-men.

Personal trainer biography boards are filled with embellished credientials and lies, set forth by higher managers. (this way you can charge more $ for training sessions...convenient)

The hardest part of this job was going in to work knowing your coworkers aspire to get rich by winning the lottery. WOW. Talk about ambitions. Nobody discusses intelligent aspects of life or academic curiosities.

It is a shame the people working here are stuck living in Plato's Cave. They may never see the light! I am so glad I left this mental prison to actually use my brain to help people!

What I learned from working here:
- Never work for Lifetime Fitness.
- Lifetime sees members as bank accounts to be emptied at all costs.
- Management is self-centered and will do anything in their power to maximize sales all to improve their petty monthly bonuses.

- MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL; I learned I have more to offer the fitness world, and will do so without the brain chains of lifetime fitness numbing my intelligence!

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Unhealthy Way of Life Company
by: Anonymous

Their moto is: "A Healthy Way of Life Company"
Their management is anything but healthy!
Worst working experience I ever had!

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Walmart of Fitness
by: Anonymous

I cannot speak on other departments but the personal training department is an absolute joke. You are placed on a trailing average every month and if that quota is not met then you are placed on "draw." Once you are placed on draw, you must pay back the money they lend you.
Horrible pay structure, a lot of free hours building your clientele.
Sales. Sales.Sales. Sales first--fitness a distant second.

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Life Time of Bitterness
by: Anonymous

They micromanage like crazy even after you hit your numbers. They don't care about members or getting them results. They are not for trainers who want to train and love what they do.
Sales Driven.
Crazy Schedule.
Not Results Driven.
I can go on for days.

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Awful
by:

I worked at Lifetime Fitness for about 8 months and could not wait to get out of there!!! Don't get me wrong, if you are a salaried employee it is great but if you are on the commissioned side...forget about having a stress free work environment. The company only cares about making as much money as possible, and they get a lot of this money from the sales being made in the PT department. I was on the personal training staff which requires you to sell at minimum $6,000 a month. I missed one month of not meeting this requirement and I immediately received an email threatening to let me go if I did not start selling more. The club that I was at also hired too many people so there was not enough clients to go around. They tell you to go out and get your own clientele which is harder than it sounds unless you are a seasoned experienced seller. My boss was higher up on the pyramid so he makes a percentage of what everyone underneath him sells on top of his salary. So he didn't have to go out at all and sell $6,000 worth of stuff and yet he is pushing it on us all to do it because it makes him look good and makes him more money. Our club pt department had a goal of hitting a certain amount of sales each month which if we hit that goal it makes our boss look awesome to the executives. We always met our goal and my boss moved up to a higher position because of it. But what do the rest of the staff get for helping meet that goal? A stupid little gold pin that we wear on our shirts....lame. They try to make it seem cool and say that we are the best in the nation so we should be proud to wear a dumb gold pin...but no, I need to support myself and my family, I need money for my hard work, not a pin. Not to mention there are certain leads within the PT department that make bonus checks for hitting their goal. For example: There is a weight loss companies lead who if we meet our goal over the quarter that person gets a $1000 bonus. But who helped that person look good and meet the goal? US! And we get no bonus check whatsoever! Moving up in this company is a game that you have to play. There are a lot of people steam rolling over others to make more money towards there individual goal. Believe me, you can find somewhere else that is way less stressful to work at! Oh and just so you all know I made about $15,000 working at Lifetime over 8 months....if that is the kind of starting salary you want then by all means go for it!

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Don't go to Life Time Academy!
by: Anonymous

I paid the money and went to Lifetime Academy.
It was horrible! You have to understand that Lifetime Academy gives you no certifications, no college credits, nothing! When you graduate, YOU- GET-NOTHING.
I paid over $7000 and one of the first things I learned was that my instructor was not an instructor at all, but a salesmen. One of the first things she did was to try to sell me and my family personal training sessions. My instructor then started pushing me to buy the supplements from her, she said that if I bought them that day she would take 10% off the price. She failed to mention that as a student I get 25% off all merchandise all the time. She also tried to sell all of her students metabolic training, of course, once again, she failed to mention that we get metabolic training free. She constantly reminded me that I was required to buy(and wear) the Lifetime Academy shirt and shorts. If you don't wear the official Academy cloths then you don't get credit for going to class.
When someone had a question that the instructor couldn't answer she would say "don't worry about it, your not going to retain this information anyway".
In your last 8 weeks of the program they push you to sell training sessions for $25, of course you get none of that money. Yes, you heard that right...you just paid thousands of dollars to learn how to be a PT and now, as a student, their pushing you to sell sessions for $25, of which YOU GET NOTHING.
I've only listed a few of my complaints about the Academy, trust me when I say that I(and my fellow students) could go on for hours about how bad this program is. One of my fellow students dropped out of the program weeks before it was over because she was so annoyed with the instructor.
Lifetime does not help you get a job and going to the Academy kept me from getting a job at Lifetime! In my interview that only lasted 25mins, the first thing I was asked was what I thought of the Academy. Unfortunately, I was honest and said that my instructor, although a nice person and good trainer was a bad teacher. I didn't get the job. They wouldn't tell me why I didn't get the job so I had one of my friends who works for Lifetime ask the department head. She told him that it was because I bashed my instructor. I didn't bash the instructor, I just gave legitimate reasons why I was unhappy with her.
If you want to become a personal trainer go through NASM. The NASM program will teach you way more than Lifetime at a fraction of the cost AND guarantee you a job. Take the money you save and spend it on becoming certified with TRX, kettlebells etc..

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Overpriced NASM School
by: Anonymous

Why would you spend $10,000 on an online NASM school when the NASM cert costs $699.00! They said I was guaranteed an interview if I went to the school. Well in order to get hired you have to go through three interviews! And they expect you to work a lot of hours for 100% commission! You have to sell everything for them (watches, nutrition supplements, pilates, group training...) They should pay me to go to their school if I am going to bust my butt selling all their crap for them for free until I get personal training clients.
How am I going to get clients if every student will be working for them? I will be competing with my classmates for clients!

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Sales School!
by: Anonymous

Seeing as all of us here are either trainers or aspiring to be, I thought I'd share my rather interesting experience at Lifetime Fitness and hopefully give you guys a little more insight.

Lifetime has a "Draw" pay structure and it's 100% commission. Also, you are required to work 40 hours a week. My shifts were Sunday - Thursday 6am - 2 pm.

The "Draw" rate is $12/hr. For those unfamiliar with draw, your paycheck cannot be lower than your draw rate. If your commissions exceed draw, then your check is the commission. Any accrued draw must be paid off before commissions are earned. It's not free money, but rather an interest free loan from the club to survive.

An example could be:
Check 1 - $980 (You earn $780)
Check 2 - $980 (You earn 1180, but have to pay off the $200 advanced from check 1)
Check 3 - $1380 (You earn $1380 and get to keep all of it because you paid off your debt)

In theory, draw is pretty sweet. You don't have to worry about surviving and you have time to build your business.

Now here's the kicker, draw at Lifetime is a Catch-22, you only get draw if you clock in.

My first day of 'training' was an 8 hour shift. I get there and ask my manager where to clock in.

Manager - "Do you need money?"
Me - "Wait, what?"
Manager - "Do you have enough money to last a few weeks?"
Me - "I guess why?"
Manager - "Well corporate doesn't want anyone to clock in unless they have clients. I mean legally we have to let you if you want to, but you will be fired if you don't hit your goal in 2 checks."

So, their "Draw" system is a bunch of ****. Corporate is on the managers ass to hit a certain quota per hours trainers work and if they don't the managers get in trouble.

Their solution, force employees to work for free.

Full time benefits? You can forget those too as you're not 'technically' working 40 hours.

They also tell you that the commission is 49%, but it's technically not the case. I believe only 29% comes from the session and another 20% comes from the sale. My manager worded it, and even showed me on a calculator, what I could get with the 49%+20% commission. It wasn't till I blatantly called him out that he said "Oh yeah, you're right, it's 49 TOTAL"

Sessions for a new trainer are $79. So you're looking at $22 a session. You need 45 sessions in a 2 week period just to not owe the company money and not get fired.

I've heard a few people tell me to steer clear of this place and it's all Sales, Sales, Sales.

Don't want to discourage you from working there, but the only way you're going to succeed is if you have your clients already lined up, and in that case why not just go independent.

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Life Time Academy Facts
by: Anonymous

As a personal trainer for many years I have had my ups and downs, as well as career successes and setbacks. There are so many options, it can be confusing on what to do. I always encourage individuals looking into the industry and certification to do their OWN research. This industry is filled with opinions and self-proclaimed experts. It's easy to negatively comment on anything and share an opinion. Find out the facts. Not only on the education/certification, but also the job. Just because you want to work in the personal training/fitness field doesn't mean you should. Understand what you value in a career. A certification does not mean qualification. A low barrier to entry (low cost, low required effort), like taking an online course, doesn't require you to demonstrate your skills in any hands-on environment either.

Here are facts relative to the question about Life Time Academy...

Life Time Academy is a nationally accredited vocational training career school through ACCET achieving that status in April of 2015. You can verify on the ACCET website www.accet.org in their directory. You can also view what accreditation requires to ensure quality. Life Time Academy is also not just an NASM certification. The curriculum and coursework required can also be viewed on the Life Time Academy website, and you receive a certification with distinction for your hands-on and online curriculum coursework. Call and ask the school. Credit transfer is an independent decision of each and every school, not a national standard.

A job as a personal trainer is actually a service job, with your knowledge and expertise in the area of health and fitness. It requires sales, customer service, communication, organization and effective time management skills, in addition to understanding how to create an effective program for someone. It also requires you to develop a professional personal brand that others want to refer people to.

Your decision on the right educational path depends on you and why you are looking to become a trainer in the first place. Your education will always continue from where you start. I simply recommend you do your own research to find the right fit. There are pros and cons to every choice, including whether Life Time Academy is the right fit for you.

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Long Hours Little Pay
by: Anonymous

The only way to be successful is by bending over backwards for your managers, working outside your shift, and every weekend.
Expect mandatory cleaning, even though there is another department (operations) designated to cleaning.
Expect mandatory meets 2-3 times per week robbing you of business opportunities.
Expect 5-8 different bosses or supervisors telling you that you did something wrong.
Expect the company to take more than half of what your charging.

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