We offer both one-on-one and partner personal training in the following durations: 

30 minutes
60 minutes

While the majority of our one-on-one personal training clients (>80%) do thirty-minute sessions, we do offer the sixty-minute sessions for those who want or need additional training time with their workouts.

For those doing one-on-one personal training with thirty-minute sessions, the workouts may still be recommended to be between 45-50 minutes due to other programmed exercise, but this is provided without the need to pay for additional time. In essence, many clients are provided with instruction and guidance to do some of their routine (pre-workout warm up, stretching, foam rolling, cardio, additional core work, etc, on their own. 

All of this is at your discretion and choice. We will help you with recommendations in order to see the results you desire, just know that we have many options to best meet your wants and needs with that goal in mind. This includes providing options to best fit with your budget.

The personal training sessions we provide vary in type and time (one-on-one and partner training) along with (30 or 60 minutes in duration). The cost per session therefore varies depending on these variables. Listed below are the ranges of investment based on session type:

30 Minute One-On-One Sessions
$49 per session

30 Minute Partner Sessions
$35 per session

60 Minute One-On-One Sessions
$85 per session

60 Minute Partner Sessions
$55 per session

We will present all the package options during the initial consultation and help make recommendations for your individual situation.

No, we don't not have monthly membership agreements as we exclusively offer coaching programs for a designated number of sessions or period of time. Our model is different than what is used in most gyms and health clubs.

I wouldn't feel good about having you as a client unless you we're totally convinced of the benefits of our coaching programs. This is why my personal training packages come with an unconditional 30-day money back guarantee. 

Making a commitment is an essential component to personal development and change and therefore we place great value on the level of commitment you make to yourself and with us. 

However, I totally understand you may be leary about making a significant investment in a program, organization, and trainer(s) that you could have little to no personal experience with.

Knowing that you may not be totally convinced after the initial consult or session (who's up for getting married after the first date? lol), you've got a full 30 days to experience the Shaping Concepts difference for yourself without obligation. 

If we've not met, and hopefully exceeded, your expectations at any time during the first 30 days I'll provide a refund for the balance on your account. Sound fair enough? I do hope to have the opportunity to EARN your business.

No, you won't be required to forfeit sessions if you're unable to make it in to the gym for workouts. The way our programs are structured you'll have the flexibility to simply adjust your personal training appointment times around your schedule. 

All of our programs allow for this flexibility to best serve our clients. Our programs can even be placed on hold for extended absences upon request

Absolutely not, this is definitely a component of our programs that makes us different than a lot of our competitors.

There are a lot of personal trainers who require their clients to come in at designated appointment times and if you can't make it, you may be charged for the session or provided with a rescheduled time that doesn't work for you. 

At Shaping Concepts, we provide BOTH preferred recurring scheduling and flex scheduling for our clients. That means you have the option to come in for workouts on days and times that best fit with YOUR schedule. 

No, you are not required to meet a minimum number of training sessions per week. While some personal training studios mandate a minimum frequency, we have a different approach. Our mission is to provide you with professional coaching that always adjusts to meet your individual wants and needs. 

We will certainly make recommendations regarding training frequency, duration, exercise selection, etc, based on what will be needed to produce the results you're looking for. However, this doesn't require that you perform all your workouts in-house with us as personal training sessions. We help a lot of our clients with programming for workouts done outside of our gym that complement the personal training sessions they receive. 

This allows for more flexibility with options on how we can best serve you as a coach and work within your budget and unique needs. 

Yes, absolutely. All of our packages can be placed on a temporary hold due to circumstances that would prevent you from coming into the gym to workout. Any package that included installment payments would be paused until such time you were able to resume training.  

All of our personal training sessions are booked by appointment only. The sessions can be booked in advance either through "recurring" sessions that occur on the same designated days and times each week OR through "flex scheduling" by booking appointments at varying times each week that fit with your changing schedule. 

We provide BOTH options in order to best serve the varying needs of our clients. For those individuals who request to have "recurring" sessions at the same designated time and days each week, there is a minimum 80% or greater attendance rate in order to maintain a guaranteed appointment time. This is due to our coaches being compensated only for their time with completed sessions and the high demand for various peak times. 

In short, yes we do provide the option to have guaranteed appointment times, but with that guarantee for reserving a time slot comes the expectation and commitment to attend the majority of sessions.

Yes, we do have a standard 24-hour cancellation policy that is common with most personal training facilities. This is again because of the fact that coaches only get compensated for their time with scheduled sessions. 

However, while we do have a 24-hour cancellation policy, it is to be acted upon at the discretion of the coach, and not be automatically triggered. This is to allow for uncommon instances like in the event of an accident, emergency, unforeseen circumstance at home or with a family member, etc. 

The policy is primarily in effect to ensure the coaches time is valued and respected like that of any other health specialist or professional service provider.

Yes, more than likely. We uphold a high standard of professional conduct for fitness consultants and believe we should always stay within our scope of practice and areas of expertise. This means we frequently request to work in collaboration with physicians, physical therapists, and other health / medical professionals on fitness programs for clients with specific needs.

We've worked with those recovering from hip and knee replacements, back surgeries, individuals with heart disease, MS, fibromyalgia, diabetes, cancer, and more. 

We can provide you with an honest evaluation of our ability to safely and effectively help you with exercise instruction after meeting with you for a personal consultation.

Absolutely! Many of our clients do partner training. We find this can make your workouts even more fun and having additional support in your life to accomplish your goals is always a good thing!

Just let us know if you have a friend or your spouse in mind to workout with you, and we’ll have you both in for a consultation. And because all of our programs involve personalized routines our partner personal training sessions can still be individualized with each trainee getting different exercises according to their wants and unique needs.

The majority of our clients lead busy lives balancing their career and family life. And that’s why all have found that having an appointment to workout and fit exercise into their life is very important to making sure they do what’s necessary to take care of themselves. If you’re busy too, then it’s even more important that you do schedule time for exercise so you can have more energy and be able to handle the demands of a hectic schedule.

We work around your schedule, with training sessions starting as early as 6am and going until 8pm at night.

Through our FLEX scheduling and TEAM training approach we can provide you with a wide variety of options for appointment times. Our unique model was built specifically for the needs of individuals with busy lifestyles and varying schedules.

Yes, we frequently work with clients who are in the Charleston area for business, vacation, or who may have second homes here. Since we don't require membership agreements like most gyms and health clubs, we're an attractive option for those looking for a private, upscale, clean fitness facility where they can receive personal training while in town. 

Excellent question! To preface my answer let me say I'm not against having a health club membership. In fact, many of our clients have memberships to local gyms or health clubs in addition to coming to Shaping Concepts for private personal training. The reality is these are different facilities and provide different benefits. 

Health clubs and gyms are essentially places where you lease the opportunity to use their space and equipment (typically for a monthly fee). Sure, many provide the option of having a personal trainer, but their entire model is built around selling memberships they know the majority of people won't use that often.

A private personal training studio is in the business of providing coaching to help their clients achieve a specific result. It's therefore a RESULTS driven business! With that comes things like education, instruction, motivation, goal setting, progress measurement, accountability, and other area essential for personal development. 

The top private personal training facilities do these things exceptionally well and therefore change lives and transform bodies. 

Basically, it's an apples to oranges conversation as both offerings are not simply paying for a place to exercise. One is an investment for a place to exercise and the other is an investment in personal development. The value of these two things are different therefore the investment is different. 

Yes, experience is not required here. It doesn't matter if you are an athlete or someone who's never worked out a day in their life. We custom design each program according to your individual fitness level and goals.

Our Charleston personal trainers have extensive experience at being able to assess each individual's unique needs and designing a safe and effective program to get you the results you're looking for.

I commend you for seeking to provide your son or daughter with an opportunity to work with a professional fitness coach who can also serve as a mentor and teacher. 

At Shaping Concepts, we provide one on one personal training for youths starting at age 12 and up.

Nutrition is a MAJOR piece of seeing changes in body composition. In fact, it’s the foundation when it comes to ramping up your metabolism and getting your body to burn fat and build muscle. We can certainly help you with this aspect of your program. During the initial consultation we can discuss what level of nutrition and diet support will be most beneficial for you. We provide one-one-one diet and nutrition coaching, a group program, and also an on-line nutrition e-course.  

You'll find we emphasize education, habit formation, and individualized routines when it comes to your nutrition instead of promoting one particular diet. 

This is a great question, and one that I get quite frequently. The amount of time needing to be dedicated to exercise will depend on what the top priority is. Obviously someone looking to improve their mobility, strength, and balance won't have the same time requirements as someone looking to lose twenty of pounds of body fat mass for example.

As a general rule and a good guideline to follow you should expect to complete 3 to 5 hours of exercise per week if you're looking to see a body transformation. The duration of each workout and frequency can vary, but this will be your target. 

This doesn't have to all be time in the gym by the way, but rather the total time spent with various types of exercise and physical expenditure, regardless of the location.

We've had clients see exceptional results and a significant body transformation with as little as 1 1/2 to 2 hours of exercise per week, so know it can be done but will require focused, intense effort and a strong commitment to supportive nutrition.

Yes, this is an added benefit of our premium personal training programs. A lot of trainers mainly focus on providing workouts for in-person sessions and don't address the needs of clients who often travel for work. 

At Shaping Concepts, we provide our clients with routines to complete outside of the gym to complement their personal training program. The workouts are personalized to each client's unique wants, needs, and equipment availability. You'll also be pleased to learn there's NO ADDED CHARGE for this service for clients in one of our premium packages.

Great question, and a very valid concern that has been expressed with many prospective clients over the past couple years. Because we're a private facility we work with clients by appointment only. This means there are always controls in place regarding the number of individuals working out in the gym at any given time.

There are frequently less than 10 individuals total in the gym at any time, and the coaches all work together to utilize the space and equipment with social distancing in mind. In short, because of our business model and operation guidelines, we don't have issues with overcrowding. Being unlike a traditional gym with a "come anytime you want" membership type model, we can provide a more private setting for workout sessions.

Our philosophy on fitness training and working out is simple. Instead of embracing one particular methodology (ex. CrossFit) we are multi-faceted practitioners who are proficient with several different modalities and seek to find the best fit that both addresses the client's "why" with fitness AND their preferences.

In other words, we don't embrace ONE particular way with fitness nor attempt to force everyone we work with into such.

This means you won't be doing exercises that aren't suitable or safe with your current needs, and neither will you be doing exercises you don't like.

Some fitness providers will have you do things like burpees, box jumps, etc, regardless of whether you feel comfortable doing them. 

There are many ways to increase heart rate for example with exercise, so there's typically always an alternative that will be just as effective and also more preferable. Seems like that would be the wiser choice when it comes to helping someone stay consistent with working out and with developing a positive association with exercise. Just saying. :)

Yes, absolutely! This is one of our main differences compared to other traditional personal training providers. Our mission is to provide professional coaching to help others achieve their fitness and wellness goals. There are many ways in which we can provide that coaching, depending on the individual needs and wants at any given point in time. For individuals working out on their own, we provide workout program design in part of a remote coaching offering. This way you can have a personalized workout program built just for your needs and goals, complete with built in progression and progress measurement. 

We have many clients who don't regularly come to us for in-person training sessions. Regardless of where you live or where you workout, we can help put you on a program to see results.

I can completely understand this concern as many of our clients have shared with me how they had tried various programs in the past, including hiring a personal trainer, and unfortunately the results weren't always positive.

My personal training programs are different because we utilize a unique concept of having a TEAM of fitness professionals assigned to help you successfully reach your goals. This is in stark contrast to some personal trainers who simply provide workouts. At Shaping Concepts, we work together to provide you with essential components for a body transformation such as nutrition coaching, meal preparation, cardio prescription, behavioral modification and much more. Check out our page on "How we're different" to learn more about what separates us from the competition.

At Shaping Concepts, we are committed to having a team of coaches with various specialties and areas of expertise to provide our clients with a broad base of support.

We require all of our coaches to have a nationally accredited certification or related college degree and maintain continuing education credits. Unfortunately, in the personal training industry individuals can become certified by completing a weekend course over the internet. This is not a reflection of true professionalism and often times many even so called "certified" personal trainers are unqualified to provide exercise prescription for individuals with health or medical concerns.

Unlike in most traditional health clubs, our trainers must meet the highest standards of professionalism through rigorous standards, continued education and an in-house train the trainer program.

You can be assured you're working with some of the most qualified fitness professionals in the Charleston area when you're at Shaping Concepts.

Yes, at Shaping Concepts we believe that progress measurement is at the foundation of a professionally designed fitness training or weight loss program.

We utilize several means of regularly assessing progress in areas that are relevant to the objectives of your program. This includes things like improvements in strength, muscular endurance, cardiorespiratory capacity, balance, mobility, and core stability. 

For those individuals looking to change their body composition we also incorporate the InBody analysis every 2-4 weeks to assess progress and make adjustments in the workout or nutrition programming as needed. 

Yes, most definitely! This is an added benefit with our programs without added cost.  We actually encourage many of our clients who don't have memberships at a local gym or health club, have cardio equipment at home, etc, to come in for cardio.

We have multiple pieces of cardio equipment including several treadmills, rowers, Airdyne bikes, recumbent bike, upright bike, elliptical, and more to provide our clients with the ability to get in aerobic / cardiovascular exercise both on days when they meet with a trainer (before or after workouts) and on days when they don't. 

There's no requirement to schedule an appointment and clients are welcome to come in anytime during studio hours of operation.