A St. Albert personal trainer wants to be allowed into Servus Place to work with his clients.
Mark Kay came to last week’s council meeting to draw to St. Albert’s elected officials’ attention that personal trainers and their clients are not permitted to use the workout equipment and space at Servus Place, even if they’re paying customers, during a training session.
Kay currently travels into the City of Edmonton and other capital region communities that do allow physical trainers and their clients to work out at city-run facilities.
“Unfortunately I can’t run my business in St. Albert,” Kay said.
The City of Edmonton allows personal trainers to use the public facilities provided they pay their fees and sign a contract, which includes stipulation for the trainer to have insurance. There’s an additional administrative fee that trainers have to pay, but otherwise they can buy an annual pass.
Clients can buy a pass or pay a drop-in fee.
Kay said some of his clients in St. Albert and north Edmonton would like to be able to use the facilities at Servus Place, and he’d like to be able to work in the community where he lives.
“I like being part of the community,” Kay said.
Servus Place does offer its own personal trainers. Kay said there’s a lost business opportunity by not allowing external personal trainers access, though.
Katarina Kuhn is a St. Albert resident and one of Kay’s clients. She’d like to be able to use Servus Place instead of driving to Edmonton and paying to use the facilities there.
“I’d like to train there, they have really great facilities,” she said. “It would really make things easier.”
If she could train at Servus Place, she’d be able to bring her children along to play at the pool, she said, as well as bring friends along sometimes.
External personal trainers have never been allowed at Servus Place, said Chris Jardine, general manager of community and protective services for the City of St. Albert.
“Essentially what we’ve done is we’ve kept it all in-house so we are able to manage the entire facility, manage the entire program,” Jardine said. “We’ve set it up as our trainers only.”
Since Servus Place opened its doors there have been a variety of personal trainers who’ve wanted access, he said, but the staff want to be able to maintain a balance between the city’s personal trainers and other programming and the ability of the everyday user to work out there.
“Literally every nook and cranny gets used,” Jardine said, noting that working out with a trainer does require some more space than just individuals.
“Part of managing that program is we’re able to say to our personal trainers you have to be cautious of what you do, where you do it,” Jardine said.
He said it might seem counter-intuitive to turn away business, but it’s not necessarily seen that way by city staff. Servus Place is a busy facility, he said.
“We’re not sure we have the capacity to open it up that big and that broad,” he said.
There has also been some feedback about the Edmonton system, which he said doesn’t always work seamlessly.
“It’s not all rosy, it’s not a perfect system,” Jardine said. “We just felt from day one, let’s not get into this, let’s not get into conflicts.”
