Meet Justin Ratkovich of Blue Shoes Fitness

Today we’d like to introduce you to Justin Ratkovich.

Justin, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Like many kids in the US, I grew up playing whichever sport was in season at any given time. I typically bounced between soccer and baseball and had fun playing tennis and shooting hoops on the side. I was never completely obsessed with sports, but I loved being active and challenged! After playing Varsity soccer all throughout high school in Glendale, I realized that the professional sports world was not my career calling – I was not obsessed enough to make it to the big leagues, but I knew I still wanted to be involved in physical activity somehow.

The more I thought about it, then less interested I was in athletics and the more interested I was in health. I wish I could recall how exactly it happened, but when it came time to apply for college, I stumbled upon a degree program at ASU for Exercise and Wellness. I knew much more about the field than I did the weight room, but I knew it would be a great start to getting involved in health from an academic perspective. About halfway through my Bachelor’s program, I made another important stumble – this time I discovered the world of corporate wellness!

My time at ASU was capped with an internship in corporate wellness, which was then followed by a full-time position in the same field. I loved working with call center employees before and after their shifts at work. It was in these positions that I got a taste of many different fitness careers. I was in charge of putting together campus-wide health initiative programs; I started to train my very first one-on-one clients; I even taught group exercise classes and ran “lunch and learn” nutrition seminars! It was all so fun, and I specifically fell in love with the relational dynamic of personal training.

In the midst of all of this professional progress, the real excitement came in 2015 when I married my best friend, Amanda! Spoiler alert, we’re now expecting a baby girl this summer too!

This love for training grew, and God opened up doors to work in a large commercial gym as a personal trainer. For nearly a year and a half, I worked 5 am to 8 pm shifts almost every day of the week and loved every second of it. I felt energized by my clients, and I was really growing into my identity as a coach. I have since moved my training entirely online and have started my very own online personal training business – Blue Shoes Fitness!

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
As I mentioned, I loved every moment of working as a personal trainer in the commercial gym. I ran into a weird “problem” of sorts: I became too busy! It was such a blessing to have such a full schedule, but I quickly realized that I had topped off professionally and no amount of scaling or time management could help with the increasing time commitment for my clients.

I didn’t want to be spread so thin that I was sacrificing giving quality service to my hard-working clients. As flexible as the job was as a whole, the fact still stood that my career was directly tied to the time I could afford to give my clients. As a young married man with no kids, this was fairly doable for a season. It was difficult to justify taking any time off though, even if it was for an anniversary date or to recover from being sick.

In planning for kids and a more flexible schedule, Amanda and I began to nurture the idea of starting an online personal training business. One that was more convenient for both the coach and the client, and that was not directly dependent on the time either party could commit.

Over the past year of opening and running Blue Shoes Fitness, we have learned so many lessons and have tackled so many daunting projects. Imagine an overwhelming passion for fitness, coupled with no prior experience with running the day to day tasks of owning a business – the pressure has pushed us up and together!

So, as you know, we’re impressed with Blue Shoes Fitness – tell our readers more, for example, what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
I get a lot of questions about what online personal training even is, most of which involve an assumption that I run live workouts with my clients via video calls. While that would be fun, recall that part of the issue I was trying to avoid was having to coordinate schedules with my clients – I wanted to build a more convenient platform for them on which they could achieve their fitness goals!

Online personal training works remarkably similar to in-person training. After a series of consultations, I write up the first training block for each of my clients. This first block is all about establishing fitness and nutrition baselines, so there is a lot of verbal, written, and video communication back and forth to make these assessments. As we pick up momentum, each subsequent training block (updated monthly) includes new workouts, new nutrition goals, and new well-being challenges.

Because this model still eventually tops off with having eventually sacrificing quality service to take on more and more clients, I am actually opening up an online group training program called the Locker Room. This online fitness community is all about reaching those who need some direction and encouragement in the context of a large group of fitness friends!

Through my training website and app, all of my clients have access to hundreds of exercise demo videos, a large nutrition database, progress photo archive, and room to record their workouts and macros as they go. The ongoing goal is to streamline my training as much as possible to help remove any non-fitness obstacles for my clients.

Exercising and eating well can be enough of a task – no need to worry about all the other fringe details. As the coach, it’s my job to worry about the fringe! Since my passions have morphed from athleticism to general fitness, I landed in the middle and proudly advocated for “functional fitness.” This type of training is all about moving well and feeling well, so it includes aspects such as building functional strength, reducing body fat, and increasing overall mobility.

I’ve seen way too many people who can squat hundreds of pounds but can’t touch their toes. That’s not functional, and that’s not what I teach! At the same time, it’s important also to make things more exciting and progressive than just doing static stretches and body weight movements.

What’s your outlook for the industry in our city?
While my clients live all around the world, I absolutely think Surprise (and Phoenix as a whole) is great for fitness businesses. Despite fitness being a fairly saturated market, there are plenty of people not being helped because they have not been reached out to.

As our city grows in population and average age, it’s increasingly important to reach out to those who might not otherwise walk into a gym looking for training. In Surprise specifically, there are many many young families moving into the area, who might not be able to afford the time or financial commitments of in-person training. Online may be much more convenient and sustainable for this group in particular!

If you were looking to start a fitness business, Surprise and the greater Phoenix area would be excellent places to start! There are opportunities all around if you intentionally look for them!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.blueshoesfitness.com
• Phone: 6232824979
• Email: info@blueshoesfitness.com
• Instagram: @justinratkovich
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/blueshoesfitness

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