[ed209]

There have been many threads about this. The easiest way to get rich is probably for them to marry a rich guy. To get sessions, they have to travel. Even in places like LA, they probably only get a couple local sessions a month. Traveling is expensive, and gets in the way of their diet and training, plus it's extremely tiring. Even though they make high hourly wages, they just can't do it 40 hours a week. When they do travel, sometimes guys complain about them being in the wrong area. For example, Oakland vs. San Francisco or Newark vs. New York. They travel across the country, and the guys complain about a 10-15 mile drive. I understand part of it, if you live in the east bay, trying to drive and park in SF is a nightmare. But it's not something the session wrestler wants to deal with. They also have to frequently deal with bad/dangerous clients, guys who email them dozens of times per day, and so on.

It's also expensive to live in CA, where many of them live. A 1 bedroom apartment in a nice area of LA or Orange County might cost $2500-3000. Of course, they can save money by getting roommates, but needing roommates clearly demonstrates they're not living comfortably. In San Francisco, a 1 bedroom apartment might cost $4000, and when you go check one out, there will be 50 other people in line to see it, most of them with higher verifiable income. I believe the situation is similar in NYC. Other places in the US are cheaper to live but don't get much traffic from this industry. Other than Vegas, but living in Vegas would probably suck. Then CA taxes are 9.3% (on top of federal taxes) for the girls in CA making anywhere around $100k. Of course I doubt much, if any, of the cash from sessions actually gets reported to the IRS.

Also, a bodybuilding lifestyle is extremely expensive. Gym memberships, food, supplements, and sometimes 'roids. There's very little money on the women's side of competitions, and most don't win competitions anyway. They tend to supplement their income from websites, clips stores, and frequently take jobs as personal trainers. These jobs suck, and they have to deal with intense degrees of piracy of their electronic content. They also have to learn the basics of web development (which, admittedly, is now a bit easier with packages like Wordpress) or hire someone to manage their website.

By the way, your session rate of $200 is extremely low. $300 is on the very low end. More typical is $350-400. The bottom line is, they're not getting 5 sessions per week if they're not traveling. They'll be lucky to get 1. Even if they could make it big just doing sessions, they'd probably need to get a "decoy job" anyway, just so the IRS doesn't get suspicious when they have a house or nice car or anything else despite making minimal money.

The bottom line is, unless they're traveling full-time, they'll need to find another occupation and sessions will just be some supplemental income. They also need to worry about having real skills once they "age out."