Coaching the Global Super-Bourgeoisie: Physical Lifestyle Intermediaries and the Management of Elite Social Capital

Bruno Cousin and Sébastien Chauvin, Pp. 525-539 in María Luisa Méndez,, Mike Savage, and Annette Lareau, eds. The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Global Elites. Oxford University Press, 2026.

This chapter explores the roles of lifestyle professionals who cater to the super-rich, focusing on two private coaches: Nathalie, a yoga instructor and massage therapist, and Benjamin, a tennis coach and personal trainer, who work with billionaire and centimillionaire clients. Physical education specialists are integral to many high-bourgeoisie households, helping organize their sociability and ensuring the transmission of bodily and mental dispositions valued among economic elites. The first section details the employment conditions of Nathalie and Benjamin. The second section analyzes their career trajectories, emphasizing how early socialization into upper-class culture has provided them with specific interactional and professional competences. The third section examines the strategies they employ to select and renew their exclusive client base. Finally, the fourth section discusses the complex interpersonal dynamics between these coaches and their client-students, where the tension between employment subordination and professional authority is resolved thanks to the grammar of friendship.