Being a personal trainer is a challenging and satisfying career. Assisting clients in reaching their weight loss or strength training goals is rewarding. Your knowledge is a wealth of information ranging from program design, nutrition, strength training and flexibility among others.
In the past, being a personal trainer didn’t require a college degree and in an industry that was mostly unregulated, there were as many bad trainers as there were good. Unfortunately, a badly trained trainer could cause more harm than good. Time was that being a trainer meant being a gym rat and knowing more than the guy next to you. Now, it is fast becoming a highly regulated industry and new trainers will be required to know more and have more experience before being allowed to work. A certification from top rated certifying agencies will now require new personal trainers to have more knowledge of exercise science than ever before.
Training to be a trainer can be approached in many different ways. Colleges offer non-credited programs that prepare students for taking the certification exams. Programs may offer courses in exercise physiology, anatomy, and program design and fitness assessment. The first order of business is to find the right certifying agency for you.
Two of the top-rated agencies are ACE (American Council on Exercise) and ACSM (American College of Sports Medicine), that require you to purchase their textbooks, pay for their exam, and subsequently stay current with a required amount of CEC’s. In the fitness industry, a certification from either of these sources is a respected piece of paper.
So now you have a certification, what’s next?
There are different paths you can take when first starting out. Getting hired at a gym or health club is a good way to get your name out there, though the club takes a hefty portion of your paycheck. Working for someone else may give you health insurance and other benefits. Not having to own your own exercise equipment and being able to take advantage of their already in place clientele are the best benefits of being an employee.
Owning your own business is a riskier path. You’ll have to advertise, buy expensive exercise equipment, perhaps have an overhead, pay for your own health insurance and take care of your own retirement. You can choose to work out of people’s homes carrying with you great at home exercise equipment, or rent space for your own facility. But you own your own life, make your own hours, and keep what you make. For some, the choice it is a matter of personality.
The single most important thing you can do as a personal trainer is to do your continuing education every year. This is a rapidly changing industry with new information coming out all the time. And there is no better way of keeping fresh and interested in your profession than to see and experience what everyone else is doing. It costs money to stay on top of things, but it pays in the end. You’ll be better able to help your clients reach their goals and that is what personal training is all about.
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