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Introduction
What You'll Learn
Learn what it takes to become a professional personal trainer in a thriving industry. Understand the physical, psychological and emotional demands of working with an extensive client base.
Why it's Important
Aside from the Institute of Personal Trainer Code of Ethical Conduct, the fitness industry is widely unregulated. But personal training is a profession nonetheless and should be seen that way should you choose to join the industry.
Learn what it takes to become a professional personal trainer in a thriving industry. Understand the physical, psychological and emotional demands of working with an extensive client base.
Why it's Important
Aside from the Institute of Personal Trainer Code of Ethical Conduct, the fitness industry is widely unregulated. But personal training is a profession nonetheless and should be seen that way should you choose to join the industry.
To many, becoming a personal trainer is a dream career, filled with prestige, flexibility and job satisfaction.
You’re helping people, every day, to optimise their health and fitness and improve the quality of their lives.
Sounds great, right? Well, it really is!
Becoming a personal trainer is a highly appealing profession to a number of people. Many individuals who enjoy working with people, remaining physically fit and helping people change their lives for the better will pursue this profession. Not to mention you can make a pretty good personal trainer salary!
You’re helping people, every day, to optimise their health and fitness and improve the quality of their lives.
Sounds great, right? Well, it really is!
Becoming a personal trainer is a highly appealing profession to a number of people. Many individuals who enjoy working with people, remaining physically fit and helping people change their lives for the better will pursue this profession. Not to mention you can make a pretty good personal trainer salary!
However, this does not necessarily mean it is an easy career path to follow.
A personal trainer’s job is far more demanding than simply hanging out at the gym all day people watching and telling others what to do. The psychological and physical demands of personal training weed out many newcomers to the profession within the first year.
In this lesson, we’re going to start by looking at some of the pros and cons of being a personal trainer.
If you still decide it’s for you, keep reading, because we then lay out 7 steps on how you can become one.
Pros and Cons of Personal Training
Before embarking on your new career, let’s weigh up some of the pros and cons of becoming a personal trainer, so you can decide if it’s for you.
Our top 3 pros for becoming a personal trainer include:
3 of the main cons of becoming a personal trainer include:
Should you do it?
With all that being said, we don’t want you to think the cons should put you off. We’ve created this guide to help you overcome some of them. Read on to find out the 7 steps to becoming a personal trainer.
Our top 3 pros for becoming a personal trainer include:
- Rewarding Work
When you successfully help a client improve their health and fitness, you can often witness a full transformation of character. It’s hard to believe it when you’re just starting out, but even your clients will become amazed at what they achieve. - Flexibility
Once you have established a client base, you can more or less choose your hours, days off and holidays. Some trainers work early mornings and early afternoons, and others choose to work late afternoons to evenings. The beauty of it, is that you choose! - High Earning Potential
There is an excellent earning potential for driven personal trainers. Dependant on your location, it’s not uncommon for trainers to charge up to $100 (£70.00) per hour. This can be even more if you choose to do semi-private or boot-camp styled sessions.
3 of the main cons of becoming a personal trainer include:
- Steep learning curve
Personal training isn’t a matter of having knowledge of just training and nutrition - you really have to become a good businessperson, coach, and salesperson as well. - Uncertain income
If you take the freelance personal trainer option, there is no guarantee of income. It comes down to your ability to sell your services and retain your clients. - Draining Work
Doing back-to-back sessions sounds easy, but the reality is that the work is mentally and physically draining.
Should you do it?
With all that being said, we don’t want you to think the cons should put you off. We’ve created this guide to help you overcome some of them. Read on to find out the 7 steps to becoming a personal trainer.
1. Start with Why
The popular business book by Simon Sinek called “Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action” encourages business owners to approach their business by answering the big question - “why?”
You’ll be putting some long hours in at the beginning, so having a “why” will help to keep you motivated.
Not only will it keep you motivated, but it will also make it much easier to sell your service to potential clients.
For many personal trainers, fitness changed their lives in such drastic ways that the natural next step was for them to inspire and coach others on making similar changes.
Once you’ve figured out your “why”, you can then figure out the “what” and the “how”. However, as Simon says, it all starts with “why”.
On the surface, personal training looks like the best job in the world for anyone interested in health and fitness.
You get to work in a gym, train when you like and talk fitness all day with your peers and clients.
While this isn't completely untrue, there are a lot more facets to becoming a personal trainer that most people thinking about joining the industry overlook.
The Physical Demands
The physical demands of personal training can be challenging for some individuals. You might be in great shape, but you may still grow tired of the constant work required to stay in shape after a few years. Check out this video Frank Torres on his day as a trainer...
You might also experience personal injury from overexertion if you are not careful. You will often have to demonstrate exercises or do them alongside your client to keep them motivated. Pushing yourself too hard in one day with multiple clients will take its toll on your body if you are not monitoring your own activities.
Scheduled rest and proper nutrition (the same thing you advice your clients) is essential.
The Psychological Demands
The psychological demands of personal trainers are often too much for beginners to the industry; in fact, between the psychological and physical demands of the industry, most people change professions within six months to a year.
One of the great psychological challenges to overcome is the limited and potentially sporadic client base. It often takes years to develop a loyal client base and many people are not prepared for the uncertainty and commitment involved with building clients over time. If you are a good trainer who works hard and chooses a niche, you will grow your client base organically over time – but you must be patient in the meantime.
Professional Development
Other areas in which some personal trainers can struggle is always providing motivation and learning about new trends in diet and exercise. Personal trainers do not have the luxury of being unmotivated or taking a day off from exercise as they likely have at least one client most days, and if they work at a gym, they still have to get up and go to work even if they do not have any clients scheduled.
Self-motivation does not exist in everyone. In addition, personal trainers must have a passion for continued learning. You must be current on all the latest science in diet and exercise to be able to cater to each of your clients. If you do not have the motivation to remain knowledgeable and to be seen as an industry professional, your career will not last long.
It is not enough that a personal trainer learn the latest exercise trends. A personal trainer must also train in these trends to be able to properly teach their clients. This could require dozens of hours in additional workouts outside of client training sessions in order to become qualified to teach others.
If you do not take the time to learn how to do them yourself properly, you run the risk of injuring your clients by improperly executing the new exercise without professional guidance. All professions require continued training, and personal trainers are no different.
2. Get Qualified
The next step is to get your qualification. There are different industry requirements in different countries, so we’ll outline England and America. If you are in a different country, we recommend you do your due diligence and find out the laws and requirements for specific gyms.
While the industry still lacks governing bodies and you may even find some people training clients without a qualification, no qualification means no insurance and that could result in massive claims.
So getting qualified as a personal trainer is pretty essential and choosing the right qualification can seem like finding a needle in a haystack.
England
You are required to get a level 2 fitness instructor certification followed by a level 3 diploma. There are many schools offering these qualifications. It’s a competitive market place, and some schools use more online learning, whereas others teach with lots of face-to-face learning.
You will want to make sure the school is Active IQ recognised to increase your chances of getting a job post qualification. You can then choose whether to go on the REPs (Register of Exercise Professionals) or NRPT (National Register of Personal Trainers).
While the industry still lacks governing bodies and you may even find some people training clients without a qualification, no qualification means no insurance and that could result in massive claims.
So getting qualified as a personal trainer is pretty essential and choosing the right qualification can seem like finding a needle in a haystack.
England
You are required to get a level 2 fitness instructor certification followed by a level 3 diploma. There are many schools offering these qualifications. It’s a competitive market place, and some schools use more online learning, whereas others teach with lots of face-to-face learning.
You will want to make sure the school is Active IQ recognised to increase your chances of getting a job post qualification. You can then choose whether to go on the REPs (Register of Exercise Professionals) or NRPT (National Register of Personal Trainers).
Course (UK) |
Cost |
£1,100 |
|
£1,500 |
|
£1,400 |
|
£2,250 |
|
£2,100 |
|
£2,400 |
|
£3,000 |
|
£1,500 |
|
£4,800 |
|
£899 |
USA
There are a lot of different options when it comes to finding an education provider. You want to make sure the schools is accredited by an independent third party, such as the NCCA.
Some of the most popular options for American personal trainers include:
Course (USA) |
Exam Cost |
$289 |
|
$300 |
|
$349 |
|
$350 |
|
$199 |
|
$477 |
|
$599 |
|
$399 |
|
$279 |
With the rise in super cheap online personal training courses and the more popular leading personal trainer course providers, it can be tricky to know where to spend your money.
Read More: Personal Trainer Course List
Each course provider has price ranges and it's pro and cons. Do a little digging to see which course will be most suited to your long term goals.
3. Choose a Path
One of the most important decisions to make at the beginning of your career is whether you choose to find employment in a gym, or go freelance from day 1.
Employed
Your first option would be to find employment as a trainer in either a gym or a smaller personal training studio.
You would either get paid a set hourly rate per session or a regular monthly salary. Your time would be spent training clients and not doing any of the “business stuff” such as sales and marketing.
There is some stability in this option. If you think you’d feel more comfortable gaining some experience before going freelance, we recommend this option.
Freelance
The alternative is to freelance from day 1. You are relying on your own ability to attract clients, market your services and keep everything well organised.
The earning potential is higher, but if you haven’t done it before, it can be quite a scary decision. However, all skills are learnable. Many people have started with 0 experience and gone on to build fantastic businesses by learning constantly as their business grew.
If you do end up deciding to go this route, the next step would be finding a gym.
The way it usually works in a gym, as a freelance trainer, is you would have to pay gym rent. This is similar to how a hairdresser rents a chair.
The prices for rent can range anywhere from £400 per month to £1,200 per month in a place like GymBox in central London.
A great option in the UK is to go to a big box commercial gym, such as Pure Gym. A lot of the big box gyms allow you to work 15-hours per week in exchange for gym rent. This is great when you are starting up, as you may wish to have a part-time job whilst you build your client base.
If you do decide to find employment as opposed to going freelance, we encourage you to set the goal to go freelance after you feel confident in your ability as a trainer. Getting clients in these gyms isn’t as difficult as you might seem. We’ll cover that in more details shortly.
Read More: Business Mindset Course
Employed
Your first option would be to find employment as a trainer in either a gym or a smaller personal training studio.
You would either get paid a set hourly rate per session or a regular monthly salary. Your time would be spent training clients and not doing any of the “business stuff” such as sales and marketing.
There is some stability in this option. If you think you’d feel more comfortable gaining some experience before going freelance, we recommend this option.
Freelance
The alternative is to freelance from day 1. You are relying on your own ability to attract clients, market your services and keep everything well organised.
The earning potential is higher, but if you haven’t done it before, it can be quite a scary decision. However, all skills are learnable. Many people have started with 0 experience and gone on to build fantastic businesses by learning constantly as their business grew.
If you do end up deciding to go this route, the next step would be finding a gym.
The way it usually works in a gym, as a freelance trainer, is you would have to pay gym rent. This is similar to how a hairdresser rents a chair.
The prices for rent can range anywhere from £400 per month to £1,200 per month in a place like GymBox in central London.
A great option in the UK is to go to a big box commercial gym, such as Pure Gym. A lot of the big box gyms allow you to work 15-hours per week in exchange for gym rent. This is great when you are starting up, as you may wish to have a part-time job whilst you build your client base.
If you do decide to find employment as opposed to going freelance, we encourage you to set the goal to go freelance after you feel confident in your ability as a trainer. Getting clients in these gyms isn’t as difficult as you might seem. We’ll cover that in more details shortly.
Read More: Business Mindset Course
4. Learn How to Get Results for Clients
So, you're qualified and ready to train your very first client…You may even have ideas of the gym you’re going to work in. But, what’s the next step?
Well, the next step is learning how to get results for your clients. It can be quite overwhelming, as sometimes the PT qualifications can be lacking some vital information. Lucky for us, there are a great number of resources out there that help the aspiring personal trainer improve.
If you take this area of study seriously, it will give you much more confidence in your ability. At the end of the day, the confidence to sell your service stems from how confident you are at delivering the service and getting results for your client.
I remember the first day I got onto the gym floor. I had tonnes of confidence training myself. I had trained for a few years.
Now, my first client was a 55-year-old lady with 0 exercise experience. I was terrified and unsure what was best for her.
I had to get studying and start finding the best strategy.
The resources that helped me the most to learn how to effectively get results for my clients included:
Well, the next step is learning how to get results for your clients. It can be quite overwhelming, as sometimes the PT qualifications can be lacking some vital information. Lucky for us, there are a great number of resources out there that help the aspiring personal trainer improve.
If you take this area of study seriously, it will give you much more confidence in your ability. At the end of the day, the confidence to sell your service stems from how confident you are at delivering the service and getting results for your client.
I remember the first day I got onto the gym floor. I had tonnes of confidence training myself. I had trained for a few years.
Now, my first client was a 55-year-old lady with 0 exercise experience. I was terrified and unsure what was best for her.
I had to get studying and start finding the best strategy.
The resources that helped me the most to learn how to effectively get results for my clients included:
Lift The Bar
Lift The Bar is an online resource for personal trainers. The amount of content you on here for £40 is amazing. Some of the exercise progression and programming for the general population is off the charts. They also have some business and nutrition training.
Lift The Bar is an online resource for personal trainers. The amount of content you on here for £40 is amazing. Some of the exercise progression and programming for the general population is off the charts. They also have some business and nutrition training.
Allan Thrall’s YouTube Channel
Allan Thrall is a strength coach with a popular YouTube channel. He owns a gym and is an avid powerlifter. His coaching videos on the major compound lifts are some of the best I have found.
Athlean-X YouTube Channel
Jeff Cavalier is a personal trainer with some high-quality content on exercise, nutrition and healthy living.
Jeff Cavalier is a personal trainer with some high-quality content on exercise, nutrition and healthy living.
Ben Coomber’s Podcast
Ben Coomber is a nutritionist who provides excellent nutrition advice. He runs a successful podcast called “Ben Coomber Radio” which can be found on iTunes. He explains things in a straightforward manner that is easy for anyone to understand. This can help you simplify key principles to your clients.
Ben Coomber is a nutritionist who provides excellent nutrition advice. He runs a successful podcast called “Ben Coomber Radio” which can be found on iTunes. He explains things in a straightforward manner that is easy for anyone to understand. This can help you simplify key principles to your clients.
5. – Market Your Services
Once you're confident in your skills and abilities as a trainer, the
next step is to let people know about your service by doing some
marketing.
You don’t need to do a marketing degree, but having a basic understanding will provide more chances for you to generate potential customers, otherwise known as leads, for your business.
The goal of all your marketing should be to build a relationship with potential clients and get them in for either a taster session or consultation. Some of the key activities include:
Website & SEO
Having a website is one of the easiest, most reliable and fastest ways to generate leads in the local area. Imagine every time someone searched for “Personal Trainer [Your Hometown]” and your name came at the top of the search.
You don’t need to do a marketing degree, but having a basic understanding will provide more chances for you to generate potential customers, otherwise known as leads, for your business.
The goal of all your marketing should be to build a relationship with potential clients and get them in for either a taster session or consultation. Some of the key activities include:
Website & SEO
Having a website is one of the easiest, most reliable and fastest ways to generate leads in the local area. Imagine every time someone searched for “Personal Trainer [Your Hometown]” and your name came at the top of the search.
We recommend investing in a professional personal trainer website that will be an asset to your business and generate your leads for the next few years.
Social Media
Having active social media accounts can help you portray your brand and who you are trying to help. Social media is like the modern business card for a personal trainer.
You can add people you meet on the gym floor to your business social media accounts and they will see your updates, which will help them build a relationship with you.
The most popular for relationship building are Facebook and Instagram.
Seminars
You could host seminars in the gym you work at or at offices in the local area. For example, you could create a seminar on “Fat Loss and Nutrition for Busy Professionals”.
This will set you up as the expert in the gym that is willing to go above and beyond.
Printed Out Recipe Cards
You could try printing out recipes and laminating them, with your logo and contact details on, and handing them out in exercise classes or on the gym floor. It’s a great conversation starter and provides additional value inexpensively for you.
Gym Floor
Helping out people on the gym floor and starting conversations people will always be the best way to meet clients. It takes courage but gets easier after you’ve done it a few times. We recommend speaking to at least 1 new person each day on the gym floor.
6. Learn to Sell
Most people shudder at the thought of sales.
What helped me the most, was to reframe the whole sales process. I stopped thinking of it as sales and started thinking of myself as a consultant.
I wasn’t there to “close” the potential client – I was there to consult them.
I wanted to really understand their situation and see whether I could help them with their health and fitness goals.
If you went to a doctor, you sat down and before saying anything he said “You need to 5 tablets and 4 injections per day for 1 month” you’d think he was out of his mind!
Instead, a doctor takes the time to listen to you, diagnose your situation and then offer solutions to your problems.
You should also approach it this way.
The top 3 resources that helped me learn to sell personal training better include:
Brian Tracy – The Psychology of Selling
This is an excellent book, written by the popular success author Brian Tracy. He was a top performing sales manager during his career.
TeamFitBoss YouTube Channel
This is a YouTube channel with a series of around 15 videos in a playlist that teach you how to effectively start conversations with people on the gym floor, and how to convert them into clients.
Institute of Personal Trainers
We have tonnes of resources of sales. Join the iPT here
What helped me the most, was to reframe the whole sales process. I stopped thinking of it as sales and started thinking of myself as a consultant.
I wasn’t there to “close” the potential client – I was there to consult them.
I wanted to really understand their situation and see whether I could help them with their health and fitness goals.
If you went to a doctor, you sat down and before saying anything he said “You need to 5 tablets and 4 injections per day for 1 month” you’d think he was out of his mind!
Instead, a doctor takes the time to listen to you, diagnose your situation and then offer solutions to your problems.
You should also approach it this way.
The top 3 resources that helped me learn to sell personal training better include:
Brian Tracy – The Psychology of Selling
This is an excellent book, written by the popular success author Brian Tracy. He was a top performing sales manager during his career.
TeamFitBoss YouTube Channel
This is a YouTube channel with a series of around 15 videos in a playlist that teach you how to effectively start conversations with people on the gym floor, and how to convert them into clients.
Institute of Personal Trainers
We have tonnes of resources of sales. Join the iPT here
7. Retain Your Clients
So, you’ve got your skills as a trainer. Your confidence in your ability to generate leads. You’re thinking of yourself as a consultant and your selling plenty of personal training.
The final step in building your business is retaining your clients.
One of the best ways to retain clients is through creating a sense of community and belonging.
We recommend two ways for doing this.
The first is something I did – which was to create a Bootcamp. It was held at 09:45 every Sunday morning and it was included for all my clients to attend.
It brought everyone together, and it created a tight-knit community.
It only lasted 45 minutes, but the value it gave my clients was massive.
The second is to have a private Facebook Group. You can answer questions, create challenges and encourage people to post content in there.
You can also create posts or do Facebook lives which improves the experience for your clients.
Either way, you want to keep in contact with them outside of the session too. Being a coach isn’t just about having knowledge about training people. It’s about building a solid relationship with someone and getting them to achieve a result.
The final step in building your business is retaining your clients.
One of the best ways to retain clients is through creating a sense of community and belonging.
We recommend two ways for doing this.
The first is something I did – which was to create a Bootcamp. It was held at 09:45 every Sunday morning and it was included for all my clients to attend.
It brought everyone together, and it created a tight-knit community.
It only lasted 45 minutes, but the value it gave my clients was massive.
The second is to have a private Facebook Group. You can answer questions, create challenges and encourage people to post content in there.
You can also create posts or do Facebook lives which improves the experience for your clients.
Either way, you want to keep in contact with them outside of the session too. Being a coach isn’t just about having knowledge about training people. It’s about building a solid relationship with someone and getting them to achieve a result.
Should You Become a Personal Trainer?
Personal training can be an extremely rewarding career. Don’t rush the decision – it’s a big commitment but if you take the decision seriously, commit to lifelong self-improvement and genuinely care about helping others, you will find solemn in being a personal trainer.
Clearly, the field of personal training is not for everyone, but individuals who are able to cope with the psychological and physical demands of the personal trainer industry can be highly successful.
Those who succeed as personal trainers will have a positive energy, a drive to learn new things, an understanding of their limitations, suitable specializations and a work ethic to build and maintain their client base. Only you can decide whether you should become a personal trainer; but if these qualities describe you, you could very well make an excellent one.
Clearly, the field of personal training is not for everyone, but individuals who are able to cope with the psychological and physical demands of the personal trainer industry can be highly successful.
Those who succeed as personal trainers will have a positive energy, a drive to learn new things, an understanding of their limitations, suitable specializations and a work ethic to build and maintain their client base. Only you can decide whether you should become a personal trainer; but if these qualities describe you, you could very well make an excellent one.
