What Does It Take to Become a Personal Trainer?

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.

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. 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.

1. Do Your Research

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.

​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

To train clients as a personal trainer, one needs to be qualified. 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.

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.

My advice would be to stick with a leading body like Discovery Learning and Fitness Industry Education if you're in the UK. Or the American College of Sports Medicine and the National Academy of Sports Medicine if you're in the US.

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

Once you've become a personal trainer, you need to decide on whether to become an employed personal trainer or a self employed PT.

The decisions very much lies in how you wish to gain experience.

Employed Personal Trainer

As an employed personal trainer you'll be able to practice personal training almost immediately. The employer you work for will likely have systems in place for gaining new clients so much of the business and marketing is done for you.

This is ideal for you if you have no business skills.

Self Employed Personal Trainer

As a self employed personal trainer you'll be expected to build your own business and obtain your own clients. This is where most personal trainers struggle.

Becoming a personal trainer business owner is a massive mindset shift that requires you wear multiple hats. You'd be expected to market your business, obtain new clients, build systems and manage finances.

Read More: Business Mindset Course

4. Become a Business Owner

Whether you choose to be employed or a self employed personal trainer, the next progression for you as a personal trainer is to become your own boss. This is usually what most people become a personal trainer for.

Becoming a business owner means going it alone without the support of an employer. It's often a tricky step both mentally and financially.

The number one reason newcomers often flee the industry quickly because they learn that while it is possible to earn a good living working as a personal trainer, this income does not come easily and without hard work.

New PT's may be comfortable with the challenging physical work but they are often not prepared for the additional personal trainer marketing and business knowledge that's involved.

A personal training certificate is not enough to run a successful business and personal trainers that do succeed are often the ones that invest in some kind of marketing and business course for personal trainers.

​Most entry level personal trainers are not particularly well paid and these individuals are often ill equipped to retain long-term clients early on in their career. It takes time to develop these non-physical skills to increase your personal trainer salary and many individuals are not willing to put in the necessary time and effort.

Should You Become 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.

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