What it takes to become a fitness trainer: steps to getting your dream job

Before starting to study the topic “how to become a fitness trainer?” It is necessary to understand that this fashionable and in-demand profession is not suitable for everyone. Despite the apparent simplicity and simplicity of the specialty, this work is primarily related to the process of forming and maintaining healthy lifestyle habits in people of different ages, sizes and social backgrounds.

• What does it take to become a fitness trainer?
• How to become a fitness trainer from scratch?
• How can a girl become a fitness trainer?
• Where to go to become a fitness trainer?
• How to become a fitness trainer without education?
• How to become a successful fitness trainer?

In this case, the instructor not only acts as a physical guide to the world of healthy lifestyle (drawing up a training program, teaching the principles of proper nutrition, monitoring the technique of doing exercises, adjusting the regime depending on success, etc.), but also motivates his students, demonstrating excellent preparation and excellent well-being .

How physically tough are you?

This question is funny only at first glance. In this article, we look at your career path with a long-term view. The group program instructor is engaged in active physical exercises for several hours a day. The instructor in the gym gets less physically tired, but from long, close communication with the people to whom he provides services, psychological fatigue arises. At the same time, both of them are obliged to radiate positivity, regardless of their mood and well-being. Today, as a hobby, such a load brings you pleasure, but will it be so in 5 or 10 years? Try to assess your health and your capabilities. And answer this question honestly. Especially if you are no longer 20-25 years old. Or you have a championship past with almost inevitable serious injuries behind you... After all, in fitness you can not only be an instructor.

It is with endurance, as well as some psychological aspects, that the employer’s desire to hire young instructors is associated - usually no older than 30-35 years.

Never give advice to clients on personal matters

If your communication with clients is excellent, they share a lot with you and let you in on their secrets, the most important thing you should do is not give advice on personal issues. Even if the client directly asks you for advice, it is better to tactfully change the subject of the conversation or make do with the excuse that you do not know what to do in such a situation.

You are not a personal psychologist or conflict specialist to solve someone’s problems. Remember that once you have given personal advice to your client, you are indirectly responsible for the consequences of its implementation.

Imagine that your advice turned out to be incorrect, and the client made a mistake, did not act as he should have, what then? Most likely, the client will attribute his failures to your bad recommendations. You need it? Of course not! Therefore, give advice only on professional issues: fitness training, proper nutrition, weight correction course.

Are you ready to provide services?

Fitness is a service industry. One of the first true reasons for a client to buy a club card is his urgent need for communication and attention. This means that the instructor must initially be sociable (ready to provide services with pleasure), sociable, non-conflict, and be able to easily find a common language with strangers. Often the instructor has to perform the functions of a personal psychologist, for example, listening to the client’s problems, which is actually not easy. If you love fitness, but diverse and constant communication does not bring you pleasure, you are a deep introvert and do not intend to break yourself, it is better to think about a different professional path.

These two conditions for success as a fitness instructor are determined by nature and are little subject to correction. Next, we will talk about what can and should be acquired on the path of a professional instructor.

How to become a successful fitness trainer?

As we found out, it is possible to become a fitness trainer without education. What does it take to be in demand, effective and highly paid as an employee in the field of sports and healthy lifestyle?

The main thing in increasing the instructor’s expertise and salary is gaining experience and the ability to adapt to different working conditions. The more clients who are different from each other and have real results, the easier it is for him to justify the price of his services.

The results are achieved both by the client’s hard work and the deep knowledge of his mentor, authority and motivator. Here again it is necessary to mention the importance of an integrated approach to work and continuous professional development.

Is there a “salesman” living in you?

The majority of a personal trainer's salary is a percentage of personal trainers sold. A portion (very small) will be provided to you by the minimum included in the club card. And for the main “piece of the pie” you will have to earn money by independently solving the “puzzle” about the client’s real motivation and applying active sales skills. Unfortunately, this moment weighs heavily on many new instructors, and sometimes it is the reason they leave our industry. “I can’t force myself!” - the usual answers of such failed specialists. Who didn’t bother to find out that sales is nothing more than a banal technology with its own secrets, which, if mastered - and, of course, desired - you can become an instructor with a decent salary.

We have come to a very important, often determining condition for success in an instructor’s career -

Is it easy to become a good specialist?

Now I’ll tell you how easy it is to become a good coach, and not just a guy who received a piece of paper and now walks around the hall with an important look and a high nose, fluffing his feathers.

What kind of coach is good? As for me, a good coach is one who has all the necessary information that will help a person transform and, most importantly, will not harm him.

For example, the coach just repeats that the base is what you need for a good result, the golden three, you don’t need anything other than the base, the base is like a mother, one for life. Do the basics and everything will be fine for you, muscles will grow, fat will go away, you will pay off the loan, your wife will return, your children will get a job and it doesn’t matter that they are not even three years old. And he says this to absolutely everyone, both men the size of the cruiser Aurora and girls who can barely raise their hand with a spoonful of buckwheat.

Most likely, such a coach often had dumbbells fall on his head . With such a coach, a person’s prospects are not the brightest.

Yes, undoubtedly, nothing more effective than the base has yet been invented (except for the butterfly, which clings to the abs and burns fat with electrical impulses, naturally). It’s just that it all works together. It’s not enough to just lift weights; you also need to eat right, monitor your rhythm of life, and much more.

A good trainer will definitely find out about the injuries of his ward in order to correctly create a training program that will not harm, but rather strengthen his health.

Another good trainer will always draw up a nutrition program and explain what and how to do.

If from the first training session a coach loads you with a weight that 23 Tajiks can hardly lift, and then also forces you to dig up a garden at his dacha and chop firewood, then you won’t last long with such a coach .

The load must also be selected individually and gradually increased. To do this, a good coach will keep a training diary. Or at least make you do it.

Also, a good coach will always give you maximum attention. No good trainer will allow himself to eat shawarma and watch a new TV series on his phone while you can hardly lift heavy dumbbells off the floor.

And a good coach will always be happy to tell and explain to his ward what exactly he is doing and why.

We’ve figured out the definition of a good coach, now we’ll find out how to become a coach in general.

Are you ready to receive specialized education and constantly improve?

The minimum with which instructors are hired today is licensed courses. Such as in FPA.

Higher (secondary specialized) specialized education is often set as a condition for admission of an instructor to elite clubs. In fact, today they practically DO NOT train fitness instructors. Fitness instructor and coach - skier, gymnast, physical education teacher at school, etc. - DIFFERENT specialties. To work in a fitness club you need SPECIAL knowledge and skills. This means that in reality this education does not have the value that many employers attach.

Some fitness clubs still give preference to former athletes, indicating in the requirements for applicants: “a sports title of at least CCM.” The logic, at first glance, is clear: he has achieved a lot himself and will teach others. But not every athlete can understand the motivation of an ordinary club client, be able to explain to him the intricacies of the training process, or competently answer numerous questions. A coach and an athlete have different goals, different professions! Related, but still different. The tendency of the fitness industry and sports to become increasingly distant from each other is justified.

Until recently, a seasoned muscleman who was able to build muscle mass for himself and a couple of comrades was considered not just an “instructor” - practically a guru. Today people come to clubs not only for the size of their triceps - rather, not even for that. For your health. Behind the beauty of forms, which is not always expressed by hypertrophied muscles. For communication and attention. And the instructor MUST provide all this in order to be a sought-after specialist.

Among the clients there are many girls who come for a “Brazilian” butt, a flat tummy and a flexible figure. Office employees suffering from physical inactivity and a variety of health problems. Future mothers reached out. During the day, you can meet teenagers and older clients in the clubs. Large clubs have children's cards available...

And each client needs an individual approach! A training program written once for everyone (or for a group of clients) is an atavism! After all, the club (and the instructor in the first place) is responsible for the safety of training, at a minimum. Ideally, for their results. This means that quality education is a necessary element for a successful career as a fitness instructor.

To work competently with a huge number of DIFFERENT clients, you need deep, versatile knowledge in fitness training methods, client psychology, and sales skills. Today, getting them is no longer a problem. At least in the capitals. The fitness education market is saturated with a variety of narrow thematic seminars; for example, FPA offers more than 30 of them..

I would like to specifically mention former professional athletes who ended their careers on this path and are looking for work in a related industry. There are many such people in fitness: former skiers, swimmers, gymnasts... An undoubted advantage of such specialists is often the presence of a sports education, which means knowledge of human anatomy and physiology. An important point is to be able to switch from the nuances of training with athletes to working with ordinary clients of a fitness club. They usually have much less motivation to achieve goals and a variety of health problems. Automatic transfer of experience from the field of sports to the field of fitness can be not only unproductive, but also dangerous to the health of clients. Therefore, in this case, specialized instructor courses are necessary.

Attitude towards receiving education is a litmus test for a person’s success in the present and future. Only a willingness to conquer more and more heights, to delve deeper into professional skills, and to invest material and time resources in one’s education can turn a beginner into a pro. And then – years later. If someone hopes that their own experience in fitness is enough, if anything, YouTube’s fitness programs will help, and you can always make money by quietly serving your duty hours in the gym, they are deeply mistaken.

In order to achieve maximum results for the client, sooner or later the instructor becomes cramped within one area, for example, strength training. Or stretching. Or a bike. However, each of them solves a limited range of problems. I would like to replace all such “or” with “and”, to have in my luggage at least several directions with a good theoretical basis and honed in practice. Otherwise, the client goes to other trainers - and money from personal trainers is lost. And the client himself wants variety: today he is attracted only by exercise machines, but tomorrow he wants to try himself in something else. And we must be prepared for such a turn in advance. Therefore, good instructors are constantly learning new techniques and related disciplines: functional training, massage, various types of stretching and relaxation...

The most prepared and experienced eventually become the so-called. universal instructors who are ready to solve almost any client’s problems not only in a fitness club, but also at home or in the office, with a minimum set of equipment. They can provide the services of a trainer, a massage therapist, a nutritionist, and practically a rehabilitation specialist... Ideally, they have a higher specialized (or medical) education behind them and a huge range of specialized programs on narrow training problems. There are still few such station wagons, but the demand for them is constantly growing. Their income is comparable (and sometimes higher) to the income of top managers of a fitness club. Agencies have appeared that recruit such specialists. They are, in the fullest sense, personal trainers. They are valued and passed on by recommendation, which is the highest mark of professional excellence.

To classify instructors based on their experience and education, most clubs use a category system. And the client pays for personal training according to the instructor’s category, and the specialist himself receives a salary based on his category. An instructor usually receives one category or another based on certification results (approximately once a year). In our opinion, this is an honest system of remuneration and personnel evaluation: you receive a new education, improve yourself - and your salary grows accordingly.

Within the framework of our Association, certification of gym instructors has been developed with the title of “Master Trainer” and “Elite Trainer”, which gives their holders additional weight when assessed by employers and clients.

It should be noted that training is not always paid for by the instructor himself. Network clubs almost always provide employees with corporate training, incl. in order to bring the entire instructor corps to the same company standards. Many clubs are ready to train their specialists in third-party educational companies partially or even completely.

Where to go to become a fitness trainer?

When choosing an educational organization, you should pay attention to the following points:

• Popularity and reputation of the training center.

Before enrolling, it is recommended to read reviews from graduates of the institution. As practice shows, the more people strive to get into a certain school, the better the program is designed there. Moreover, a resonant and authoritative name of an educational organization will help you quickly get a job after completing the course.

• Teaching staff.

Obviously, training with world-famous masters of sports and recognized mentors (international judges, national champions, etc.) will help you better learn the basics of specialization, regardless of the initial level of training.

• Training period.

To become a fitness trainer, you need to complete a minimum of 5-week courses with passing several final exams, since 20 days of training with one control test is clearly not enough for competent independent work.

In this regard, it is worth noting the educational programs from the Modern Science and Technology Academy. For more than six years, CHTA has been offering advanced training and professional retraining courses in the field of “Sports and Fitness,” guaranteeing quality education and a high level of competencies.

Are you prepared to work evenings and weekends?

Of course, this is not as important a factor in choosing a profession as the previous ones. But it’s worth imagining your future work schedule. It can be called “free,” but you need to be prepared for the fact that the lion’s share of work still occurs in the evening hours, when others, as a rule, have already finished work. There is also a lot of work on weekends. Accordingly, it will be more difficult to choose the time to communicate with loved ones and friends who live on a five-day schedule from 9 to 18.

If you were able to answer yes to all 6 questions, welcome to one of the most in-demand and noble professions today - helping people stay healthy, improve their quality of life and achieve their goals.

And now to practice: how to become a personal trainer?

Option 1: You are new to fitness and strength training.

1. Take the Gym Instructor program.
2. Obtain a minimum of experience as a gym instructor (at least a few months).
3. Take training in the Personal Fitness Trainer or Personal Fitness Trainer, distance learning program. Note. What is the difference between the Gym Instructor and Personal Fitness Trainer programs?
4. In the future, we recommend attending in-depth seminars in this area, for example, Functional training, Visual assessment of posture and others.
5. Within the framework of our Association, certification of gym instructors has been developed with the title of Master Trainer, Elite Trainer, which gives their holders additional weight when assessed by employers and clients.

Option 2. You have sports experience\experience of your own training and\or higher\secondary specialized specialized education

1. Take training in the Personal Fitness Trainer or Personal Fitness Trainer, distance learning program.
2. In the future, we recommend attending in-depth seminars in this area, for example, Functional training, Visual assessment of posture and others.
3. Within the framework of our Association, certification of gym instructors has been developed with the title of “Master Trainer”, “Elite Trainer”, which gives their holders additional weight when assessed by employers and clients.
   We will tell you how to become a professional trainer, acquire the skills necessary for this profession and continue to improve to improve your qualifications. The experts of our courses and seminars will help you learn all the most important and relevant in the modern world of the fitness industry. Being savvy in theory and experienced in practice, you will be able to establish connections and make useful contacts in this field.
4. Clubs in the business and premium segments welcome the presence of a higher/secondary specialized specialized education: sports, physical education, pedagogical physical education or medical, as well as the presence of sports titles. But this is not a mandatory requirement. Much more important is the level of knowledge and skills that the applicant demonstrates during the interview.

Sports experience

Another factor that plays into your hands is experience in sports. Why? Everything is very simple. A person who is or has been involved in sports objectively knows more than others about what the training process is and how it is built. What is a regimen and proper nutrition? What is motivation, goal setting and hard work to achieve it. In other words, even a cyclist, skier or swimmer who wants to become a fitness trainer will have a better chance of finding a job than someone who has never played sports. Even if you are 30, 40 or 50 years old and you can no longer boast of an athletic physique, the knowledge and experience of playing sports will definitely play into your hands. Tip #4: Play sports (any kind).

Don't forget to use media for self-promotion

Nowadays, not using the media space for self-promotion is a big mistake. Today, almost all people are registered in at least one social network, many actively watch videos on Youtube, and use search engines to obtain the necessary information.

Therefore, a fitness trainer who expects success and a large number of clients should take advantage of the opportunities of free online advertising. To create your own account and thematic group on social networks, you will need no more than an hour of time. But by regularly updating motivational photos, videos and posts advertising your services, you can significantly expand your circle of clients.

Involve existing clients in your group, let them leave reviews about your work, give advice, share your best practices, post photos of your real achievements in personal training, and the result will not be long in coming.

Be careful with customer gratitude

Nobody says that you should not accept congratulations, flowers and chocolates on your birthday and other important holidays. Clients want to show you their gratitude, and they will be pleased if you are happy about it.

But every gratitude must have its own measure. For example, an invitation to dinner in a cafe, tickets to a concert and other invitations to spend time together are already attempts by the client to switch to personal communication with you.

Know that if a client becomes your friend, he may ask for a lenient attitude towards him, which the management of the fitness center does not always like. Try not to single out those in your client group who you have made friends with. All clients should be equal.

Don't discuss other clients with clients

Many people love to gossip, especially women. Therefore, immediately stop all attempts by some clients to discuss other clients.

If a client told you about something personal, a secret, a problem or a joyful moment, and another client would like to know it too, then keep your mouth shut. Let clients tell each other what they want, but you should not be an intermediary in the transfer of information.

In the end, for successful fitness trainers, word of mouth begins to work over time, when clients come on the recommendation of their acquaintances, friends, relatives, and colleagues. Some of your clients may know each other well, but this still does not give you the right to discuss your mutual acquaintances.

Speak intelligently

A fitness trainer, of course, is not an orator or speaker, but he still must speak competently. Avoid:

• slang;
• colloquial expressions;
• profanity;
• Be tactful and polite in your communication.

Address your clients as “you” and switch to “you” only if they themselves ask for it. Remember the names and patronymics of all your clients: you should not get confused with names and make mistakes when addressing your clients.

Theoretical knowledge

The theoretical basis for training a personal trainer is formed by knowledge in the field of:

• anatomy;
• dietetics;
• physiology;
• biochemistry;
• a healthy diet, according to your goals (rules for building a training program, diet for gaining muscle, losing excess weight);
• medicine.

Don't use clients to solve your problems

Among your clients there may be very influential people, businessmen or representatives of socially significant professions (doctors, teachers, etc.). Do not try to find out which of them is which, and then use your acquaintance and communication for personal gain.

Do not ask your clients to help solve your problems or resolve any issues. Perhaps they will help you, but then it is possible that your reputation will suffer. The trainer receives money for training clients, and they do not owe him anything. And don’t try to actively tell clients about your problems so that they themselves offer their help (read the paragraph above about problem-free trainers).