Do you love physical fitness, and want to share your passion with others? If so, you may be interested in becoming a personal trainer. As someone who is into physical fitness, you probably already have a lot of experience and skills that are ideal for this type of career. All you have to do is take the last few steps in the process so you can be a certified personal trainer and find work in this field, or set up your own business. First, let’s take a look at the pros and cons of this type of career, and what it takes to get into this line of work.
Pros and Cons of Being a Personal Trainer
Personal training can be a very satisfying career. But, like any career, there are good things and bad things about being a personal trainer. Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of working in this field.
Pros
Helping People – If you love to work with people and help others, a career in personal training can be a great option. You get to work with each client on a personal basis, and help them achieve their own fitness goals.
Job Flexibility – Many personal trainers are able to create their own work schedules, and choose the hours in the day that they want to work.
Rewarding – When you see happy your clients are because they have reached their goals, you feel rewarded because you know you have helped them do this.
Cons
Cancellations – It’s very rare that a personal trainer gets paid by salary. You work with clients, and if they cancel, you don’t get paid. You may have lots of clients one day, and none the next. You’ll have to get used to last-minute schedule changes.
Selling Yourself – If you’re going to work as a personal trainer, you need clients, which means that you have to sell yourself in order to attract those clients. This is not something that everyone is good at doing.
Burnout – As with any job, there’s always the chance that you are going to burn yourself out. If you are training a lot, this can happen very easily. Extended stays in the gym, early or late trainings, these could all lead to exhaustion and burnout.
How to Become a Personal Trainer
Now that you know the good and the bad about being a personal trainer, and you still want to do it, it is time to learn about how to become a personal trainer. One of the first things you will need to do is take a PT course. That will give you the training you need to become a personal trainer at a gym, or even an online PT.
The next step in the process is to become certified, which must be done through an accredited organization, such as the NCCA. If you want to work for a certain employer, you need to learn which certifications they require.
Finding a Job
Once you are certified, you need to find a job. If you are considering a job as an online trainer, you may want to consider working for UP, which has locations in various parts of the world. You can work from anywhere, and help clients reach their goals, even though you aren’t right there with them.
