If you have a passion for fitness, you might be tempted to retrain as a personal trainer to make some money with this hobby. However, this can require more work than you might initially think.
Here are some of the things that you need to ensure that you have if you want to launch yourself as a successful PT.
The Right Training
It is not enough for you to step foot in a gym and start training clients without the right training. This is not the same as training yourself. You need to have a deep understanding of the human body and how it works. You have to be able to create effective workouts that can be adjusted as the client needs, and you also need to be able to scale things up or down as required.
This is not as easy as it might initially sound. Ideally, you should be attaining at least a level 3 diploma in fitness. This is the minimum that most gyms will accept if you want to work for them as a trainer. You need to get these sorts of qualifications behind you if you want to be taken seriously in the industry.
Without them, there is a real chance that you might end up recommending the wrong thing – potentially ending up with clients who can’t see results or even ones who injure themselves.
A Place to Work From
If you want to work as a PT, you need to have a space to do so from. Most commercial gyms do not let any old PT in to train clients. Though you will be able to come in and train yourself, you could swiftly earn yourself a ban if you are caught training others.
If you want to be able to train someone in this environment, you will have to be hired as a trainer for that gym group. This will include responsibilities like cleaning the gym and taking classes on top of your PT activities.
You could alternatively find a gym that just lets you rent a space there, so you could take clients in and out as you please. This means you won’t have to work shifts and could give you a bit more flexibility, but it does mean that you will lose the income from shift work. If you want to be a travelling PT who goes to your clients, remember that this means you will have to invest in equipment.
Business Acumen
This is going to be your business and you need to make sure that you have the business acumen needed to maintain it. You could have a good pool of clients and some fantastic plans to put them on. However, it will all be for nothing if you are not able to deliver a good business plan right alongside it.
A business is a business regardless of the industry it is. If you do not have what it takes to be able to create a healthy and successful business, you are not going to be able to cut it as a PT. Make sure you know a little about how to successfully run a brand before taking a dive into this world.
These are three key things you need to know if you want to be a personal trainer. Though you might have an idea about who you would like your clients to be and what your brand will be, you need to make sure you hit the above three points too.
If you want to retrain as a personal trainer, you need to lay the groundwork that will allow you to do so.
Photo by bruce mars on Unsplash
