Any personal trainers in here?

[Gustov]

Hey guys,

So essentially, I'm asking for advice. My background lies in Film Marketing and PR but I resigned a little while ago.

I'm trying to take advantage of this time I have and weigh up my options and my future career path.

I know that I would rather manage myself and work in a gym environment as opposed to an office.

I have a lot of interest in healthy living, hit the gym 5/6 times a week and eat nutritious food. I guess my future goal would be to advise people on nutrition as well as their workout routine (it astounds me how ignorant and vulnerable to marketing the British public are when it comes to food)

I understand that initially the money isn't great and that's fine, I've come to understand that a high-end salary is not the priority in my life, happiness is!

My questions are as below please:

Where would be the best place to get qualified?

How much does it cost and how long does it take?

Am I right in saying you would work for a gym initially and then work towards having your own clients?

If anyone who is reading this is a PT for a living, I'd appreciate any general thoughts.

Thanks in advance.

 

[~Lithium~]

The way I understand it is that most gyms (possibly the one(s) you go to already) have their own certified ‘courses’ which you need to pay for before they will allow you to offer your own personal training (or other services like training plans) within their gym (about £2k). You then pay them a fee for the use of the gym – I’m pretty sure the PT I was speaking with before Christmas said it was around £500 p/m. You then manage your own Clients (gym members only) through advertising within the Gym.

The PTs don’t tend to stick around for too long so I assume most either get bored or manage to make enough contacts within the gym to take their own business away from the gym.

I’ve seen a real move recently to large groups using local park/walking routes for private training – I was at the beach the other day and a huge group were using it while it was empty!

I imagine setting something up like this in a large affluent city such as London would be very easy with limited initial start-up funds. I'd certainly look at local physiotherapy centers, particularly sports physio centres as they may be able to offer you some time in the gym for less than a large Chain gym.

As for nutrition, most PTs I doubt have degree level education in the subject, most probably identify those £10 courses that appear on 'Groupon' as being bonafide qualifications - after all, is anyone really going to ask or question you?