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About becoming a personal trainer

I agree that you don't need to go to school to learn, and that a dedicated person can even do better in learning outside school than in it.

But if you want employment in that area, you need to either be a very good self-marketer and not worried about lawsuits, or else get a piece of paper from a school. The whole reason for my profession change is being tired of marketing myself, so I need the piece of paper.

It's plain that a lot of the stuff will be known to me already. But the thing about lack of knowledge is that you often don't know you lack it - so I'm sure there'll be things I learn on these courses.

I think also of my experience with cheffing. Anyone can cook - if you can read, you can cook - but cooking a few meals is a different thing to being a chef, who might have to get 12 meals out in eight minutes, or come up with a new dish on the spot because something's run out, or organise the kitchen and ordering so you don't run out of anything, and so on.

It's one thing to know all the facts about something, and another to bring those facts together into a profession.

The shorter courses I'm not taking for two reasons.

Firstly, they're more expensive. I'm getting married at the end of the year, and we've a trip to Peru planned as our honeymoon next Easter. So an extra thousand or two here or there makes a big difference to us.

Secondly, finding employment is harder with the shorter courses. Now, my own personal knowledge and experience may or may not make up for the brevity of the course - but a potential employer may not realise or even agree with that in an interview. Rather than 2 months course + 4 months job hunting, I'd rather have 5 months course + 1 month's job hunting.

It's a change of career, and if all goes well will be my career for twenty years or more. Given that, a few extra months isn't a big deal.
 
So today I cycled over to Moorabbin campus to sign up. It's a bleak place, poorly-designed for student life. The car parking is within the campus rather than all in a ring around the buildings, so there are few public spaces for the students to hang out and socialise. That's probably why all the student activities are organised by the university, rather than having lots of clubs and societies.

As I was enrolling, I said, "I hope I won't be the oldest one in class!" and the woman just shook her head and said, "nooooo...." in a drawn-out, "oh hell no!" sort of way. I hope for a good mix of people.

I went and took a look at the gym, it's about four times the size of my community gym. I understand that after the first couple of weeks we'll spend a couple of sessions each week there; being a student, even a student of fitness, doesn't grant automatic membership, strangely.

So now I guess Monday and Tuesday with classes on all day will become my rest days from my actual gym. That's okay, they're the busiest days there anyway.

The gym and the lecture rooms are in the same building as people doing cookery certificates, it's almost like a phased transition for me.
 
Will you be working full time while you are studying?

If not, short course makes sense to me.
Get qualified and get working/experienced asap.
 
My self-employment was part-time already, about 20-30 hours a week. I'll be able to keep that up while studying.

As I said, I'm getting married at the end of the year, so anything we can do to reduce cash outgoings we go for.
 
I doubt it.

I get decent rates per head, but I have to buy the food, rent the kitchen space, pay for advertising, do samples, then there's GST and a shitload of paperwork, etc.

Pain in the bum. I just wanted to cook.
 
Hey kyle,

I'm starting to hate my job hardcore, 4th year apprentice and i'm studying engineering through tafe, I don't really like my job, nor the engineering cert, well actually i lie, the engineering cert would be awesome If I could do it at tafe during the day, ATM i do it via correspondance and it pains me.

I think after I finish my apprenticeship in January, I might look at something diffferent. I definetly couldn't be a PT, I'd like to own a gym and do it my way, but thats never happening.

I was looking on the TAFE website for a course, in the fitness or health industry that I might like, but tbh PT seems like the only option without going to uni. Did you find anything similiar to PT, what i mean by that is similiar in terms of the fitness industry.

Basically just having a whinge here dont mind me.



EDIT: PTC @ Frankston - This looks like an epic job, i reckon, running your own gym, how you want to so it!!!!
 
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There's a Diploma of Fitness.

There are also other certs and diplomas like Event Management, running a small business, nutrition and so on. Rather than looking through the list of courses which will take you forever and leave you confused, what's easier is to decide exactly what you'd like to do day-to-day, and then find a job which does that, or a course leading to a job which does that.
 
Kyle Aaron said:
For example, there's this bloke Markos who runs PTC FRANKSTON he has no certificates at all, just experience. Apparently his methods get some results, though I imagine if there were any injuries he mightn't tell us about them.
Click to expand...

i train at PTC once a week, Markos knows his shit and the people he trains all get top results, myself included. it is definitley not for the faint-hearted though. 200kg+ deadlifts happen on daily basis, heck even one of the girls deadlifts 135kg, all lifts are raw. no belts, no straps, no gloves just chalk. He also has over 30 years experiance in the industry, his wife holds national powerlifting records and his brother also competed as a powerlifter. He considers this a minimal amount of experience before training others :D

oh yeah theres f**k all injuries too
 
It'd be interesting for you to start a thread discussing your PTC experiences. It's good to hear of different ways different people train, and Markos' methods are very much "old school".
 
Have a read through the newsletters on his website, they basically give a run down on whats happening in the gym each week and he gives his thoughts and advice on training and diet. my experiences are pretty much the same as any other lifters mentioned in there
 
I spent all weekend reading thru the newsletters on Markos' website. It was fascinating reading... wish I lived in VIC so that I could train at a place like that! Now I just need to find something similar in sydney...
 
I had my first day of classes today. The class is some 28 people, which was larger than I expected, and apparently surprised the teacher, too. I don't know if that's like they have at unis - they over-enrol, expecting that a large number will drop out quickly, leaving a decent class size afterwards.

About 2/3 are men, and 1/3 women. About half are young (21 or under), and the other half quite varied. I noticed one Indian or Sri Lankan man, one Asian man, and one Israeli woman, otherwise all pretty whitebread.

Nobody was obese or super-skinny. A couple of people were overweight, and there are at least three smokers - the smoking surprised me. There are about three people with obviously fit and strong physiques, and a couple of men who are obviously just strong. The rest look pretty ordinary.

First classes were pretty bureaucratic stuff. "Risk". You can't just say, "hey, who was the dickhead who put this bench press right in the doorway? Let's move it." Nope, it all has to be written down, what is the hazard, what could happen, how likely is it, get a numerical value for the risk, recommend a response... etc.

But cheffing had HACCP (hazard analysis of critical control points) which was almost exactly the same thing but for cooking - "no, it's a bad idea to defrost the chicken on the bench overnight" etc. In theory everyone is constantly filling out forms and writing out procedures, in practice people just take normal care of things and tick boxes so that if anyone sues you, you can say, "hey look, a piece of paper with boxes ticked, see? Can't blame us." The teacher didn't say that, that was just my HACCP experience ;)

I suppose it is useful to formalise things for people who aren't used to thinking things through in that thorough way.

It seems that the classes are pretty easy-going in that each session or day they want to teach you X, and once they're satisfied you've got the idea, the session is over, bye-bye go home.

Two days a week will be some kind of gym session - learning and coaching - and one day a week, far as I can tell, will be theory - anatomy and the like I suppose.
 
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Yesterday in our gym session, I had one guy stand and shake his head, "I hate gyms, this is crap."

Looking at him, he was obviously strong though not lean, so I said, "Obviously you work out, though. So if not gyms, what do you do?"

"A lot of kettlebell work."

"Ah, okay. That's hard stuff."

"Yeah. These machines are useless. Free weights are much better."

"I do think free weights are better, but machines aren't useless. In the end you're lifting weight against gravity."

"Yeah but free weights are better."

"I agree. But in the end, the best workout is one you stick to. We might get a client who doesn't want to or can't use free weights much for some reason. It's better for them to use machines than use nothing."

"All the best bodybuilders and powerlifters didn't get that way just from using machines."

"Probably not, but most people don't want to become professional bodybuilders or powerlifters, they want strength and fitness for their daily lives or some sport they're doing. For that, they have to work out steadily. So whatever they can and will do, that's what we should encourage - though maybe add in a few other things to try to open their minds and push their bodies a bit."

He grunted and stopped talking.

Later someone else came along and said to me that machines were heaps better than free weights because free weights were so dangerous and offered no extra benefits compared to machines.

Being open to new ideas, and tailoring the workout to suit what the client wants to achieve and enjoys doing, this actually seems to be a radical idea for many would-be trainers, and many real trainers. Strange stuff. Probably explains Shrek's feral hatred of them, though.

It would be like me in my chef days sending out pumpkin soup to everyone because that's what I like, and refusing to do a steak well done because I don't like it. Wacky.
 
Hi Kyle,

I'm starting to think like the guy in your last post.
Was walking home last night, and suprisingly came across a new gym, if you could call it a gym.
All he had was kettlebells, oly bars, bumper plates, bar racks for squats, chin up bars and some gymnastic rings, also a couple of big tyres strongman style.
It's similar to a crossfit style set up.
He opened up 6 weeks ago and it's only a small, old, dirty place, his equipment costs were about $2000, as he's on a tight budget.
However, this really appealed to me instantly, as there is purpose and function in the training, competing with each other, and members get personally coached, only $240 for 3 months.
The guy hates personal trainers, even has a sign on he door telling them not to come in.

I'm definately going to join asap, only 300m from my house too :)
I have my own personal gym 170sqm with pretty much every strength training piece of equipment available, but this just seems to appeal to me more.

What can all these under 21 year olds offer to their clients?
They obviously don't have much life experience.
How can they guide others when they haven't got the life experience themselves?
 
I'd definitely be interested, bree - get writing! But I think his mind is set. When I talked to him, he got that closed look in his eyes people get when they're not really listening. It's like tossing a pebble in the pond - you can make a splash, but when you pull the pebble out though it's wet on the outside it hasn't absorbed any water ;)

He was a fairly gruff bloke, hands on hips with a serious stare, wicked sideburns like Wolverine, though he had a lot of smiles and seemed a lot more relaxed when he was on the recumbent bike and the slim, dark-haired busty exotic foreign woman was chatting to him.
 
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