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About becoming a personal trainer

Last night a client was doing powercleans and later deadlifts, halfway through his session I saw blood on his shins. I kept telling him to pull the bar closer to his body, I guess he must have been listening. He hadn't even noticed, I offered to stop the session to get him some bandaids, he didn't want to stop.

Very dedicated trainee, a pity all he wants is sixpack abs, with his training intensity he could do great things in many sports.
 
Ironically, just today I was at a staff meeting at the other gym and they were talking about the importance of keeping the gym clean.

Yesterday at that other gym, a gym-goer came up to me to complain, "I saw a girl get off the bike, and she didn't spray it with steriliser and wipe it down afterwards!" (The gym provides a citrus mix spray bottle and oodles of paper towels for this purpose.)
"Terrible, I agree. I know which young woman you mean, trust me, she doesn't work hard enough to sweat anyway."
"But... someone else might see it, and see the bad example, then they wouldn't wipe their sweat, either! It's a hygiene issue."
"It's unpleasant and icky, yes. In fact there are few diseases which can be transmitted by sweat. It's certainly unpleasant, but I don't think you need fear in hygiene terms."
"But... My wife comes in, and she often has to wipe down the equipment before she uses it!"
"That must be very annoying for her. I'll watch people more closely in future."
"You should! This is a very serious issue!" (Yes, he really said that.)
"I''ll certainly keep an eye out for it. Please understand, though, that as the gym's a public place with many people coming and going, we can never make things perfect."
"Well you should try harder!"
"I will. But as I said, we'll never get things perfect. People are messy. For example, I notice that after doing the bench press today, you left the weight plates on the bar, and over there on the rack you've put a 20kg plate on top of a 2.5kg plate, makes the smaller plates rather difficult to get to. Think of that young woman, do you think she'd be lifting 20kg plates off the bar?"
"..."
"I'll certainly watch out for people sweating on machinery and not cleaning it up, thankyou for bringing it to my attention."

If sweat upsets him that much, I don't like to imagine his indignation if anyone were to bleed on the gear.

At the meeting, they stressed the importance of us as trainers setting a good example, and wiping down machines and benches after our clients have used them. This will be easy for me, I try not to prescribe exercises using machines and benches. Where possible, they work standing upright.

I suppose someone could demand we sterilise the bars. But so far, I have not seen anyone wipe down a barbell. I suppose the sort of people who do barbell exercises aren't that squeamish.
 
Don't send the guy to my place he might get discolored skin from rusted plates and cry. I personally wouldn't want to lie in someone elses cold sweat but really making such a big issue when you don't even clean up after yourself is a little hypocritical.
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Tell your bloody shin guy to wear shin pads or thick knee high socks when deadlifting or cleaning. I often wear my soccer ones, only $10 a pair. Don't get your DNA on the bar, as Rippetoe would say.
 
Polite honesty where you neither take nor give shit tends to leave people speechless, DKD. They're used to a mixture of aggro, bullshit and fawning. Just look at how journos handle Tony Abbott vs how they handle Julia Gillard. They don't know what to do with Gillard, she never arcs up, she's just calm, firm and polite the whole time. It seriously ****s with their heads.

Dave, it's true there are a lot of precious people out there. I find that few of them do barbell exercises. Sensitive souls tend to stick to cardio. Not sure why.

Yes, Dan, I told him to wear trackies or long socks next time.
 
If he wears trackies, he needs to tuck the legs in the socks, so that the bar doesn't get caught on the way up.

The precious love cardio machines because they're easy. The selling point (and you'll hear this in many magazine articles or infomercials) is that it doesn't even feel like you're working out (because you're not).
 
Dan, cardio can be very hard, for example intervals. Weights can be easy, just do the same weight and the same reps for months or years, lots of people do it. But you're right that many people imagine it to be easy, and looking at the example of others they don't go hard. But in principle, it can be just as hard. Just as few people progress on resistance exercises, even fewer progress on cardio. They don't do in every session or every week or even every month more speed, more time or more resistance on the cardio machines.

Thanks Mac. Yes, I'm enjoying my job a lot. Of course part of it is that almost any new thing is fun. But I simply enjoy working with people, and don't care much when they give me shit.

My current client count is 9 at the gyms, and 4 privately. My goal is to have an even dozen at each of the two gyms by March next year, and probably have no private clients - nicer to keep home and work separate. I discussed this with one of the managers, he commented that it was an ambitious goal, but not impossible. "If you were 21 and hadn't trained yourself much I might say, well let's get you 2 or 3 first. But since you're older and have diverse life experiences and like talking to people, it won't be easy but it seems okay as a goal."

By comparison, at most community gyms a PT is considered a gun of a trainer if they have 12-20, and most managers will be happy if the typical PT has 3-5 clients. Typically these clients will do 1 or 2 half-hour sessions a week.

You are probably adding up the hours and saying "wooah, that's not a full-time job." And you're right. But almost nobody is going to have 40 hours a week of PT clients, that'd be 40-60 clients. Not going to happen. You could have many more clients than that, but not for one-on-one training. So the typical successful PT at a community gym will have a couple or few 3-4 hour gym shifts a week, and probably run one or two group classes, along with their several PT clients. And perhaps work at a second gym, too.

Obviously you'd not want to be in it for the money. It's a lifestyle choice, a career you enjoy for its own sake. This is yet another reason so many people enter the industry and leave shortly afterwards.
 
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Kyle Aaron said:
Dan, cardio can be very hard, for example intervals. Weights can be easy, just do the same weight and the same reps for months or years, lots of people do it. But you're right that many people imagine it to be easy, and looking at the example of others they don't go hard. But in principle, it can be just as hard.
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Yeah I agree with this. Whenever I've gone jogging (which thankfully hasn't been for a while) I feel like I'm at death's doorstep. Same thing with burpees, they knock me for six. I'll take weight training over jogging any day of the week.
 
Could i just ask if anyone knows whether i need a cert to be a personal trainer at gyms in sydney? I was planning to maybe take it up as a part time job especially over the summer holidays (currently at uni student)? Or is it necessary (legality-wise) to have a cert to be a personal trainer in sydney?
 
I can see you've spent a lot of time researching this, and obviously began by reading the very first page of this thread.

With a keen interest in the topic and a diligent work ethic such as you've displayed, your work will go a long way to helping the reputation of the fitness industry.

YES, YOU SHOULD GET A FCKING EDUCATION.​
 
Very unlike Kyle that post so I would take his advice.

If you are still at uni and have not worked or trained under some really good coaches then you need at least some education. Most places will not take you without an education and most insurance companies will not insure you without the education. Now some people can get insurance due to having a lot of experience in the field from past work (PTC on here is one) most of us younger people will need the qualifications. If you are really strong and have a lot of training knowledge then you may be lucky to find a job working in a PT studio or small gym but it means you need connections which I doubt you have or you would not be asking this question.
 
Kyle Aaron said:
I can see you've spent a lot of time researching this, and obviously began by reading the very first page of this thread.

With a keen interest in the topic and a diligent work ethic such as you've displayed, your work will go a long way to helping the reputation of the fitness industry.

YES, YOU SHOULD GET A FCKING EDUCATION.​
Click to expand...

dave said:
Very unlike Kyle that post so I would take his advice.

If you are still at uni and have not worked or trained under some really good coaches then you need at least some education. Most places will not take you without an education and most insurance companies will not insure you without the education. Now some people can get insurance due to having a lot of experience in the field from past work (PTC on here is one) most of us younger people will need the qualifications. If you are really strong and have a lot of training knowledge then you may be lucky to find a job working in a PT studio or small gym but it means you need connections which I doubt you have or you would not be asking this question.
Click to expand...

Sorry i didn't mean to come off as a dick, but i have read the earlier posts and i saw that you mentioned being able to be a 'personal trainer' in victoria without a cert so i was wondering if this was the same for sydney. I ask because i know for a fact that i probably won't have the time to juggle uni with studying for an extra course. I have an interest in lifting and so i was hoping to be able to incorporate that into a part time job over holiday breaks. Sorry for coming off as a prick.
 
I train / advise people all the time without a written qualification except I do it for free.
Does that count?
 
confuzzl3don3 said:
Sorry i didn't mean to come off as a dick, but i have read the earlier posts and i saw that you mentioned being able to be a 'personal trainer' in victoria without a cert so i was wondering if this was the same for sydney. I ask because i know for a fact that i probably won't have the time to juggle uni with studying for an extra course. I have an interest in lifting and so i was hoping to be able to incorporate that into a part time job over holiday breaks. Sorry for coming off as a prick.
Click to expand...

It was a reasonable question but definitely not an option for you. Education wise a lot of it is average but you do learn some things, Kyle will know more as I have not gone through the TAFE mode. You really need to know your basic anatomy and in specific functional anatomy. If you do not know how the body moves you can not really train it. Basic exercise physiology is important and from there you really need to know training principles and how to program properly (probably the hardest for TAFE, Undergrad, Post grad, basically anyone to learn as it takes a fair bit of time to get a good understanding or proper programming). A lot of stuff you would learn on the job or as you train but you need that base first. If you could train under a good coach you could learn all of this from them and then you would have contacts and you may have a chance but this would take at least a couple of years even if you are a good student. NPR on here did it this way with PTC (Markos) I believe.
 
beertank23 said:
Probably been asked beofre Kyle, but how is your own training going?
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Pretty crap. Basically these first several weeks my schedule has been all over the place. With shifts of 0530-0900 followed by 1700-2100 I've had days like,

0400 wake up, have breakfast
0430 start cycling to work at Hawthorn
0530 arrive at work, open the gym
0900 finish shift, cycle/train home
1015 arrive home, have something to eat, check emails
1100 go to shops
1200 do housework, cook
1400 try to sleep
1530 wife gets home, we chat
1600 head to work at Box Hill by car - if I go later traffic will make me late or at least make me crazy
1630 arrive at work,
1635 get grabbed by the manager to talk about something,
1640 do some squats and chinups
1655 clean myself up for the shift
1700 start shift
2100 finish shift, go home
2130 arrive home, shower
2200 late dinner
2300 sleep
(repeat)

Other days the second shift might only be a few PT clients, so it's quicker - and I get in a proper workout. Or I lift at home in the mornings.

All the cycling has been great for my cardiovascular fitness, but the irregular or incomplete lifting, the average 4-6 hours' sleep in every 24 hours, plus the messed up eating patterns, this has not helped my strength at all.

On the other hand, I've been working out every Sunday with a mate of mine. That combined with the other workouts, I'm not wasting away - but I'm not getting stronger. I'm down from my peak in March.

Basically, I physically have enough time in the day to do proper workouts and eat and sleep properly, but when starting new jobs and with an irregular schedule, I've just not had the mental focus to do it properly. Other more organised and determined people could do it, I know. However, now I have some steady shifts at both places and several PT clients, I think I'll be able to settle into a new rhythm of things.

I'm also looking for a good coach or trainer. I don't think I can bust through 100kg squats again safely on my own. At my gyms, the ones who suit my goals (get stronger!) best are already very busy, or else about to go overseas and climb mountains.
 
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