About becoming a personal trainer

Congrats, I second Shanes do some squats to celebrate, I am thinking 20 reppers.

Well done big fella

Thanks fellahs, I did a set of 20 rep front squats to celebrate, I didn't throw up this time.

I used to hate waiting around for them to call and going over all the details in my head lol ....far out I hope I never have to get a real job again lol

Congrats bro!

Today I went to the local cop shop to pick up a form for police check. There happened to be there the constable I'd emailed last year after I did CPR on the Indian bloke who'd choked on a sushi roll.

It turns out they turned life support off for him later the next day. He'd had stomach and liver cancer and was undergoing treatment for it, so was already in a very weakened condition. Thus, CPR couldn't really help him, once his body had a strong stress like choking he was gone.

After that I went off to the gym and handed over the police check for them to put through HR, it'll come back to me and then I'll give it to the gym. I also posted off my membership application for Fitness Australia.

Good news mixed with bad news, that's life.

Kyle Aaron said:

Today I went to the local cop shop to pick up a form for police check. There happened to be there the constable I'd emailed last year after I did CPR on the Indian bloke who'd choked on a sushi roll.

It turns out they turned life support off for him later the next day. He'd had stomach and liver cancer and was undergoing treatment for it, so was already in a very weakened condition. Thus, CPR couldn't really help him, once his body had a strong stress like choking he was gone.

After that I went off to the gym and handed over the police check for them to put through HR, it'll come back to me and then I'll give it to the gym. I also posted off my membership application for Fitness Australia.

Good news mixed with bad news, that's life.

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Oh no, I remember when you posted you had to do the CPR.

A friend has pointed out that the CPR and ambo attendance meant that when he did die, he died with his family in a clean hospital bed, rather than alone in the street with strangers. So that's still not good, but it's the least bad it could be.

Congratulations Kyle!!
Hope you enjoy your new job, im sure you'll do great.

Sorry to hear the news about the bloke you did CPR on, but as you said, at least he was able to die with his family by his side, which im sure would mean a LOT to the family.

Cheers, Dan, I expect we'll hear similar news from you in the next few months.

FD called me up today to check I'd put the FA registration in, and ask if I could do it electronically so it'd be quicker, as he'd had some group fitness person who'd done that. But when you sign up you have to send in certified copies of your Cert III, IV, and first aid certs, that has to be done manually. The electronic one's only available for people re-registering after their two years are up. He said that was a pity, anything we could do to speed things up would be good.

We had a little chat about training and the different gyms out there, talking of holding on to clients. Just the social aspect, you know, staff should talk to people. Of course lots of people want to be left alone, fair enough, you leave them to it. But at least say hello to begin with. Common sense, you'd think, but not always so judging by many gyms, cafes and so on.

It's nice to know they're keen for me to start. I'm keen, too. Want to get in there and start getting ignored by 90% of gym members like every other trainer and coach out there!

A little off topic. I was placing posters for our bench comp in some gyms today. I went to Energym in Frankston, a place I uesd to train.

I asked if I could look around. There were 2 guys in the gym. One was on the incline press ready to press, the other was spotting, 60kg on the bar. The spotters hand never left the bar, from lift off, every rep, to putting the bar back. Nothing changes.

Why on earth would his spotters hand's leave the bar?

They're 'working in', super-setting bench press and bent row together.

Its called training economically.

Kyle Aaron said:

Cheers, Dan, I expect we'll hear similar news from you in the next few months.

Click to expand...

Thanks mate. About 3 or 4 weeks to go.
Got some work experience in my local council gym too, the guys there are great, hoping to learn a bit from them, and who knows where it'll head

The boss mentioned that the induction would be 2-3 hours, which I'd be paid for. So that's $44-$66 for that. But... I'd also be getting a uniform, which I have to pay a $50 deposit on.

Why not just have the induction be unpaid, and charge me nothing? Odd. I guess that's bureaucracy for you.

Makes about as much sense as the "have you ever had a mental illness?" question in the health screen we're supposed to give to gym-goers.

Anyway, I was thinking about the uniform. Why do we have one? So the clients know who the staff are? I would suggest that if you can't tell who the trainers are in a gym, maybe they're not so good. I don't mean they should all be built like brick shthouses or have sixpack abz. But you know, there should be this air about them, like they obviously know what they're doing. Markos or Rippetoe don't have to wear t-shirts for people to know they're the one running things.

Idle silly thoughts. As I wait for all the paperwork to go through, I've not got much to do except think about silly things like this. Indulge me.

SOrry I missed something, which job did you get? This one?

Wanted: Motivated, enthusiastic and forward thinking PT ? Australian Kettlebells - Our Blog

Nope. Community gym, like I planned from the beginning. Council-run, swimming pool, squash courts, regular gym room with a couple of power cages and heaps of treadmills, lots of group fitness rooms, etc.

A few people know where. Once I'm signed up properly and settled in, I'll let everyone know exactly which one. Seems rude to say before I've even done a single shift there

I know, I know

Ok cool, congratulations, hope you enjoy working there.

I got my email confirmation of registration today. As yet my login doesn't work. Stuff's meant to be coming in the mail, too.

Anyone can check if you're registered by doing a search on the site, my entry is here.

First Aid you must do a refresher course every 2 years, the CPR component every year. After all, if you are bleeding, who do you want to help you, the guy who had a refresher course this year or the guy who did it 20 years ago?

The "level 1" is a seniority thing, depending on qualifications and experience - that's time since qualification, not time since registration. I'm not sure what purpose the levels are supposed to serve. Is a PT with 0 days experience really equivalent to an unqualified coach with 10 years experience? How about a PT with 3 years' experience compared to someone with a Bachelor of Exercise Phyisiology for 3 years? But I guess it's all new and they're figuring things out.

Shortly after my last post here, I got a phone call from a local YMCA I'd sent in a resume to.

They want to fill 3 shifts a week, 12 hours in all. Their approach is to try to fill particular shifts with particular people and keep them there a fairly long time. People are always coming and going and they give first pick of the freed-up shifts to current staff.

The YMCA's approach, apparently, is to begin people as gym instructors, then spend some months sussing them out to see if they know what they're doing - and if or when they do, move them on to PTing. This makes sense, since as I saw in my courses, there's a wide variety of knowledge of exercise technique among the people going through.

The guy said they received 35 resumes, would ring up 9-10 people, and then interview in person about 5. The face-to-face interview would be followed another day by a prac session, as I've had before.

He asked how employment there would work with the other job. I explained that they had no fixed shifts, and had not laid any out for me yet. "Whoever gives me work first, I'll work the second job around them," I said.

The YMCA is quite good to get into, as they've facilities everywhere and are well-known. So are a lot of mainstream commercial chain gyms, but... they're mainstream commercial chain gyms. Certainly they have much valuable in them, but I think I can best develop my skills with beginners in a community gym.

So I'll go to a face-to-face interview with the YMCA guy next week and we'll see how it goes.

It's pretty common for trainers to be employed at multiple gyms. I mean, 12 hours a week? Thus multiple jobs per trainer. Yes, 3 trainers with 3 part-time jobs could just be 3 trainers with 3 full-time jobs, but that would be logical, why would anyone do things that way?

Hours can grow, particularly if you're competent - thus getting more gym instructor shifts - and attract lots of PT clients, but of course that takes time.