About becoming a personal trainer

There are plenty of elite powerlifters coaching at NFL level in the States at the moment.

We are always 5 years behind.

We'll catch up.

There is a very deep lineage in America of physical culture.

The American Negro and their dominance is a by-product of slavery
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there is a bit more to being a strength and conditioning coach than getting players strong.

haz said:

there is a bit more to being a strength and conditioning coach than getting players strong.

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That is all a strength and conditioning needs to do, and do it in the safest environment possible and in the most efficient manner.

In my last post I mentioned that the fitness world was a small one. Well...

Tonight I discovered that the manager at Hawthorn and the manager at Box Hill... did Cert III together.

And their teacher was.... the same guy who quit two weeks into my Cert III.

Small world.

Ok since I finally have a little time. We have these conferences we have to attend to graduate uni. This Tuesday was a conference being held by the creator of Genesis (who sold it a while back). Now he has had god knows how many companies and at the moment runs a gym equipment company that supplies a lot of gyms throughout Australia. His name is Dr Noone (can not remember his first name). He was there to promote a placement that Genesis gym was providing which I will go into later.

Now he talked about the fitness industry in general first. Laid out the big gyms and talked about how big business is buying out (or starting their own) 'fitness' companies. All interesting info from someone who is in the business of fitness centres. He talked a lot about how PT's pay rent to use gyms and seemed to love the idea and pushed how you can easily pay it off, he did not bring up any of the pitfalls such as too many PT's, yearly contracts etc. He did say to never get into the sales side of things which is very good advice. He was quite biased towards how well these business run and the huge sums of money they make whilst still stating how great they are for health. Some good info he did give us was that in 5 years there will not be enough gyms to cater for clientele if we keep going with current rates of expansion.

He then went into PT's. His view was that a successful PT does not need a lot of knowledge to be successful as long as they have great interpersonal and marketing skills. This is very true and sadly it is what ruins the industry with some of the uneducated but intuitively business savvy PT's out there. I think Kyle noticed this at his gym with the higher qualified PT's not getting as much work as some of the lower qualifies PT's (this does not always mean they have more knowledge due to their qualifications but it is generally the case). His suggestion was we all wok on these and learn to utilize our personalities properly (I agree very much). He also suggested that clients are beginning more knowledgeable and interested in what qualifications you have and that in 5 years a post grad in rehab will be very important. This is because you learn the skills (and can get the insurance) to provide corrective exercises and diagnose issues with clients that usually go undetected until they are much older and the issue is much worse. It is a good point but I do not see it happening as fast as he says it will.

What did I take from this information, work on my business skills (been doing this for a while with my wifes business), learn to use my personality fully and increase my interpersonal skills (a lot to do with confidence and practice which I am getting more of with my work in inpatient rehab) and use my post grad degree as a marketing tool to bring in clients who just want to lose weight and sell that I can correct some of their issues they may have at the same time (I was thinking along these lines already).

It was interesting to get a fitness centre business man (once a pt himself) view of the fitness industry. Even though I do not agree with his views that it is wonderful that their are all these chains out there with mass marketing it was good to see how the otherside views things. What did I end up believing what his views were. There is a lot of money to be made, money is good, I like lots of money and health and fitness is second to that. In short he was a money orientated business man and business was going good.
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dave said:

His view was that a successful PT does not need a lot of knowledge to be successful as long as they have great interpersonal and marketing skills. [...] He also suggested that clients are beginning more knowledgeable and interested in what qualifications you have and that in 5 years a post grad in rehab will be very important.

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These two things contradict each-other.

I don't think clients are interested in qualifications, as such. The famous exhibit 1: Markos at PTC. They're interested in your demonstrated knowledge. It works well if you can present the knowledge in an "ah, that's obvious once you say, it explains a lot." Exercise technique with common errors to correct, and postural issues are good in this respect.

Better a Cert IV who can express themselves clearly, and steps out there on the gym floor often talking to people, than a postgrad who sits at the desk all the time and just nods at people as they come in. One demonstrates their knowledge, the other doesn't. Best of all, of course, a postgrad who expresses themselves well and gets along with people. But you can't always have everything.

Of course not everyone will accept what you say, or not when you first meet them. So you need some friendly chit-chat for the first few meetings to build some rapport.

Demonstrated knowledge + rapport ---> trust. And trust leads to sales of sessions, and to recommendations.

Of course there are other ways to sell, too. But that's the simplest, the most basic. It's true what you said, that some of the more knowledgeable trainers at my gyms don't have many clients - but some of the less knowledgeable don't either. And from what I've seen and heard, the ones with few or no clients are those who simply don't talk to people much. They sit at the desk a lot, or talk to other trainers.

Whether your focus is on the welfare of your clients, or on oodles of cash, either way - you just have to talk to people, and be more or less interested in what they have to say. You have to like people. Most people love to talk about their injuries, their sport, what they've achieved, what they'd like to achieve, and so on.

Talk to people, be interested, demonstrate knowledge, and clients will come out of that. That's my theory, and it seems to be working well so far.

These two things contradict each-other.

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No they don't as he was about taking something that has happened from the past up till now with something that he is suggesting will be slowly happening from now till the future.

Demonstrated knowledge + rapport ---> trust.

Of course there are other ways to sell, too. But that's the simplest, the most basic. It's true what you said, that some of the more knowledgeable trainers at my gyms don't have many clients - but some of the less knowledgeable don't either. And from what I've seen and heard, the ones with few or no clients are those who simply don't talk to people much. They sit at the desk a lot, or talk to other trainers.

Whether your focus is on the welfare of your clients, or on oodles of cash, either way - you just have to talk to people, and be more or less interested in what they have to say. You have to like people. Most people love to talk about their injuries, their sport, what they've achieved, what they'd like to achieve, and so on.

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Plus the rest of your post was a long way of saying interpersonal skills are highly important

Interesting that he said at current rates demand will outnumber supply of facilities. Bodes well for my future business plans, at least.

moons said:

Interesting that he said at current rates demand will outnumber supply of facilities. Bodes well for my future business plans, at least.

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Depends on your market, there is not a lot out there for lifters right now. If you have more commercial interests (or both together) you just need to do your research into areas where people have enough money to join a gym, where the big guys are least represented and where the population is most likely to expand. Sad part is from there you really need to be business savvy to compete with the competition in the commercial sector. Hopefully you are looking at more the strength training crowd though.

Just heard, I didn't get the third job I'd applied for. First up he apologised for taking so long to get back to me - ie calling on Thursday instead of Monday or Tuesday. If only he knew, that's nothing

He said it came down to me and one other guy, and there was a lot of argument and back and forth between the three of them. The other guy won out because he had experience working in a uni gym like the one I was applying for, apparently that'd different (not sure how).

The thing is, the Hawthorn gym gets a heap of uni students from Swinburne and Deakin

He said that had there been two positions, I'd definitely be in. As it was, well there you go. He asked if he could forward my resume to his colleague at another campus in case anything was available there, I said sure.

I asked about the interviews, what sort of things shaped their decisions.
"Passion. People's answers to questions tend to blur together a bit, you just remember the passion. Some people acted like being there was an imposition on their time, like they'd rather not be there, and their personality was kind of dry."

He commented that in future interviews, I should continue mentioning the hospitality experience; I'd mentioned it as having carryover in skills and attitude, customer service and all that. Since I was a chef and they stay in the kitchen and if they mention customers at all swear about them, that really is a bit of an exaggeration, but still

We chatted a bit more, I felt he was quite genuine and not just spinning me a line and fobbing me off, that I had made a good impression. To be honest I think that had there been a practical session, that would have improved my chances. For all they knew I had no idea how to squat or even (god forbid) curl, let alone how to coach someone else to do these things.

Anyway, perhaps there'll be a payoff in future. So far, I've sent applications to 8 vacancies, only 4 replied at all, they all wanted to interview me, and I've been offered 3 of those jobs. One I turned down as I would have been the smartest guy there, 2 I accepted. A pretty good rate, I reckon. Should be even better after my unofficial apprenticeship is over.

The places where they or I refused, I still tried to leave a good impression. I wished this recent guy luck with his new staff member, hoping that it all worked out well. You have to be nice to people, not only because it's the right thing to do, but because everyone knows each-other in the fitness industry. It turns out that both the Hawthorn and Box Hill managers were in Certificate III together, and their teacher was the one I'd had who'd quit in the first two weeks.

If someone like me is among the top candidates for these jobs, there's a real lack of depth of experience and breadth of knowledge among would-be trainers out there. That's not to put myself down - I know many useful things, I communicate well with trainees, and so on.

But let's be honest: there are not many fields where someone can change to that career as a mature adult and be in demand straight out of school. It'd be much harder as a new electrician, plumber or whatever.

The right combination of experience, knowledge, empathy, being outgoing and talking to people, it seems it's not really common.

I have a conversation a bit like this - [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZCQFCGZELc&feature=grec_browse]YouTube - ‪Me and Douchebag McGee‬‎[/ame]

- with someone in my gyms every day. Only I try to be polite about it.

Today, I stood with two other trainers near the desk. A guy loaded up the squat bar with a 25kg plate each side and started doing quarter squats virtually on his toes with his knees caving in.

"WTF is that guy doing? Does he have a knee or back injury or something?"
"Oh, that's Warwick, he's a mess, he always squats like that," she replied.
"Can't we... fix him?"
"We've tried with him, he doesn't listen," the other one said.
"I'll sort him out," I said.

I went over, it took about ten minutes to sort him out. I basically just copied everything you'd see on the Starting Strength videos. I think I may have even sounded Texan at one point.

"The other trainer said I shouldn't go below about here," he said, showing me a quarter squat.
"Who was that?"
"Trainer A."
"Well....er... perhaps she wasn't sure how to correct your squat. So then it's safer to do it over a shorter range of motion. But now you're doing it properly. So down below parallel for you."

He was genuinely grateful and happy to do it properly. I had him do some sets, when I went to work with someone else, he kept doing them. He was enjoying himself, he hadn't felt glutes and hams working before. Once I had to call out, "weight through heels!" and he laughed and immediately corrected it.

It turned out this was a new routine for him, he'd never squatted before. So I'm not sure just how they could have seen him squatting badly.

I attribute it to a lack of the old Care Factor. The other two trainers have full-time jobs unrelated to fitness, this is just a side thing for them. So I don't blame them, but there it is.

Kyle or anyone else, is there a credible course that can be done by correspondence or "after hours"? I'd be interested in getting a fitness qualification but i need to continue with my current job full time. Ive just started re-reading the thread but its going to take awhile to get through and a Google search hasn't shown up too much yet.

most of them have online options now. and by most i mean the big ones.

i think how much you get out of these courses is up to you. you can get through it easy with minimal work, but not learn much. or you can learn all of it, and get through.

thats what im concerned about, whether doing it online is going to be as beneficial as going to class.

the job i have now i enjoy and i make good money but its a hard, physical job and there will probably come a time when i will want to leave it (i have done this once before) and if that time comes then it would be an advantage if ive already made steps towards a new career.

well you could always do cert 3 online and see if its good. cert 3 is very basic, and you could probably pass the exam if you did it today.

and then do cert 4 in class. which will be a bit more challenging.

the best thing about doing them was they forced me to do 20 hours work experience which was great and very revealing.

hyjak said:

Kyle or anyone else, is there a credible course that can be done by correspondence or "after hours"?

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Fitnation is reasonably well-spoken of.

Remember also that many courses can be done part-time. For example, the last ever Cert III/IV course at RMIT will be run in September, I think that's Tuesday nights 6-9pm and Saturday days 9am-4pm, something like that. So it could be fit in with a 9-5 job, at least.

haz said:

i think how much you get out of these courses is up to you. you can get through it easy with minimal work, but not learn much. or you can learn all of it, and get through.

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Absolutely. As well, you can learn more than is in the course, since once you've that base of knowledge, you can branch out a bit into what interests you.

A good suggestion to do Cert III online, then see if you want to do IV, and if so do that in person. It's similar to what I did - III at Holmesglen TAFE, IV at RMIT. Though in the end I got both III and IV's certs from RMIT...

You sure I'm putting my foot in the right doors, JMan? Some of the things I've seen you wouldn't believe, I didn't even have a name for one of them, now found it... A Fit Disc! This is the thing I saw in one of my gyms.



This and the Swiss ball were designed for rehab work. Like one of the other trainers had once broken her ankle and torn a ligament doing it, she used a Fit Disc to strengthen the muscles once more. For that sort of stuff, awesome. But NOT for the ordinary beginner. Leave the Swiss balls and Fit Discs to the physios.

Bloody hell.

Oh and if you find yourself rehabbing your ankle/knee they are for end of the program as normal balance and basic exercises will provide enough stimulus.

Back on to PT courses. You can easily do correspondence or online courses to get accreditation (the info is fairly basic) but if you can get work or lots of placement under a good PT then you will learn a lot more.
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