About becoming a personal trainer

In answer to a question from DKD about career paths in fitness...

Most gyms don't have much of a career path. There's usually the Health Club Co-ordinator, they're in overall charge of group fitness and various little programmes, and PT, too. Then under them there's the gym supervisor, who oversees the day-to-day running of the gym, setting rosters for gym instructors, etc.

Some gyms might have a separate Senior PT but really the only thing that distinguishes them is that they're permanent full-time staff, rather than permanent part-time or casual like the other trainers.

It's not much, but remember you're usually dealing with 12-24 staff in total.

Further career jumps might be possible if your gym's part of a larger organisation such as the YMCA. That will usually require further education.

The current manager at one place began as an adult career change guy, much like myself I suppose. The Health Co-Ordinator quit, the Gym Supervisor became Acting Health Co-Ordinator, and this guy became Acting Gym Supervisor. The Acting HC became the HC, and this guy became the GS. Then the HC quit, and this guy became Acting HC. Then he was made permanent, and appointed for himself a new GS.

All this happened 3 to 4 years after he got his Cert IV. He had managerial experience from his previous job.

At the other job, the HC quit and his GS just took over his position, they didn't hire a replacement. He was in the same class as the first guy, and had no prior managerial experience. They have very different approaches to management.

In both cases there were other trainers in the gym with more years of experience training people. From speaking to the ones still there, they have no interest in running a gym.

So it seems that the key to becoming Captain of the lifeboat is to wait for enough other people to jump or be pushed out, and to want to be Captain. I'm not that interested. First I have to finish my unofficial apprenticeship, after that in some years I'd like to have my own place to run as I see fit.

To advance in career within these gyms, I would have to learn and work with their many and various systems. I'm interested in systems like the health screening etc, because that helps gym-goers directly. I'm not interested in systems where we count (or more usually, make up) the hours spent doing health consults, the hours spent doing cleaning, the hours spent doing floor work, etc, merely so we can write a report for someone higher than us for them to ponder over when we ask for more staff.

Yesterday I worked 1200-1500 and then 1700-1900. 7 hours spread over 9. In theory, a typical work day. But it felt loooooooooong and I was very tired when I came home, driving along I missed my own street!

Working with people is tiring. I don't mean idiots and annoying people, just being social all day! My wife commented, "Well that's work."
"I worked longer hours as a chef, and wasn't as tired."
"Yeah but you didn't like it as much, you love this so you put your energy into it."
I suppose that's true.

Kyle; Which is more gratifying?
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This, obviously!

So it's a good kind of tiredness. A bit like the tiredness after a good workout.

It's just unexpected. All I do is look at people and talk to them all day.

Kyle Aaron said:

All I do is look at people and talk to them all day.

Click to expand...

Sounds like your getting old mate im considering going back to my roots and sticking with cars. its what i know best...

Worked with a young woman the other day who could not squat.

She got into the bottom position, elbows inside knees, and fell over. Three or four times.

I have taught 70 year old women to squat and they could do better than that. This young woman absolutely did not have the balance, midsection or leg strength, or flexibility, to handle squats.

So I stuck her on the leg press and gave her some planks to do. Maybe in a month or two she'll be ready. God I hope so.

Everyone will be at their own level Kyle, i remember my balance when u first showed me how to squat properly
Keep up the good work, sounds like you're making a difference

Absolutely, everyone is at their own level. It's just that sometimes some people surprise us by how high or low their level is.

Another observation is about willpower or resolve. Like all attributes of a person, this is on a bell curve - few people have very little or a lot, most are in the middle.



But I think it's a different-shaped curve for men and women. Men's is pointier, women's flatter. That is, of 100 men, perhaps 10 will be very weak-willed, and 10 very strong-willed. But of 100 women, perhaps 20 will be very strong-willed, and 20 very weak-willed.

Thus, women trainees are more likely to either inspire or despair a trainer/coach.

Get her to grab onto a pole or power rack at about waist height and get her to keep her balance by holding onto it. Then from there teach her to sit back and squat right. It works a charm and is a good warmup (or exercise) to get people on their way to squatting. Worked on my friend who just couldnt squat and has worked for many others on their own trainees. It will help develop get flexibility to actually so a squat, help strengthen up her legs, give he confidence and teach her how to actually squat.
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Oh, certainly she could have been taught, physically she could handle it - just. But mentally she couldn't. The literal and metaphorical "fall over, get up, keep trying" some people can handle, some can't. Thus my comments above about resolve.

She's a true beginner, doesn't make any difference exactly what she does, her body will respond.

She wouldn't fall at all with the pole method.
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Today I had a programme showthrough to do, and the other trainer had prescribed an upper/lower split routine containing, among other horrors, wall squats with a swiss ball, and standing on a bosu ball and doing curls and lateral raises. I had to show the woman through it.

I feel so dirty.

The woman struggled to do a plank on her forearms, and here she was being given dumbbell presses while in a bridge position on a swiss ball. Apparently the trainer had not actually looked to see if the woman could do a simple bodyweight squat, a pushup or plank before prescribing exercises.

The woman took up the programme card and said, "So Kyle, what do you think of this routine? Any good?"

I had to be tactful. "It's not the routine I would give you. Each trainer has a different philosophy of training, of what's appropriate. However, our bodies change because we get them to do more than they were doing before, you are a beginner, you were doing nothing, this is something, and something is more than nothing. So it's a start. In a month you'll get a new programme anyway. Take some time to get to know the trainers in the gym, book in with one whose philosophy of training seems good to you."

I feel so ashamed.

Kyles a real PT now
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That answer you gave her Kyle is the difference between a PT and a Strength coach.

I totally get that you HAD to give that answer in your current enviroment Kyle, the trick is to never be in that enviroment lol

Just before being ushered off the premises, before she even asked the question, the last thing you would have heard from my lips is "what f u c k i n g idiot wrote this out for you"

Keep up the good work.

The routine she got is the difference between a PT and a S&C coach. Not S&C coach would give such a routine, many PTs would. I think some aspire to be physios, I dunno. I've still not met this other trainer, perhaps I will at our next staff meeting, I can question them then. "Why the Swiss ball?"

The answer I gave is the difference between being self-employed, and being employed by others. I have to compromise to remain employed, or as you say, I'd be escorted off the premises. Remember, that was a question in the interview, "what if you have dispute with another trainer, such as having to do a showthrough of a programme they'd written and you'd disagreed with?"

I don't want other trainers to change my routines involving barbells, so I shouldn't change their routines involving swiss balls. It's a pain, but there it is.

I did contact the other trainer suggesting they reassess the workout based on the client's actual performance which I saw. I'm hoping that this will mean either the workout is improved, or else the other trainers will start deciding not to book their clients in with me.

Ideally, the same trainer does the health consult, the programme showthrough, the followups and so on for the particular client. Of course sometimes you have to book some time when the client's free, but most of the time you can book them in with yourself. So I'm hoping certain of the other trainers will over time learn not to book their clients in with me, in case I write them helpful emails about them.

I did also drop the hint to the client, "If you really want to know how I'd train you, book me for a PT session." Which probably sounded like a big sales grab, but there you go.

It's true that if I weren't in that environment, I wouldn't have to give that answer. But the environment has many good things, with several competent and experienced trainers, a supportive and well-organised manager, a diverse range of people as clients, and so on. You have to take the bad with the good. If the bad outweighs the good, you move on. That may happen with one of my two jobs, but not I think this one.

I guess next time if the person asks me as this client did, I can just say, "This is the workout X wrote for you. Do you want to do it? If not, I can write one for you, it would involve A, B and C. You're the person who has to do it, it's up to you." Then, well, it's up to the client. But most don't ask, they just accept it.

I think it would be ideal if the PTs at that place were all reading off the same page. Maybe have some group meetings or something to agree on their basic training philosophy for various body types / age groups etc.

Some clients who get contradicting input from different trainers may either lose confidence in the system or find it too damn confusing, and bail.

I agree, DKD, that a more coherent training philosophy at a particular gym would be better. However, that's not going to happen. We cannot get agreement on an internet forum among unqualified inexperienced people, we certainly won't get it among people with a diversity of qualifications and experience. I mean, what are we going to have to do, trade? "Kyle, I'll prescribe barbell squats if you agree to prescribe Swiss ball crunches." I don't think so.

I don't think it'd make much difference in terms of client retention, though, either way. They don't seem to have statistics at one of the places I'm at, at the other they say,

• "If we just sign them up and leave them to it, 25% remain after 3 months."
• "If we give them a routine, show them through it then leave them to it, 50% remain."
• "If we give them a routine, show them through it, have followup sessions, 70-80% remain."
• "If we do all that and also ring them up and stay in touch with them, 90% remain."

So the key things seem to be having a routine to follow, and regular contact with gym staff - and, I suspect, other gym members. If you've got mates at the gym you're more likely to go, this is why group fitness is so popular.

Things like training philosophies don't seem to make much difference to client retention. Results make a difference, but consistent effort over time is what gets results, and most people's efforts are not consistent over time; they come irregularly and infrequently, they keep the weights, sets and reps, or time and speed the same, etc.

Do you think the situation would be improved if the education was better?

As in teaching people that compound movements etc are key rather than isolation exercises on an unstable surface?

This should all be being taught anyway.

Certainly education is a big part. I've said many times before that exercise performance and instruction are a big hole in most courses.

I honestly don't know where the trainers are getting these rehabilitation-style exercises from. As I said, when I get a chance I'll ask them. My own instinct about stability training is as John Izzo lays it out - before standing on a squishy ball, try working on one leg. If you cannot do a split squat, lunge or pistol squat with anything like good depth and form, you have no business kneeling on a swiss ball. But anyway, exercise is a big hole in most courses.

As well as that, there's a lack of common sense. When prescribing exercises, you must consider the person's capabilities and goals. Discovering their capabilities is more than just asking them questions about health and past gym experience: get them to perform a simple basic exercise, if they do badly then regress it, if they do well progress it, eventually you reach the exercise they're physically capable of doing without a lot of supervision, and that's where they should start.

We should neither over nor underestimate individuals' abilities, but instead just try them and see what happens. To plan routines based on the person's capabilities we need to discover their capabilities. I would not have been as annoyed by the wall (swiss ball) squats and bridges on swiss ball with skullcrushers if the client had not been so obviously capable of more than wall squats and incapable of the bridges/etc. Stupid exercises are one thing, stupid exercises that don't match the person's abilities are another.

That's common sense. But many lack it, and unfortunately education can't do much about that.

And these last few posts clearly show why PT's have such a bad rep amongst more knowledgeable lifters.

Your main consideration was not upsetting the other PT, not the client.

We should never put the client second, or third, they have to come first.

Surely we can ALL agree on this.