Personal training can be one of the most fulfilling and rewarding professions. Although the fitness industry is quite young, personal training is considered a promising career option and is no more frowned upon. To become a highly successful personal trainer though, you must possess certain essential skills and strive to improve every day.
How does one become a personal trainer? What role does a personal trainer play, exactly? What skill-sets do personal trainers need to survive in the rising fitness industry? These are some of the questions faced by many who are taken by this exciting profession.
Here is a complete personal trainer guide for all the aspiring fitness professionals stepping into the industry with the aim of making a difference!
How to Become a Personal Trainer?
As a personal trainer, you must essentially bring your skills and knowledge about fitness and nutrition to the table. In order to get this knowledge, you must first register for a certification program. You must go for a certification in personal training course from any recognized institute or academy like INFS. The duration of such programs ranges between 2-12 months and are usually valid for 2-3 years that can be renewed after expiry.
While you study to successfully complete the certification, you must commit to becoming fit and healthy. A personal trainer should be lean, fit, and muscular with no visible flab. Understand that your physique may prove to be your best advertisement to rope in clients.
Just as they say, you must practice what you preach. While you are completing your course, you can also start freelancing. You can put your knowledge to good use and offer plans and programs to friends and family free of charge. Trust us when we say that they are your first and best source of publicity.
What Role Does a Personal Trainer Play?
As a personal trainer, you will come across clients from different backgrounds. Each of them will have their own set of challenges. Putting your knowledge and skills to good use, you must design personalized diet and exercise programs considering your clients’ limitations and their goals.
Below are a few responsibilities included in your role as a personal trainer.
- Conducting fitness assessment to evaluate clients’ fitness levels
- Holding one-on-one sessions with them
- Identifying their goals and creating customized plans
- Tracking their progress
- Advising them about health, nutrition, and fitness
- Helping them with their workouts
- Proactively getting their feedback
- Reassesing and reviewing their plans
What Skill-sets Should a Personal Trainer Have?
Being a personal trainer, it is necessary for you to build and update certain skill-sets as mentioned below.
- Training Knowledge – Gaining knowledge about fitness and nutrition to become a personal trainer is only half of the equation. The other half is knowing how to apply that knowledge! Any certified personal trainer can offer customized plans, but, your approach in getting those plans implemented is what matters. You may think that your prime responsibility as a personal trainer is to design personalized plans for clients, which it, indeed, is. However, you need to be your clients’ motivator for them to follow those plans. You must provide innovative challenges to your clients to keep them engaged and driven.
- Client-Handling Skills – Once you begin your journey as a personal trainer, you may find getting new clients to be the easiest task of the job. But, retaining these clients is a different ball game altogether. This largely depends on you client-handling skills. It is a given that you must deliver the highest level of customer care for the clients to admire you. To be able to do this, it is necessary for you to be empathetic. To handle all the challenges that the clients bring along with them, you must first put yourself in their shoes and understand their situation. This will help you in adopting a clear approach for handling your clients well.
- Communication Skills – Your oral communication skills have to be at par, especially if you are offering online personal training. You should be able to convey your training approach clearly to the clients. For smoother communication in these modern times, you must have the ability of to use information technology. This can help you achieve wide range of purposes such as session scheduling, class recording, online reminders, and invoicing as well. This skill-set is not just about communicating something to your clients. It also includes attentively listening to your clients.
- Social Media Skills – You cannot ignore social media platforms in these times when practically the whole world is on it! To be in the public eye, you must maintain your online presence. Moreover, you can connect with the world without stepping a foot outside and right from the comforts of your home. Keeping up with the social media trends, you can target the right audience and rope in more clients.
What Equipment Does a Personal Trainer Need?
Being a personal trainer, you need not own a state-of-the-art gym facility. You can own a minimal set-up and yet become a great trainer. You may go for gym equipment that occupy lesser space and those that are portable. Resistance bands and skipping ropes are great examples of such gym tools.
A pair of dumbbells, an exercise mat, and a water bottle are a must-have for a personal trainer. Other optional equipment that you may get are a stepper, swiss ball, kettlebell, and medicine ball.
Stepping into the fitness industry, you will gradually discover the potential of the personal training profession. You can personally train your entire career or branch out into several other opportunities by seeking a specialization. You may further study for a niche population, educate other fitness professionals, become an entrepreneur, or even write for fitness publications!
Once you start your journey as a personal trainer, there is nothing stopping you from enjoying a fun and rewarding profession.
Authors:
Shaik Moyeenuddin (Head of Personal Training and Lead Management, Fittr)
Ketki H is a wandering soul who loves travelling solo, and firmly believes in enjoying the journey rather than hurrying to the destination. Although a graduate in Mechanical Engineering, she took to writing for reaching the masses.
