Jasmine Birtles
Your money-making expert. Financial journalist, TV and radio personality.
Become a personal trainer and make money exercising
MoneyMagpie team
10th Mar 2020
Thrive on a good workout? Then you could help others with their exercise regime if you become a personal trainer. There’s good money to be made out of it too. But, if you’re looking to exercise, but don’t want personal training, this article may be able to help.
- What’s involved?
- How do I qualify to become a personal trainer?
- Make between £15 and £75 an hour training individuals
- Useful apps and programs to consider
- Find a personal trainer job
What’s involved?
You can become a personal trainer and provide individual training programmes for clients. This will help them achieve their personal fitness goals.
Being a personal trainer is a great flexible job for exercise lovers. However, being a fan of the gym isn’t enough. You’ve got to be super enthusiastic, have lots of patience, be good with people and be a good motivator. But, most importantly you have to listen to what your clients are saying and respond to them individually.
Your main roles are:
- Set short and long-term realistic goals for your client and then devise a programme of exercise that will enable them to meet those goals.
- Take your client through the different exercises in their programme, demonstrating exactly how to do them and explaining the effect they have on the body.
- Motivate your client and coach them so they can get through their programme effectively.
- Advise your client on nutrition, health and lifestyle changes to keep them on the right track.
- Measure your client’s success by charting changes in body fat levels and heart rate.
It’s not just about helping someone get fit; it’s also about treating each client like they are your only customer and giving them a personal training regime that suits them. You aren’t there to just press buttons on exercise machines – it’s about showing people the best ways to get to the physical state they want to be in.
How do I qualify to become a personal trainer?
Step one: decide which area of personal training you’d like to specialise in
There are loads of different types of personal training:
- Community fitness centres or private health clubs, training the members.
- Home trainers are usually freelance and have a portfolio of clients that they train at their homes.
- Exercise therapists work in rehabilitation clinics or centres.
- A sports-team trainer acts as a strength coach and advise on fitness levels.
- Hospital personal trainers help to rehabilitate patients.
- Personal trainers can also work with athletes doing athletic therapy.
To decide which of these areas interests you the most, see if you can speak to someone already in the field. You can contact a facility where they work, or even organising to job shadow them for a day. This way you can choose the right courses for you.
Step two: get A qualification to become a personal trainer
There are two routes to becoming a personal trainer: take an academic degree followed by a personal training course, or just take the latter.
An academic degree will help you. These can be in physical education, human kinetics, kinesiology and human movement science programmes. These will improve your chances of getting a job. However, having a personal training qualification without a degree should not hinder your progress.
You have to start with an entry-level personal trainer award which will cover all the basics of becoming a gym instructor. You can choose to do this intensely (with the YMCA you can have your basic qualification in 45 days) or take it module by module, working it around any other commitments you’ve got. The basic qualification is both practical and theoretical, so you’ll need to be fit and ready to go as well as ready to learn.
Then you can choose to take specialist modules in areas that particularly interest you, such as: massage, Pilates, yoga or weight training, as well as taking extra more specialised personal training modules that touch on areas related specifically to working with individuals.
There are thousands of qualifications available in the UK to help you become a personal trainer, often varying quite considerably in price which makes it difficult to know which one to take.
Do some research with your desired employer and see what kind of qualifications and experience they require for their employees. You don’t always have to do the most expensive course; you should look at what the course covers and whether the syllabus suits you. Taking all these factors into account should help steer you towards a specific qualification.
Step three: become professionally accredited
The National Register of Personal Trainers recommends certain companies who offer personal training qualifications.
There’s also an organisation called the Register of Exercise Professionals which defines levels of qualification given by certain courses. Courses will be rated at a certain REP level and to be a personal trainer you need to take courses that will give you an REP level 3. As well as basic gym instructor training, this will include basic anatomy and physiology and training to be able to work with special groups such as those with high blood pressure or diabetes and women doing pre and post-natal fitness. On the REPs website there are many approved courses with details of what qualifications they can offer.
Membership is £40 (including VAT). Once you’re accepted onto the registry you must maintain your membership by earning 24 Continuing Professional Development (CPD) points every two years. These points are earned by taking new qualifications, attending seminars and workshops and reading the REPs approved journals. Up to 8 CPD points can be rolled forwards into the next two year period if more than 24 CPD points are achieved.
This then assures you’re up to date with the most recent advancements in the profession and keeps you learning new skills. Your qualifications will be recognised around the world. And, that gives you the chance to work as a personal trainer wherever you like.
Step four: start working
You’ve got two options: find a job at a fitness club or gym, or become a freelance trainer.
A recent downsizing trend has meant that gyms are increasingly using freelance trainers to work in their gyms, rather than paying them a staff wage, which works out cheaper for them. As a result there are fewer personal training positions in gyms available than there were two years ago.
However, look around your local gyms, do some research on sites like Leisure Jobs and see what else is available.
Freelancing may not offer the same kind of stability as a staff job, but for people who wish to work around busy schedules or work as a trainer in their free time, being a freelance is much more convenient as you can pick the times you train.
To start out as a freelancer you’ll have to market yourself.
- Get your name out there by advertising your services wherever you can; in the local newsagent, on Gumtree or on any sites that list personal trainers.
- You can also look for job adverts for freelancers on any of the websites above.
- However, by far the best method of finding clients is by word of mouth, so try giving some of your friends a few sessions for free and try and get word out that you’re offering a great service at a great price and things should hopefully go from there.
- Think about what services you want to offer: do you want to simply train someone? Can you offer nutrition plans? How will you communicate? You could offer an all-in-one package, including everything from time in the gym, to nutrition plans and email communication.
- If you know someone who hasn’t yet joined the gym but wants your personal training assistance, tell them to check out this handy piece on how to cut their monthly costs.
want to make £75 an hour being a personal trainer?
The salary earned by personal trainers varies considerably according to where you’re based. In general, those in the south and London will earn £30–75 an hour. While in the north it’s more like £15–45 per hour.
But you’ll also need to consider your costs.
- Personal trainers cover quite large areas travelling from one place to another, so travel expenses can be pretty substantial.
- You also incur sporadic costs maintaining your membership of the REPs and attending courses and seminars.
- All personal trainers must have insurance because when it comes to exercise, accidents can and do happen and legal action is always a risk.
- You can buy the appropriate type of insurance from the REPs website.
- If you’re a freelance personal trainer but want to work out of a studio, you can often work in private gyms and use their equipment. However, you’ll have to pay a floor rent to the gym.
Useful APPS AND PROGRAMS TO CONSIDER
With everyone owning a smartphone nowadays, it’s worth considering how they can help with your personal training. Here’s a few apps and online programs you might want to download to help you on your way.
This one is already used by more than 50,000 people. It helps you create training plans for each client you take on. These include both workout plans and nutrition plans. And, if your client is cash-strapped, this helpful piece on grocery shopping may be able to help.
Afterwards, you can then track their progress using the app directly. You can have as many clients as you like as the app doesn’t charge you for growing your business, so as long as you take out the £49 a month option. If you choose the lower £20 option, then you are restricted to just 5 clients.
This one’s for those who want to scale up the size of their business. There’s more than 1,600 exercises included in the app and the software allows you to remotely communicate with your clients and create customisable programs with them.
There are more than 15,000 people on this app worldwide. Again, you can create customisable workout plans and chat to your clients through the software. You can track your client’s progress through the app, and you can create your own example videos to show to them before they try it for themselves. The app is free for your clients, but you have to pay a fee on your side.
Useful links
- The Registery of Exercise Professionals (REPs)
- Personal Training on the Net
- National Register of Personal Trainers
- YMCA Fit – A registered charity that offers personal trainer courses
Find a personal training job
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