Getting into the Personal Training business?.Graeme Marsh ...

? Interval Training for Fat Loss? What the latest research has to say?

Posted on February 18, 2013 by graeme

A colleague in the rugby world recently sent me an email asking about getting into Personal Training as a career and the various options in terms of where to work and what to study. I had a large coffee and twenty minutes, this was my reply?

With the surge in independent studios and businesses there are currently a wide range of employment options for the newly qualified PT, from being ?freelance? which is essentially fully self-employed typically working under your own brand and identity, through to the PAYE gym-based model employed by clubs such as Nuffield Health and Virgin Active. Some gyms offer rental-based or so-called franchise opportunities where you enjoy some of the perks of freelance life while still working under another brand (Fitness First for example), while others pay simply on an hour-by-hour basis. Each of these options has its own advantages, and not all of them are mutually exclusive (although many so-called freelance and rental positions are in reality full-time employed positions without the perks).

PAYE roles within health clubs offer the safest and most secure entry into the industry. While they lack the kudos perhaps of the freewheeling independents, they tend to offer a great opportunity to ?cut your teeth? and gain experience without the added stress of having to generate clients from seemingly nowhere. As these gyms aren?t extracting rental fees from you they tend to keep trainer numbers slightly lower and staff turnover in my experience seems to be lower. Without the immediate pressure of having to find monthly rentals and the added bonus of holiday, sick pay, a free membership (and often discounted ones for family), and a relatively well-heeled potential customer base it should be relatively easy to build a client base, gain experience, and develop ?real-world? coaching skills. Many of the older dogs in the industry sometimes bemoan the fact that many trainers now simply don?t have to start out on the gym floor as an Instructor, earning relatively little, cleaning equipment, giving people advice without getting additional pay for it (can you imagine such an insult?!?!) ?etc. Most of the newbies come out of their training courses believing they will walk into a highly paid PT role with ease and that their 6-week training course in ?how to teach people to squat? instantly entitles them to earn three times per hour what the reception and cleaning staff earn. Many of them learn the harsh reality that with an ever-growing supply of trainers, which hasn?t been matched equally by demand, that succeeding will require them to work harder than everyone else, not less. There is a lot of entitled people in the industry, many of whom seem to have little experience of what real hard work is actually like. Perhaps if they had spent a bit more time in the working environment in industries like the military, hospitality, or even banking, they would be a lot more grateful that they can earn a good living simply by hanging out in a gym helping folk get fitter and lose a bit of weight. But, I digress?.

True freelance work is a tough gig. The market now is far more competitive than when I first started in the city over a decade ago. Back then I worked in one of only two studios in the whole of the City of London. Now, there are not just a lot more PT studios, but also independent gyms, pilates, yoga, and other providers competing for business. Customers have become more mercurial in their buying habits, a great location and a competitive Google listing will go a long way to getting the clients ahead of others. Word of mouth remains key for the independent freelancer, they rely on building direct relationships with clients, providing greater value, more personal service, and getting direct referrals thereby reducing the expenditure needed to reach those potential new clients. As a newbie to the industry this is tough when you start out with no clients and you?ll probably need to talk your way into a job working for a busy and experienced PT/fitness company first where you?ll get to establish yourself in an area, build client relationships, and start to get referrals. You?ll also need to work out how to get noticed or found ahead of others, you?ll need to be proactive at seeking out opportunities to showcase your skills or position yourself to new markets. You will need to be confident, innovative, and patient, with pockets deep enough to sustain you for at least six-months while you build towards a ?living income?, which in London means realistically needing 10 hours at ?25 an hour to simply stay above the poverty line. You can do it, but it is harder now than it has probably ever been so be prepared for some challenges ahead.

As for your question ?Are some qualifications more desirable than others?. Well it all depends what you want from them yourself in my opinion. Powerful marketing has driven this perception that some qualifications are more worthy than others. In truth I think the question would be better phrased as ?Do some qualifications provide better value than others?. The answer to the original question would be no, while the answer to the second one would be a resounding yes. When it comes to my work I?ve never had a client ask me about my qualifications, just like I didn?t ask the man at Kwik Fit for his last week when I took my car for an MOT. I figured that he was in overalls, working in a garage full of people?s cars, fronted by an instantly recognisable national brand, so he probably knew more than me about checking out my exhaust and regassing my air conditioning. Within the industry itself, qualifications are often the way by which we identify our own training ideology or the style of training with which we would like to be associated. Personally, I don?t care too much for qualifications, though I accept that some of them can provide real value. I?ve seen highly qualified trainers with the personality of a doorstop who struggle to develop their businesses, while many of the most successful ones I know learn more from listening to their clients and their own intuition than they do the teachings of any gurus. The old adage of ?Learn more to earn more? serves the training providers well, but in reality there are other determinants of your future in the industry than what qualifications you have. For many years my vociferous need for more knowledge meant that my theoretical skills were a lot deeper than my practical ones. I could quote from Russian textbooks on methods of periodisation and hormonal function long before I developed the ability to really apply my knowledge in a way that translated best to my clients. I am not saying that is a bad thing, but I am saying that qualifications and the acquisition of knowledge is in no way a replacement for practical experience upon which you accurately reflect and develop yourself. Learning to trust what your eyes see, your ears hear, and your gut tells you will leave you free to practice your craft without the constraints of someone else?s ?systems? or approaches, which while maybe rooted in experience, it is their experience and there is no guarantee that it will mirror your own.

That said, if you forced me to pick I?d say no course offers better value for money than Ian King?s Legacy and Foundations of Physical Preparation course. He is one of the only people in this industry I have seen to teach with questions and not answers. It does demand a certain willingness to ?let go? of a few shall we say established methodologies in common usage, but that simply requires you to care not one bit about what others in the industry think about you, and instead concern yourself only with what will better enable you to get better results with those people whose money pays your mortgage. If I were to seek out specialised knowledge in a particular area of fitness and nutrition then I would attempt to go as close as possible to the origin of the prevalent thinking on that topic rather than a more mainstream training company who tend to teach more watered down variants. Of course as a new person to the industry there is a wealth of choice and the chances are you will find some value in most of the established courses out there, tending to become a bit more discerning over time.

I would though caution you against the internet charlatans that seem particularly prevalent in fitness, particularly in the area of ?fitness business? coaching and the like. Facebook and social media has enabled many people who have failed to create an actual business practicing the craft to create a business trying to teach others. They often promise astonishing returns with their revolutionary systems and they know the hot buttons to press to encourage you to sign up to their (typically very expensive) programmes. The USA is particularly adept at producing endless experts in these areas, most of whom lack any real credibility outside of the personality they have created. The normal story is that they ?burnt out? as a trainer because they were working so many hours etc etc and now they work one day a week and live in a house on stilts in Bali because they have ?optimized? (sic) their systems to generate money while they sleep. One word. Bullshit my friend. As Vince Lombardi said ?The only place that success comes before work is in the dictionary?. If you want to actually earn your living as a trainer then there is no replacement in the immediate future for getting down and dirty doing the hours, training people wherever and whenever you can get them. Sure, some trainers out there are doing pretty damn good, but all of them will have worked their arse off to get there and that is true of just about ALL of them. Most of them, myself included will have started from exactly where you are starting and worked for years to get good enough at what they do to earn a good living doing it. My advice, find one of them who has achieved in the area of the industry that you are most passionate about, call them up, buy them lunch and pick their brains for an hour or two. You?ll likely learn more and spend a lot less than you would on any expensive ?mentoring? programme.

So, I hope that helps, it probably creates more questions than it does solutions. If so then good, it has got you thinking, which puts you further ahead than many others entering the industry where much of what is taught is downloaded and spoon-fed.

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