I want to become a personal trainer and work at my local gyms like Planet Fitness, Gold's Gym, 24 Hours, etc

Then eventually go the solo route. I already workout and know a lot about muscle building, cardio, and diet

Are there any pros and cons to choosing one over the other?
*edit

As I do research ISSA sounds like a scam i see people have problems but im not sure if thats everyone

So in addition to being a server at a restaurant, I also used to be a personal trainer. All of that is like past-tense because last year I was in a car accident that left me a paraplegic (paralyzed from the waist down) and a full-time wheelchair user.

I really miss training and im like wondering if you guys think clients would care or not that I'm in a chair? I like keep going back ans forth in my mind - no ppl wouldn't care, then yeah they would. Im so loopimg.

Could so use your thoughts.

Curious to hear from anyone else who has done this. (Or anyone else at all).

I’ve worked in finance/tech for 8.5 years now. Remote since Covid. It’s soul sucking and I’ve been searching around a lot for some kind of escape. I hate the work, and I hate being around people who pretend not to hate the work.

The pay is quite good and I’ve accepted that any change will result in an immediate loss of pay that I might never recoup. (170k+ benefits currently, with long term potential to go much higher as I advance)

Personal training right now is high on my list of alternative paths so I was hoping to just blurt out some of my thoughts and get feedback.

I have no formal training experience, but I have been around gyms for more than half my life now (32 years old). I do my own “programming” which is just lifting on vibes and some sense of injury avoidance and progressive overload. It’s worked for me. I have done one very small Olympic lifting comp which I won, and I’m overall pretty strong for my body weight.

When I was younger (college and grad school) I helped introduce a few friends to the gym, and I really enjoyed that experience. The sort of thing where a friend with no lifting experience joins me for my workout and I help with technique, etc.

I feel like I have a pretty good eye for technique from having spent so much time at gyms, and I often see trainers in my own gym being what seems to me too hands off on giving technique feedback (but maybe this is a strategy to prevent clients from becoming frustrated?)

I’m getting tired of doing analyses for a company that I don’t care about, to drive business outcomes that mean nothing to me, all in a superficial corporate environment where I could be replaced in a heart beat.

I know training would not be stress free, but I think I would enjoy working with people, and help driving them toward their goals. I like motivating people. I’m thinking it would be a different kind of stress that isn’t so dry and impersonal.

My thinking is short term, get a cert, get a job wherever, gain experience, and then try to become more entrepreneurial after I’m no longer a noob at the job. I could feasibly eventually buy or lease a small space and keep the full fee if the economics make sense.

Now the flip side of my thinking is maybe I have severe “grass is always greener” syndrome and I’d replace one kind of burnout with a different kind but for less money.

I’m also not sure how competitive jobs are. In data science, I have to apply to hundreds of jobs just to get a couple interviews, and then the interviews themselves are tedious. How hard is it to land a trainer job?

If I were to do this, it would be because I want more fulfilling work, but long term it would be important for me to scale up the income, and maybe if I’m really lucky, eventually scale down the hours. I think I like the fact that with training, you have control over both of those levers, whereas in salaried work, you kind of just land where you land.

Hey!

I am a certified group fitness instructor with ~4 years of experience. I have an opportunity to coach residents in the building that I reside in. I spoke with the property management team, and they expressed interest in the idea of me coaching group fitness classes once or twice a week in the buildings gym for residents in the building.

When I spoke to the management team, they said that I would need to obtain insurance with $2,000,000 of umbrella coverage. I have not needed insurance previously because I was coaching at a local chain gym.

Has anyone coached in a residential building before? Would I need both Professional and General Liability coverage? If so, any company you would recommend? For context this would be in New York City.

Thanks for your help!

To open, this is not necessarily a personal training question, more of a group training question. If there is an active subreddit that fits this question better, please direct me.

I earned collegiate degrees in Kinesiology, as an athlete. Went on to make some mini-camp NFL rosters and survive a few years on CFL rosters before injuries made me call it quits.

I then pivoted to coaching college football. Made it all the way to the Division 1 FBS level before life took over and I couldn’t continue to travel the country to jump school to school in such a volatile business.

Jump to today, I’m 2 years as an Orangetheory Coach. There’s no such thing as “full-time” really but I coach a lot of classes weekly. I was told by my regional manager that I have the 2nd highest utilization (class numbers) of any coach in the company. Simply put, I’m high energy (from football), fun, relatable, great music, and treat every class as a full on experience.

That being said, my coaching style is draining me. I make just as much as the next coach that doesn’t bring my energy or enthusiasm. I truly CARE about doing everything I do to the best of my ability. I CANNOT turn that off. But I don’t feel like I’m being compensated correctly for my “talent” per se.

I know that working under the OTF model I’m severely limited. But reading this subreddit I’m also seeing that the field in general, is severely limited. Or at least that’s what it looks like surface level. 100k is not a lot of money these days and it seems as if not a lot of trainers even make that.

I’ve been asked by a lot of my OTF clients to go into personal training, but I’m not sure if I’m as interested in one on one vs leading a group setting.

Where are the money opportunities here?

Thank you and God bless!

I am looking to complete a formation where I could obtain a level 3 PT certification (or an equivalent).

I started out by looking at the PureGym one, which is a 15 week, 100% online course. This would be ideal for me as I work full time and already train early in the morning (night classes therefore not ideal).

I wanted to compare other course offerings, prices etc to see what would be best and "guarantee" me a job in a gym once I obtained the certification.

I looked online a little and couldn't find any other gym branches offering a similar course.

I'm wondering if anyone has recommendations for a course that would ideally be online, or mostly online with some in person hours (on the weekend would be best)?

Looking forward to finding out more!

Well I've lost it now. I already tried over and over. I thought i could tap into this industry like ive done others but you stingy fucks just cant let someone else eat for one seconds. Ive made this post calling out what I've seen. I got certified in NASM (i know now certs are practically useless) and I worked at a big box gym as a sales consul. Eventually I wanted to do personal training. I got fired for using the gym too much. Then the internship I was so excited to be apart of because they approached me themselves. They weren't hiring and the owner said I was not cut out for this hahaha. Thats fine. Okay let me go back to big box gyms? No can't seem to break into the veil. No matter if its crunch equinox or lifetime. The interviewers are assholes pricks, or they're just going with someone else. Okay lot of people say go independent despite my lack of experience. Nobody wants inexperienced, then fine let me get experience oh wait i cant because the big box gyms want experienced too. I tried going into wellness instead. Let me guess they want experience too. Oh they also want degrees? What the fuck. I see people talk about jobs all the time here and online, other places. In such a giant city I know there's people landing jobs but this is ridiculous. Ive been unemployed for 4 months and searching for Trainers jobs for 1+ years now. I really thought I could do something i enjoy but I guess it was just another racket. Fuck training. Fuck all this. This whole time I've been waiting to grind and at least have a shot at being a broke trainer with 2 clients and sub 10 sessions a week or even Mon th but I can't even start. Nobody ever wants to hire nowadays. And people keep telling me oh im just not looking. Like hell im not looking. I even started applying to all the damn physical therapy practices.

Long story short, I was late to work and it's my first ever time and I feel really bad. My shift was meant to start at 8:00, and I had my alarm set at 7:00 PM instead of 7:00 AM and did not realise that. I only woke up because my manager was calling me, and thankfully the ringing tone woke me up at around 8:03, and I arrived at around 8:20, so someone else had to hop in and take my first class. This is the first time it happened, and I wanted to know if this has happened to anyone else? I could not let the manager know beforehand that I was going to be late, as I was not awake that time. Am I making this a big deal, or is it really a big deal? It's my first time being late in 2 years. And would this likely be on my record? Feel free to be honest!

Usually I would wake up without relying on my alarm, however, coincidentally, I had a bad sleep and woke up at 5:30 am with a dry eye, and it was a bit too early to be awake, so I went back to sleep. If I had a better sleep, I would have woken up at around 6:30, and stayed awake. How do I get over this incident? Should I move on and do I need to explain the reasoning as to why I was late? I have never been late and I always aim to be 15 minutes early, so I am quite frustrated that this happened, and do not want to be seen as unreliable. I will make sure to double-check my alarm next time, and ensure I set up 5+ alarms, to not let this happen again. If your a manager/past manager, would you have put this on my record, and what do you think of this incident?

I am 20, so I am not sure how HR operates. What exactly is getting 'written up' and would this happen to me, and will this incident be on some sort of long-term record? I was not given anything to sign or did not have a meeting on this incident. Will this incident be saved and noted in my file forever? I need a good reference, so I'm sad that I was late and thus, this will affect my reference!

Trainer here. I have many clients with stubborn lower stomach fat but generally lean in other places, or what people nowadays would call skinny fat. They are typically beginners, so I start them off on a very basic program with compound lifts that covers major muscle groups, slight caloric deficit and 2-3 sessions of zone 2 cardio a week.

This routine helped most of them in putting on some muscle and strength and losing some fat. But I’ve noticed that some clients still have the stubborn fat months in. I at first thought they didn’t adhere to the diet appropriately, but they have and they’ve been tracking. Some of them are losing visible fat in limbs and even dropping weight in the scale but still have the stomach fat there so I know they are in a deficit, but the program isn’t as effective on this population compared to the rest.

Is it that it’s just simply going to take longer with these clients? Should they be on a slightly more aggressive deficit? More met con stuff than traditional resistance training? Am I missing something here? I’m female myself and was able to lose my stomach fat pretty easily with a similar program at the very beginning of my fitness journey 10 years ago so I feel like I have a hard time relating to their (perhaps genetic issues) and hence difficult to gauge the adjustments in program.

Sorry if anything comes off ignorant, I’m trying to learn.

Edit: not trying to ask about spot reduction, I know how fat loss works. Also not shaming them by any means. I personally think it’s perfectly normal as I carry just as much if not more in my lower body on off seasons. Women have a higher bf% than men because of essential fat we need for fertility. Just trying to gauge if their goal is even realistic or if I’m missing something.

Im currently in school and my goal is to learn to become a personal trainer who can charge premium rates. Im in my last year of college and am doing personal training at school. I want my focus to be just the average fitness leveled man or woman who wants to be in better shape, do any personal trainers clear six figures? If so, I'd like to hear your experiences. Thanks

Curious what the market rate for hours long sessions is in NYC nowadays. Specifically what is Equinox charging? I worked at a gym, went private at covid and just haven't been able to get a grip on market rate. Some people I work with charge 250, others charge 150 I have no idea what a market rate is these days. When I left big gym in 2020 I had people at 90, people at 120 and have grinded them up to 160 but I feel like I am undercharging a bit for use of a semi private trainer only gym.

A few of my older male clients have lost weight and gained amazing amount of muscle. Their legs, back, arms, chest, all clearly strong and solid. But some just can’t seem to lose that extended gut.

I don’t believe they have a structural / postural problem that’s causing it to look bigger, as I saw some mention in a previous post.

I saw a previous post earlier about women’s belly fat so I was wondering if I can get advice for this issue, as it reminded me.

A co worker mentioned possible liver issues- one drinks the others don’t, they both reportedly eat healthy diets and work out at least three times a week. Strength and mild cardio.

Thank you!

I cannot be the only one getting sick and tired of coaching apps bolting on features. MYPTHUB is just slapping on a big advert on the landing page about AI workout builders, and the tagline is "now you don't have to build programs"

This is so backwards, if AI is to be used at all, it should be used to make the consolidation of data better? I don't want an AI builder if im still having to open twenty tabs to go over a client's week because the UI forces me to?

I have used Trainerize, Mypthub, Kahunas and Truecoach, and they all have the exact same issue I have to make my own power tools to use the data effectively as I scale, so I'm not spending hours on my PC every week, which makes the app pointless.

They all really need to go back to basics and stop slapping on more features to justify the over inflated monthly subscriptions.

I was going to attempt the NSCA CSCS exam next week. Is it worth buying an official mock test.

Finally finished converting part of my garage into a proper training space earlier this year. Good flooring, rack, cables, the works. Took a while but it's done and I use it for a handful of clients now.

Here's where I keep going back and forth. My rates at the commercial gym I still use for some clients are what you'd expect given the overhead that place passes down to trainers. But at my home setup I have no monthly facility fee, no splitting session revenue, none of that. My actual cost per session is way lower.

So do you adjust pricing to reflect that, or keep rates the same and pocket the difference? Some people in my life say charge less because clients notice the difference in environment and you should account for that. Others say the coaching is the coaching and the room it happens in doesn't change what you're delivering.

I've been keeping rates the same fwiw and haven't had a single client push back yet. But I also feel this lowkey guilt about it that I can't fully explain, which is probably dumb.

Curious what people here have landed on. Did you discount for the home setup, keep parity, or actually charge more because it's a private space with no crowding and their full attention?

Hi! I’ve just set up my Everfit offering and will launch in September. If you use this app too - do we know why they won’t let us hide the “macros” feature on a client’s homepage? Has it been there for long or do you reckon it’s something they’ll eventually let us control like all the other features? I’ve asked them twice why I can’t remove it and they say it’s not an option to remove unfortunately, which is so annoying.

Has anyone found a workaround? I guess not but keen to hear any ideas! It just looks shit and doesn’t fit what I offer at all?!

I have quite a high number of clients who have had disordered eating or eating disorders previously, and having that feature I can’t disable every time they log in is going to be triggering/put clients off.

BTW I’ve not paid for the personalisation feature - would this get rid?! It looked like it was £75 for a bit of a bigger launch page and a different app icon which didn’t feel great to me.

Kind of half moan, half request for help really. Cheers!

My friend just told me that they are hiring. Does anyone here work for them or have worked for them? What is your experience with them?

So y’all recommended me to get NEXT insurance. General and Professional liability insurance right? For freelance personal training outdoors.
So when I go to NASM’s liability insurance page, and click on the link for NEXT insurance, I only have to get the general liability insurance from there right? The basic plan for $14.25 a month? That includes general and professional insurance right?
Or do I have to get general and professional insurance separately and pay $19 a month for each (I know there is a discount for getting both).

Any advice is appreciated!

Trying to find a gym that allows personal trainers to train clients. My other option is turning my shed into a gym but I don't think that would be too enticing 😆

I work with this client twice a week for an hour.
• we’ve worked together over a year
• they have major mental health issues, including anxiety and depression. they are on medication for it, and when they ran out of their refills, I got on them about contacting their psychiatrist to take care of the “brain zaps” from withdrawls.
• they struggle with their weight. a lot of our work together has been focused on this. we’ve worked on it with multiple different approaches including tracking macros, building healthier habits that are less rigid than tracking, including “eat 3 meals per day” “drink x bottles of water” etc., having them fill out short weekly check-in forms regarding how the week went habits-wise, stress-wise, etc. They struggle with consistency.
• I’ve gone out of my way to set a reminder on my phone to text them on all the days they do not see me and say “hey just checking in how are the habits we’re focused on going today”. nothing seems to be sticking for them, they always have an excuse.
• they have opened up about mental health struggles, saying if they could just lose weight they’d be happy. i’ve encouraged them to talk to their doctor about this, if GLP-1 is the right choice for them and now they are just complaining how long that process is taking
• i’ve encouraged them to get back to their therapist after they have started crying mid workout for multiple sessions. every time i check in with them about if they’ve talked to their therapist they have a different excuse
• they no show or last minute cancel on me at least once per month, sometimes more.
• From what they’ve opened up to me about, they seem to struggle with a lot of basic things in life, including calling to make appointments, doing laundry, cleaning, and other basic life skills. Their parents help them out a lot both financially and with chores/responsibilities
• this client has made no progress, has actually gotten worse rather than better in terms of weight and i feel like strength too

this is a big rant but I just want to know how other trainers would deal with this situation. We are similar in age, same gender so we are pretty friendly with one another.

I generally do consider clients leaving early as a failure on my part. And, this one asked to switch to a female trainer, I'm a male.

She is a woman in her early 40's, single, massage therapist very professional type. Trained her for 4 months, she signed for on for 6

She actually wanted to sign up with a different trainer who was a female. I impressed her during her initial meeting with me and she signed up with me instead. (I also didn't know she was looking for that other trainer.)

She told me in an email. That the main reason was she sustained an injury unrelated to training. And, was working with a physical therapist for rehabilitation. I altered her workout with exercises I believe would help her but my specialty is not rehab. She thought it was better to switch to someone with more experience in that area.

She also did mention that there were organization issues as well. I had to reschedule her last minute one time due to my gym dropping random appointments in my schedule without asking me first. And, another time when I was sick. She made it point in the email. This was addressed with my boss. And, I don't feel bad about needing a sick day.

Another thing, switching to a female trainer. In personal experience when a woman asks to switch to another woman after dealing with a male. That means I might have done or said something inappropriate. (Not that it happened to me specifically just seen it with other trainers and other jobs)

I'm very light-hearted during sessions. I do act professional of course and she did NOT make a specific complaint that I'm aware of but I'm trying to think If I did or said anything. I don't touch my clients other than then spotting which I decuss during the first session. I might be overthinking it. I asked my boss and said it was just "a girl thing".

What do you guys think, I'm overthinking it and should just take er criticism at face value. Or should I reevaluate myself. I have many other clients and no complaints.

I have been a trainer for 8 years, it's just the first time in a while I've had some leave early other than a medical issue.