Personal Trainer

A personal trainer is someone who has already gained the discipline it takes to get into a good workout routine, has learned the knowledge necessary to maximize workout efficiency, and knows what goes into a good workout routine. After the trainer has learned these basic skills, he or she then learns how to apply that to teaching others. Personal trainers are usually certified by various fitness organizations, and often work either freelance or for a gym or health club after earning their personal trainer certificate.

Personal trainers serve a number of functions to different people. Some people work with their personal trainers for months in order to reach the level of fitness they seek. In cases like this, the personal trainer will recommend a specific exercise routine and make lifestyle suggestions (such as nutritious diets or other healthy habits) and continually check up on the trainee to monitor the progress of the plan.

Other people visit a personal trainer for only one or two sessions, in order to see how effective their current fitness plans are and how best to improve those plans. A good personal trainer can look over a fitness plan and see where it is effective and where it isn’t, and make suggestions as to how best make the plan better.

What a personal trainer is not is a drill sergeant, as many seem to think. Personal trainers work for you, not the other way around – they’re there to help you improve your exercise routine, not work you into the ground. Their knowledge about exercise and diet routines is invaluable in developing a strong and healthy lifestyle.

The first place to look in your search for a personal trainer is your local gym. If you already have a gym membership, check with the management. Many personal trainers work for or through gyms, and you can get a list of trainers who frequent your gym of choice simply by asking for it. From there you can schedule a preliminary meeting to see if you want to continue a program over a length of time. When first meeting the personal trainer, don’t hesitate to ask them if they have earned their personal trainer certificate: it is important that you know the qualifications of the individual you will be working with.

If you’re not already involved with a gym, you may want to consider getting a membership. It’s hard to beat the exercise environment of a good, well-equipped gym, especially if it includes such features as racquetball courts or a swimming pool. For thirty to fifty dollars a month, the exercise benefits you will reap are more than worth the cost. Check out the gyms in your area, and when you’re being given the tour, ask about personal trainers. One gym may have special bargains such as signup bonuses or reduced rates on personal trainer fees – it’s worth asking about.

Some personal trainers, especially in larger towns and cities, run their own studios. These sorts of trainers can be found a number of ways. One of the simplest is to merely check your yellow pages under “personal trainer” or “fitness trainer.” You’ll get a list, from which you can call and compare rates.

Another easy way to find independent personal trainers is to use the Internet. Get online, log onto your search engine of choice, and type in “personal trainers” or whatever city you happen to live in. You’ll get a list of personal trainers in your area, including phone numbers and web sites. Google Maps, in fact, allows you to search for personal trainers and will display both where the studios are located and the web contact and phone number information you’ll need.

Independent personal trainers usually tailor their practices to specific people. If you are, for instance, just looking to lose weight, you’ll be able to pick from a number of specific weight loss clinics. These clinics, though small, are tailored to losing weight and will help you do so effectively.

The downside is when you want to go beyond that. The advantage of a large gym is that they’ll have far more equipment, including weight machines, resistance pulley devices, and often even swimming pools and game courts, than almost any independent personal trainer clinic will. That means that when you get beyond the narrow goal an independent clinic will help you reach, you’ll have to go somewhere else, where a personal trainer working for a gym can help you through the entire process of becoming fit by using the vast resources of a well equipped health club.

If you’re thinking of hiring a personal trainer, you should think about what exactly you want to do. Do you already have a good exercise routine? If so, you may want to simply hire a personal trainer for a single session and have him or her look over your plan and suggest improvements. While they’re at it, ask them about things like diet and nutrition – they know about things like that, and you’re paying them to help you, so ask them anything you think you might want to know.

On the other hand, if you don’t have a plan yet, you may still only want to hire a trainer for a single session and have them help you work out an exercise plan to follow. If you think you have the discipline to follow an exercise plan rigorously, this may be the best option for you, and the first step in the path to better fitness.

One of the best features of personal trainers is that they help you stick to your exercise routine. Having – and paying for – a personal trainer forces you to follow your fitness plan, thus maximizing the exercise potential for those who may not have as much self-control as they’d like. Also, meeting with a personal trainer on a regular basis will help them gauge how well your fitness plan is working and to dynamically suggest changes and improvements to make.

Of course, not everyone needs a personal trainer. Some people, in fact, may actually be already fit, may already know the steps towards better fitness – if you’re one of those people, and you’re interested in walking down the personal trainer career path, you’ll want to know about personal trainer certifications.

Fitness trainer certificates are granted by various health organizations across the United States, and allow the holder to work as a fitness trainer either for a gym or independently. The National Federation of Professional Trainers (NFPT), for example, offers exams to allow you or any other prospective personal trainers to earn their fitness training certifications. They, and other organizations like them, have hundreds of testing locations across the country to allow people to come in, take the test, and receive their personal training certificates.

If you’re not certified yet, but you would like to be, the first thing you’re going to have to do is start looking for an organization to certify you. Chances are, you’ll want that organization to have an establishment or a testing center nearby. Once again, the Internet is spectacularly useful. Get online, log on to your favorite search engine, and do a search for “become a personal trainer Dallas” – insert your city of choice. You’ll get a list of organizations offering testing and training in your area.

Once you know which organizations offer certification and training in your area, it’s time to choose between them. Different organizations may focus on different aspects of the personal training career path, so make sure you read the websites and purpose statements of each potential organization carefully.

Different training institutions may also differ in approach. Some may offer certification after a simple test, allowing you to prepare for the job on your own and take the test at your leisure. Others offer full courses, often with hundreds of hours of training time, to make sure you get the best possible training. As a bonus, you yourself will become even more fit over the course of the training.

How much you’ll pay for your personal trainer certification depends on what you intend to get out of it. For a full five hundred hour training program you can expect to pay a fairly hefty tuition – five to six thousand dollars is fairly standard. But then again, you’ll get a lot for your money – quality gym time and an invaluable storehouse of fitness information you can then use in a high paying job in a great work environment.

If you think you know enough to be a personal trainer as it is, many organizations allow you to test for your personal trainer certification. This is radically cheaper than the training courses, for obvious reasons – expect to pay no more than a few hundred dollars for this certification.

When you’re officially certified, it’s time to ask yourself what comes next. Just how much money are you going to make here? That depends on you. In some areas, especially rural areas where your clients will be members of local health clubs without a lot of money, you can still expect a decent paycheck – usually around thirty dollars an hour.

If you’re good enough to make it in the competitive environments of big cities, though, you can expect a lot more – often over a hundred dollars an hour in some places. Not a bad pay rate for working out in the gym every day! At higher levels, it can often help to be certified from multiple organizations – the more personal trainer certifications you have, the better your resume will look.

The Mecca of personal training is, of course, Hollywood. In a city where everyone either is in the movies and wants to look good or wants to be in the movies and wants to look good, stars will shell out big cash for the services of a highly qualified personal trainer. Some personal trainers pull in as much as one hundred and fifty dollars an hour to train Hollywood’s rising and risen stars – and besides, who else can say they made Matt Damon drop down and give them fifty?

Again, the choice of whether to work for a gym or start your own practice depends entirely on you. If you work for a gym, a lot of the management details will be taken care of. You’ll be able to spend all of your time just helping people, and you’ll be able to use the wide range of resources available in most modern health clubs. The downside is that the health club or gym will take a cut of the paycheck, which means you’ll be getting less than you would working on your own.

The downsides of working on your own, of course, is that you’ll have to fund everything yourself. You’ll be getting the full hourly rate for all of your customers, but you’ll also have to keep track of taxes, resources and – unless you can sign a deal with a gym – your own facility. If you’re more independently minded, private practice may be just the thing for you. If you’d rather not have to worry about business management, though, you’re probably better off working for a gym.

So whether you are a personal trainer, want to be a personal trainer, or just need a personal trainer to whip you into shape, the first step is information. Use the Internet, call your local gyms and health clubs, and get educated on the topic of fitness. In today’s world of obesity and health risks, fitness is an important – and well-paying – topic. So check into it today and see what you can find. Remember, what you do know will make you stronger.