Personal trainers..I need advice

cappymommy

Hey all! So I have been pretty passionate about advancing my career. I am currently an RN and I have an opportunity to become an Personal trainer. I am just finding it a bit overwhelming with all of the different accrediting agencies associated with personal trainers. Can someone explain these to me? And I am wanting to be a personal trainer/nutritional coach. Has anyone ever heard of anything like that. Also any advice from personal trainers would be welcomes! Thanks guys!!

Shawshankcan

ISSA and NASM are the major ones in the US I think. And yes, there are trainers/nutritionist combos.

My advice, is be prepared for a sales job instead. I was briefly a trainer years ago. Number one thing was to sell at any cost. If they start crying because of their weight, great, I can sell them more.

kgeyser

Other certification programs are ACE and AFAA. I was an AFAA certified personal trainer for a brief time about 7 years ago- the gym I worked with closed and due to emerging family obligations I never got back to it. The certification for AFAA was a three day course, written exam, and practicum. You also had to be CPR/AED certified. Continuing education was required to keep the certification.

As to how well prepared I felt for working as a trainer…I'm not sure. I had clients and they all had positive results, but I was definitely more of a trainer that focused on creating workouts for people who were new to exercise or were looking for a workout they could do easily with the gym equipment; essentially safe, low impact workouts. I wasn't one of those trainers who had people jumping up on boxes, doing HIIT, or anything like that. The gym was too small for any of that anyway, and the idea was that they would have a workout they could do between sessions independently because it wasn't an area where people could afford more than a few sessions. I would have had a different approach if the client base were one where working with a trainer was something that happened weekly or several times a week for a long period of time.

I think for what I was doing with it, the certification course I took was fine. AFAA is obviously geared towards aerobics and fitness in general and does not get as in-depth about physiology as some of the sports medicine based programs probably would. I don't know how comfortable I would have felt working with people who had serious joint or muscle issues, but that may have been something that would have come with more experience. I was certainly able to answer questions and assist people in utilizing the correct form, as well as provide general nutrition advice. I wasn't doing it as a career, just something I enjoyed, so I wasn't out there trying to get people to buy sessions. I'm more of a "healthy is good" person and I would help people tweak their workouts or invite them to workout with me even if they weren't paying for sessions, since I had to get my own workout in for the day anyway. Hope this helps a little and doesn't just overwhelm you more!