Fitness Industry Education: Qualification vs Experience

It’s seems that everyone is a personal trainer (PT) these days. Maybe the allure of making $50-100 per hour watching other people sweat is very attractive.

The average career life span of an Australian PT is less than 2 years! In 2016, Australia’s obesity rate was climbing higher than any other country while in the same year NEW PTs lasted on average of 6 months in their career. Why is this happening? Firstly, It could be that Australia’s registered training organisations (RTOs) are set up to fast track Certificate 3 and 4 in Fitness while excluding the experience component. Not to mention that private employment agencies were receiving government incentives to just get people into courses if they couldn’t get them a job.

We’ve trained dozens of PTs as clients who have said they can’t remember the content of their 12 week online fitness course or even their multiple choice exams. With little to no ongoing mentorship or support – qualifications help you GET a new job but they rarely have a direct relationship with being GOOD at your job.

Nearly all of our PTs say they learnt more in the first week working with us than in their entire qualification. Secondly, being self employed straight out of your fitness course, whether in a gym or in your home shed can be very overwhelming. With minimal experience it can be difficult helping clients with injuries, health conditions or high expectations. The big gyms aren’t really set up for PTs, they are set up for members. Lots of members, fighting for equipment while trainers are forced to create the program on the fly and may only have access to machines. If you’re new it’s extremely hard to pre-plan a client’s training session if they train during peak gym times and maybe they have an injury. This environment can be a dog eat dog rental PT system with no accountability for quality or safety of PT sessions. Why be a PT?  If you don’t want to work weird long hours just trying to help people and a lot of the time for free - you’re in the wrong industry.

These days anyone can get a qualification. Not everyone can have experience, especially with a proven track record of helping people.

It apparently takes 10000 hours to be an expert.

My suggestion for new or potential PTs is to be of course certified, but also go out and find a few very successful mentors who can help with development and obtaining experience.

Be willing to pay for their help, or even better, work for them.

Always be up-skilling with highly recognised courses that compliment your services.

If starting out, an apprenticeship in a diploma of sport would be one of the best avenues for success when linked with a professional who will facilitate hundreds of hours of building that experienced successful track record.

It’s very tough but amazing industry to be a part of and helping others in the community is extremely rewarding. There’s going to be long hours, working weekends, knowing functional anatomy and exercise inside and out, trying all training modes and getting hundreds of clients to their goal safely. After all of that you are on your way to being successful in the fitness industry and will be able to reap all of the rewards associated with it.