How Much do Personal Trainers Make?

As a laid-off tech worker and T-Mag addict, I’m thinking about getting into personal training. I’m wondering if you guys have any info about hourly rates for personal trainers and about the demand for the service. I need to be able to afford my Tribex not just for me but for my wife if you know what I mean!

  • Furio

Furio, you can expect to get paid ~$20 an hour as a personal trainer at commercial gyms, obviously much more if you do it privately. However, it is not easy to build your clientele to the point of working 40 hour weeks. Obviously, you will need somewhere on the order of 20 clients at all times to do this, since they will cancel on you and not everybody is going to pay to work out with you 3x a week.

Jeez, tech worker eh? I’m a programmer by trade and I’d love to get into the fitness industry but I can’t see it ever paying as well as what I’m getting now (I’m not one of those Bill Phillips kind of guys!)