Should I Become a Personal Trainer?

Hey.

Im 20 years old from Norway.

I love training and physiology. I always wanted to be a doctor because of how facinating medicine is, but I can’t see myself studying anything for that long. Something health related at least, and I’ve been looking into personal training lately.

Is anyone on here a personal trainer, and if so what’s it like?

How many hours do you work per week?
What do you make on a monthly basis?
Is it fulfilling?

The certification will take roughly a year here in Norway. Is this something to shoot for, and how valuable do you think it will be in the future?

For the record, continuing education is a big part of being a successful trainer. If you think its “take the course, get certified, train clients happily ever after”, you’re going to end up behind the times and eventually doing a disservice to your clientele.

When I was primarily focused on training, it was still just part-time work (less than 20 hours a week). When I worked out of a gym, it was an hourly base pay plus commission from selling training packages. When I worked on my own, I obviously made more, but I never went “all-in” to make training my sole income source.

It’s obviously possible to make a standalone living as a trainer, but those are generally the guys putting in a bunch of hours each week - either long days packed with clients and/or working 6-7 days a week, especially as a beginner. It’s definitely an industry that rewards hustle and grind (those buzzwords are overplayed, but they do still apply).

It absolutely can be, yep. Helping an 80+ year old guy strengthen his posture to stand up straighter and reduce shoulder pain, helping a middle-aged woman get her first chin-up, and helping a lady drop 25+ pounds for her wedding were all more rewarding than helping a dude hit a random deadlift PR.

General personal training is iffy, because it’s a luxury expense and not a necessity, but there’s certainly a bunch of possibility, especially if you’re athlete-focused.

I don’t know what the COVID situation has been like in Norway, but gyms were shutdown in a lot of places, so people found ways to keep training at home. Like plenty of other businesses, many personal trainers had to adapt by doing virtual sessions instead of live 1-on-1, and I don’t think that’s going away anytime soon.

So make sure you have an option to train people remotely, either via Zoom or whatever. As a bonus, that also opens up tons more potential clients since you’re not location-limited.

Also check out this thread where a bunch trainers have talked about what it’s like. There are also a couple of really good articles to check out:

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Thanks for the in-depth response Chris. Will check out the thread you linked.

If you Google EliteFTS TableTalk with Brian Alsruhe, himself and Dave Tate talk extensively about what it’s like to be a new PT.

I would advise to find a niche and double down hard on it

Most PTs are doing ‘lifting’ and ‘hip thrusts’ and peddling the same ‘calorie deficit duh’ bullshit

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