Thinking of Getting My CPT

Off Topic
1

So recently I’ve realized that I’d like two more things from life:

1.) To help people with their fitness/nutrition needs
2.) To get paid to do this

For the past few years I’ve been “the weightlifting guy” or “the healthy eater” in my family/friends circle. I’ve given a ton of advice to people and I figure; I should get my certification to get paid to do this.

My question is for the people on T-Nation with their CPT (or other cert’s):

Do I just go to a gym and say: "Hi I have my CPT and I’d like to set up shop here"�?�?

What is the average charge for a session (I’m thinking 30-60min) with a client?

Are there any pitfalls that I might not be aware of?

Is there anything (or any type of person/gym) that you’d recommend me going to/staying away from?

I’m just tossing the idea about right now. I’d like to get a good business plan ready before I pay $600+ for the certification etc…

2

[quote]B rocK wrote:
So recently I’ve realized that I’d like two more things from life:

1.) To help people with their fitness/nutrition needs
2.) To get paid to do this

For the past few years I’ve been “the weightlifting guy” or “the healthy eater” in my family/friends circle. I’ve given a ton of advice to people and I figure; I should get my certification to get paid to do this.

My question is for the people on T-Nation with their CPT (or other cert’s):

Do I just go to a gym and say: "Hi I have my CPT and I’d like to set up shop here"�?�?

What is the average charge for a session (I’m thinking 30-60min) with a client?

Are there any pitfalls that I might not be aware of?

Is there anything (or any type of person/gym) that you’d recommend me going to/staying away from?

I’m just tossing the idea about right now. I’d like to get a good business plan ready before I pay $600+ for the certification etc…[/quote]

There are a lot of topics on this so just jump on the search engine. But to summarize some that I remember.

  1. I believe most gyms or clubs also need personal training experience or you must have studied in that area, such as Kinesiology in college. 24hr fitness has its own certification I believe.

2)You can not go into a club such as Bally, 24hr Fitness, Club 1 and just set up shop. You have to be employed by them. And if you know someone that trains there and wants to train with you, you can not go inside and train them.

3)You definitely want to find a club where people have disposable income. The 24hr Fitness that I went to mostly had college students, so good luck in trying to get them as clients.

4)Most people I know of that train people on the outside charge $80-100. But you better find those that have their own equipment at home or you have to shell out $500 on one of those Perform Better Fitness Packages.

5)When the economy is doing well, you’ll do well. But right now, a lot of trainers I know have lost many hours. So money is not consistent.

6)NSCA,NASM, ACSM are well known and respected.

3

[quote]
Do I just go to a gym and say: "Hi I have my CPT and I’d like to set up shop here"�?�? [/quote]

Yes you possibly could but you’d have to pay rent ($500 per month for example) to use their facilities and train anyone at will. I would recommend going somewhere like a personal training studio or a gym where you can get some experience first.

Then go freelance or open you own place if you aspire to do that.

The economy… it’s funny, 4 months ago I was making double what I’m making now. I have clients telling me Monday if the economy gets much worse that they won’t be able to renew their packages. So I hear the news last night and see the market today and I think… OH SHIT

I’ll make enough to get by but it will be tough for a while.

Stick with it though because if you can survive over the weak trainers (both training and business wise) you can rake in money when the economy is booming again.

Don’t avoid anything… get the good experiences and the bad experiences. I wanted to train athletes, knowing this wasn’t possible when I started, I went and got a job at a studio training anyone and everyone. I thought when I got into it I would hate training old fat women… 2 of my favorite clients are old fat women. The pain in the ass ones are my former athlete 30-50 year old male clients.

I’d recommend NASM or NSCA certs.

4

Thanks for the responses guys! I’m gonna try and talk to the trainer at my gym this week and see how he got his start around here. I only see 2 trainers at my place; but there might be no need for more…we’ll see.

There are alot of people with disposable income around me. I’ll take that thank you very much!