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If you are passionate about all things fitness, making it a bigger part of your life by becoming a personal trainer is probably your dream. Being able to spend your days sharing your passion and doing what you love while also getting paid for it is certainly a dream come true for many fitness fanatics. But breaking away from your day job and starting a personal training business can be a daunting prospect. Where do you even begin with this career change? What do you need to do before you can quit your nine-to-five and make fitness your full-time career? In this blog post, you’ll find the answers to these questions to help you transition successfully into your new career as a personal trainer.

Start Researching

Quitting a job to try a new career is a big deal, so it’s essential that you fully understand what working as a personal trainer will involve. Checking that it’s the right career for you before you take the plunge is well worth it, and this requires some research.

It’s helpful for you to start researching personal training opportunities in your area, the demand for personal trainers, and how much you expect to earn from your new role. Understanding these practicalities will help you to determine whether your career move is feasible as a full-time job, whether you will need to supplement it with another income, and where you should base your business. 

Decide What You Want From Your New Career

Your research may have raised a lot of questions relating to how you will run your business. Based on what you have found out during the research, it’s helpful to consider the following points:

• Do you plan to you base yourself at a gym and work as a personal trainer with the gym’s existing clients?
• Would you like to be fully self-employed and build your own client base from scratch?
• Are there particular clients you would like to work with? E.g. new mums returning to fitness postpartum, amatuer athletes looking for training ahead of triathlons, marathons, etc, clients returning to training following injury.
• How much do you realistically need to earn to make your personal training business viable?
• How many clients will you need to train?
• Are you willing to work evenings and weekends to fit around your client’s schedules?
• Do you need to invest in equipment before you can start your business?
• How much will it cost you to run the business?
• How will you promote your business to attract clients?

Considering each of these questions is vital, as the clearer your ideas are in your mind, the easier it will be to make them a reality.

Get Qualified

After deciding that becoming a personal trainer is the right career choice for you, it’s time to take the leap and get qualified. Choosing the right personal trainer course is essential. There are many different levels of personal trainer qualifications, and different specialist areas. So, understanding what your niche will be and choosing a training course to match is vital. 

As well as ensuring that the course will match your specialism, it’s also important to check when and where it is delivered. If you are planning to study alongside your existing job, you may want to choose a course that is either delivered solely online, or features a mix of online and face-to-face sessions.

Setting Up Your Personal Training Business

After you have achieved your qualification and have been certified, you will be ready to get out there, start taking on clients, and begin achieving results. But first, you need to take care of some of the practicalities of being self-employed. This will includes taking out personal trainer liability insurance. If one of your clients is injured during your training sessions, you could be liable for expensive medical bills and compensation. Having the correct personal trainer liability insurance will help protect you against costly compensation claims that could potentially destroy your new business.

Depending on how much you earn from your new business, you may need to register as self-employed and pay self-employed tax, so understanding how the rules apply to you is important at this stage.

Becoming a personal trainer can be a really rewarding career. If you are passionate about fitness, becoming a qualified personal trainer could be the perfect way to transform your hobby into a career. With the correct qualifications, a strong business idea, and plenty of determination, your new role as a personal trainer is sure to be a success.

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Related Pages

• Becoming a Personal Trainer or Strength & Conditioning Coach
• Personal Trainer Courses
• A career as an exercise physiologist
• Information about accreditation as a exercise physiologist
• About other Careers in Sport.