Last week I was at corportate headquarters for my company and checked in at the gym to kill some time. I decided to poke around the facility and ask the coach on staff some questions about his job. He runs the corportate fitness center and organizes health and wellness events for all employees. The gym is not outsourced, its run through the company I work for. However, he eluded for me not be be 'disillusioned' by his job merely because all of the folks on staff had degrees in something fitness related. I do not have a degree in fitness - I have a degree in business & technology. I've seen many people succeed in industries where their degree doesnt apply and where their passion is incredible. Is a degree really necessary or when is a degree necessary?
Usually when there is a passion for something...there is always a passion to learn more about it.
No you don't "need" a degree to succeed in fitness. I see alot of these young cats come out with their degrees and can spit out every research article or formula, but can't build a rapport with a client even if you gave them directions.
Get your foot in the door. Your desire to succeed and be effective to your clients, will only make you hungrier for knowledge and experience.
I agree with John. I've worked with trainers that graduated with unrealated degrees but had passion for exercise get certified and do great. At the same time, just about all of my close friends that graduated with me with the same fitness degree are now working in completely different fields.
Having a degree in fitness certianly gives you more opportunities to get in at some facilities, but it is by no means the only way. Any decent fitness director should recognize that passion and eagerness to learn and improve is way more valuable than just having a degree. I learned way more about actually training on my own after graduating then I ever did in the courses I took.
Last week I was at corportate headquarters for my company and checked in at the gym to kill some time. I decided to poke around the facility and ask the coach on staff some questions about his job. He runs the corportate fitness center and organizes health and wellness events for all employees. The gym is not outsourced, its run through the company I work for. However, he eluded for me not be be 'disillusioned' by his job merely because all of the folks on staff had degrees in something fitness related. I do not have a degree in fitness - I have a degree in business & technology. I've seen many people succeed in industries where their degree doesnt apply and where their passion is incredible. Is a degree really necessary or when is a degree necessary?
Rather than look at your degree as a negative, you should consider it a positive.
Business and technology can definitely help you as a personal trainer. You must treat yourself as your own business and everything you know will help at one point. Technology can help you as well.
You will likely have clients in business and technology fields so your knowledge will help you build rapport with the clients which always makes it easier training them.
Couple with your unique knowledge and passion, you will be able to build up the experience to make you a great trainer as trainers who even have advanced kines degrees or PHDs need to build up experience before they can become great trainers.
It's kind of a crap shoot. Some of the best trainers i've learned from had masters degrees, but I've also met 1 or 2 with masters degrees that were not impressive at all. I've also met trainers without a formal education that were incredible, and ones that were total dumbasses. I would say if you have the desire to work with elite level athletes such as college, olympic, or professional, or if you want to work with extreme special populations with severe health or injury issues, you will want or need a degree. A degree or certification is only a piece of paper that you might as well hang on the wall over your toilet. What's really important is who is your teacher or mentor, and how good is the knowledge you're learning and passing on to your clients. The best teachers as well as the best trainers are usually people that have a good balance of academic knowledge and applied practical knowledge. If you want a couple of recommendations for how to skip getting a formal degree, but still get a really good balanced education towards becoming a trainer, I would recommend the NPTI(national personal training institute) which is a very in depth 6 to 12 month program. It's not cheap, but in this case you get what you pay for, an awesome program. The other recommendation I would make would be to get some various Crossfit certifications under your belt. Also not cheap, but well worth it. Also aside from the actual training knowledge and experience you will need, none of that matters if you can't find clients and sell them training. So you might want to research resources for marketing and sales techniques as well. Being a trainer is one of the best careers I can think of as long as you are passionate about it, treat it like a serious business, and never stop learning. Good luck
My B.S. was in Exercise Science and Wellness and my minor was nutrition. I got special permission to have the cooking classes switched to Dietetics classes. I received straight A's in every class related to my major and minor. The classes were so much fun it was hard not to make an A. My internships included cardiac rehab, physical therapy, and corporate wellness. I also took about a dozen nursing classes and attended clinicals in the orthopedics, oncology, and the emergency room. After graduation I was certified as an ACSM HI/FI.
I then went on countless interviews for about two years. My interviews included sports medicine clinics, hospitals, gyms, corporate wellness centers, sports related training centers etc...
No one that interviewed me had ever heard of the ACSM! Can you believe that a common question was, "So what exactly is Exercise Science?".
My search was from Atlanta to Birmingham to Nashville, because I wanted to stay in the south east.
After that money was running out and I needed a full time job. At that point I realized the only work I could get was temp work picking up trash, sweeping floors, or some other degrading job where I couldn't do what I loved. I ended up working in factories for minimum wage.
The Exercise degree was a LOT of fun. It was awesome taking all those classes. But to me it was worthless as being necessary for employment.
Maybe if fitness was treated more professional like physical therapy or nursing, where a person was required to have a degree and be certified to teach there would be a need for degrees.
Whoever reads this, please don't take it completely serious if you really want the degree. I am just a bit sour and disgruntled not getting to work in an industry that I love. I am only typing this to say that degrees and certs are not required. They may be a wastes of time and money.
I would assume a certification like ACE, being in good shape (so you look like you know what your talking about), a friendly attitude, really caring about the people you work with and as time goes on, word of mouth is all you need.
On one positive note there was a guy in my class that on his first interview, got a job as head of a physical therapy department. There was another that got a job in pharmaceutical sales. Most people I spoke with either were there for fun only, or went on to further there career in other medical professions.
Rather than look at your degree as a negative, you should consider it a positive.
Business and technology can definitely help you as a personal trainer. You must treat yourself as your own business and everything you know will help at one point. Technology can help you as well.
You will likely have clients in business and technology fields so your knowledge will help you build rapport with the clients which always makes it easier training them.
Couple with your unique knowledge and passion, you will be able to build up the experience to make you a great trainer as trainers who even have advanced kines degrees or PHDs need to build up experience before they can become great trainers.
I agree with this statement. I have a business Degree and work in Social tech field in the bay area. When some of my tech/business friends get tired of talking business or tech, I can school them about fitness.
To practice what I preach, I am starting my PT certification schooling and hope to get it in a month
Degree Required?
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