Angela Francis

Job title Director and Personal Trainer

Employer EIF Personal Training School

How to be a personal trainer

Having a job is, today, transient. Our parents and grandparents likely had one or two jobs throughout their working life. Today people may have four or five different jobs by the time they are 30. So what, you may ask? Well happiness partly comes from having a sense of purpose, some kind of meaning to life a career provides this. A career offers an opportunity to provide an employer or a client group a strong sense of value. A career requires consistent and ongoing development in a specific area. And this creates expertise. What better way to create a career for yourself than around fitness. If you are into fitness, love working out, like the outdoors and are not probably best suited to a standard desk job, training to be a Personal Trainer could well be the answer.

EIF Personal Training School, Director Angela Francis, answers questions about her role…

What does a personal trainer do?

A personal trainer transforms people’s lives for a living! A personal trainer will motivate, educate, teach and coach to help those less familiar with exercise to work out safely. A personal trainer helps people with their nutrition building personalised eating plans to lose weight or be healthier. A personal trainer above all inspires people to change and supports them along their journey. Personal Training is the best “job” in the world.

Who do personal trainers work with?

In your job as a personal trainer you work a whole range of people. They work with people wanting to lose weight, to gain weight, who have diabetes, older clients, younger clients, clients low in self-confidence, business executives…all sort of clients. What is interesting is increasingly people are using the services of personal trainers who previously probably wouldn’t. No longer is personal training for the fortunate few but the needy masses. Whether delivered as small group training sessions or ½hr PT sessions personal trainers who make their services both cost effective and time efficient are fully booked adding value to their clients’ lives.

Where else other than a gym can they work?

Many of the jobs as a personal trainer can be working outdoors on one-on-one or on bootcamp-style sessions, clients’ homes, personal training studios, cruise ships, in the work place, even in public centres - churches, halls and of course Leisure Centres.

What skills and knowledge do you need as a personal trainer?

Whilst training to be a personal trainer you need to be confident, approachable and expert in their chosen field. That’s it. When they are they are successful.

What is different between a really successful personal trainer and the average personal trainer?

Technically not as much as you might think. Sure some average personal trainers are unaware about how to correct posture or how best to change their diet for best effect but mainly the difference lies in two areas. Firstly, a more successful personal trainer coaches permanent lifestyle change helping create a much higher sense of value in their services. Secondly, they think like a business owner. That is they are first and foremost a personal trainer but discipline themselves to create a professional image, a well-constructed website and set of products and services and run their career whether working for someone else or themselves as a business.

Training to be a personal trainer what should I be looking for in a personal training course?

If you are considering training to be a personal trainer you need lots of hands on practice time, coaching content and business. If you leave a personal training course confident in skills and feeling like an expert in your delivery, are able to coach changes in clients’ behaviours and think like a business owner you will earn back the course fees in getting trained initially in no time. Think about running small group personal training (4-on-1) at just £25 per session per person just 2 hours a day 5 days a week would earn over £4,000 in a single month! The question is will you be confident and good enough to do this by the end of the course you choose? If yes, do it.

How can I get a job as a personal trainer?

Check out different testimonials and success stories of people like you. Research into the industry more. Take Jess, for example, featured on http://www.eifitness.com/fast-track/or any of our video testimonials on www.eifitness.com home page where what started out as an interest in fitness blossomed into a compelling reason to get up every day excited about what you do indeed do for a living. Imagine doing for a job what you actually love doing. This isn’t a job it is a career. Live your life with passion and a sense of purpose you are making a difference in people’s lives and never “work” another day again. You can contact the European Institute of Fitness on 01952 820 434 and speak with a careers advisor today. Or come and visit us. Establishing a “career as a personal trainer” as opposed to getting a “job as a personal trainer” is a big deal. Most people who decide to go to University visit their ideal uni first to meet students on course, take a look around and ensure it is right for them. A successful career as a Personal Trainer is both financially lucrative and personally rewarding and only a fraction the price of a degree. Visit www.eifitness.com for more information about careers in fitness.