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The difference between a fitness instructor and a personal trainer
Before you become a fitness professional you should understand the difference between a fitness instructor and a personal trainer. I will explain their differences in this short article.
A fitness instructor
As a fitness instructor, you are responsible for the day-to-day running of the gym which involves the following duties:
- Showing new customers around the gym
- Screening customers
- Writing programmes for customers
- Inducting customers do their programme
- Answering questions
- Giving advice on exercise and healthy eating
- Walking the gym floor and engaging with customers
- Cleaning gym equipment
- Carrying out maintenance checks of gym equipment
The working hours are usually on a shift basis and often involve evenings and weekends
The salary is usually very low and in some cases not far from minimum wage.
However, it is a great job to have whilst building your skills, confidence and knowledge. You can also build a strong reputation so that when you decide to take the next step you already have a loyal following.
A personal trainer
As a personal trainer, you have a much smaller client base. Face-to-face trainers may only have 10-12 regular clients that see them two to three times a week. Online trainers can have as many as 50 clients. A personal trainer is responsible for helping their clients achieve their health and fitness goals and includes the following duties:
- Carryout sales calls and consultations over the phone or face to face
- Health and fitness testing
- Goal setting
- Writing training programmes
- Delivering personal training programmes
- Reviewing food diaries and giving nutritional advice
- Creating valuable content to share with their audience via social media and email.
- Networking.
- Building resources to support their clients achieve their goals.
- Troubleshooting client problems
- Listening to clients and giving moral support
And much more….
A personal trainer’s job is more varied and requires a higher skill set which justifies their higher salary. A top-selling PT can earn over 60K a year. A top-selling online PT can earn five times as much.
Can I just qualify as a personal trainer?
If you have no interest in working as a fitness instructor you will still need a level 2 gym instruction qualification as that is the entry requirement to a level 3 personal training qualification. Once you have both your level 2 & 3 feel free to jump straight in as a personal trainer. Not everyone needs to spend time building their confidence as a gym instructor.
Working as a personal trainer is not only fun and rewarding but if you follow the advice we give you at Storm Fitness Academy it can also be very affluent.
Hopefully, you now have a much clearer understanding of the difference between a fitness instructor and a personal trainer.
If you want to become a successful personal trainer then get in touch via the form below and we can chat about your career goals and how we can help you along this exciting journey 👍
You may also be interested in this article ‘What should a personal trainer know’.
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