I am about to graduate an Electrical Engineer from Florida. I hate it. I dont want to be an engineer. I have been working out the last 1.5 years, and am in love with it. I want to be a personal trainer.
Motivation - everytime I am in the gym, I find myself working out to new levels. I have two workout partners that get pissed when I miss a workout. I feel like I can be a motivation to many people. I just dont know where to begin…Any thoughts?
Stick with engineering! I have been both, personal training gets old. I paid my way through college as a trainer, now am an engineer. I just don’t see being 65 and retiring as a personal trainer! You can always supplement income as a trainer on the side! Helps pay for supplements! Just my 2 cents, But if you are hell bent on being a trainer, stay in school and get some education in physiology and anatomy (that is what my degree is in, not engineering) and get certified by NSCA or ACSM. These are the most demanding groups in their certifications! You might be a great trainer and make a good living, but I wouldn’t just throw out your career in engineering until you experience all thath training encompasses! In faith, Matt
A few questions you should ask yourself: what do you have to “offer”? If someone, who is not at all familiar with weight training, were to ask you “what’s a deadlift (or squat), and what’s the correct form?” - how do you answer in “layman’s” terms, in other words, explain in a way that they would understand? Do you have the patience to work with people who just maybe, need some hand holding? And what about the people who “know it all”? How would you deal with them?
Make no mistake, being a "QUALITY" personal trainer takes ALOT more than a "love for weight training". It takes creativity, patience and the ability to be a good listener. As well as a problem solver.
Read ISSA (International Sports Sciences Association), Paul Chek, www.chekinstitute.com - also check the FAQ section on T-Mag, there's a article about all the PT certification orgs that you may find interesting.
Do some research, ask questions to both Private Trainiers and the ones employed by the gym chains. Remember that certification is only the beginning and not the end. You'll still be learning, from the new info that comes out each day/week and sometimes from your clients.
Aside from the knowledge aspects, you can be a very good (and knowledgeable) trainer, and still not make any money if you don’t know how to market yourself. People will not come flocking to you just because you hang out your shingle and have a certificate.
See the FAQ section of T-mag. Read “So you want to be a personal trainer?” and the one by Shugart about ACE. I forgot the name of that one.
I’m an engineer, but I alsays kinda, sorta thought I wanted to be a professional fisherman. Then I met a couple of guys that make their living fishing, and I realized that I’m better off being an engineer and fishing for fun- these guys don’t get to enjoy fishing nearly as much when it’s their job. I expect that personal training is a little like that- likely a struggle just to make a “go” of it, and when you get established, it’s not as much fun as you thought it might be. My recommendation would be to have a serious Q&A session with a couple of personal trainers before you make any decisions. Good luck!
Personal Training is very boring if you are not training highly motivated people. And any “certification” will be the biggest waste of time in the history of wasting time. Get a good paying job engineering first…Then build up your home gym to respectable standards. Mention to friends and family that you are training people in your garage on the side. Get some cards made and when you hear someone talking about training drop them your card. BTW you will get more business from looking the part than anything else, but you will only keep the clients that get results. Never stop learning…Find someone who knows more than you and train with them. A couple of months later switch it up again. Stay up on supps, vitamins and herbs. Read everybody’s theories on training and diet. And most of all you will have to be ready for anything. Get used to saying “I don’t know” and then digging for the answer for your client. Make sure to be very selective with the people you train. If they don’t get results they won’t lead to future biz and that may not be your fault, but it will be your problem. Good Luck
personal training is a lot different than working out. when you train yourself, you train hard, and you train right. when you train other people you can’t necessarily do this. a lot of the people that hire personal trainers are not after the best results. they are after the best results with the least work. if you have them doing all freeweights and make them sweat they will just hire a new personal trainer that will chat with them in the middle of their 3 sets of 10, machine circuit routine. you almost have to be sacreligous to the T-principles to be a successfull personal trainer. you also have no control over clients diets. most of the people who are serious about training know enough about it themselves or learn enough about it themselves that they don’t need or want a personal trainer. just think about who you will be training. if you actually want to work with athletes you should go to school to be a strength and conditioning coach.
dude, im in the same boat as you…im about to graduate (assuming i dont fail all my last classes) as an electrical engineer from one of the most competitive engineering schools in the northeast…and let me tell you, this shit is DRY…i did a couple of internships and the idea of using the power sources to electrocute myself never seemed sweeter. nevertheless, you gotta realize that engineering has provided you (us) with an insight and knowledge base that i’d guess 90% of people lack…i’m certainly not doing straight-up engineering (i’m going to law school) after i graduate, but i plan on utilizing my engineering background in some way (i.e. by doing patent law). as for physical training, its cool to train hard and get really healthy and in shape and shit, but itd definately get played quick to just like train others as a career. it’d be aite to do on the side but id advise you hold off on the career switch for now…try and consider some stuff outside of engineering that utilizes it some way (intellectual property law, software, consulting, even business school for financial engineering)… but i totally sympathize with you re: electrical engineering…this shit is wackkkkkkkk
Personal training sucks unless you like talking shop with 45 year old unmotivated overweight house wives. Seriously though, there is nothing I love more than lifting, but honestly I’d rather bag groceries than listen to unmotivated lazy people bitch and complain while you count their reps. If your serious about doing it get certified, do it through the NSCA or ISSA, all the rest are sorry!
Sounds too familiar…I want to quit engineering and go be a professional fisherman. The sad thing is I was thinking about that the other day, and decided I couldn’t do it because I wouldn’t have the time or equipment to lift all the time while going to tourneys.
Your question could have been asked by me 3 years ago. I went to college to become an electrical engineer. I liked it at first, but I think I just liked taking shop class in high school. As I got farther and farther into the program, I loathed it more and more. I found myself wanting to be like the guy at Duke who just dropped out of school and never told his parents. By then I had already put 3 years in, so there was no hope of changing majors and graduating close to on time. So I took an internship at an engineering firm for 15 months, and you know what…? I hated it with a passion. What good is it to the world to build yet another power supply, or a bigger and faster computer, or a ceramic transformer core. Furthermore, why did I have to spend 60 hours a week working on this crap? I did graduate after another year and a summer class. During that summer while I was taking my class, I looked for work at all the local gyms, figuring if I was going to work at some low paying job I might as well get a gym membership out of it. None of them were hiring and the ones that were didn’t need uncertified personal trainers. I did manage to get a job as third assistant towel boy. When I did graduate, despite my parents pleas, I didn’t get an engineering job, just moved into a ghetto apartment and started working at another gym doing the orientations. Then I got NSCA certification. Look into it. It’s not ACE. Almost every strength coach in America has the CSCS certification. Then I started doing personal training and quit doing gym desk work. I charge $30 an hour, and help a lot of people lose weight or gain size. I work when I want to and make enough money to be happy. I also have time to coach HS wrestling and football and be the strength coach at a high school. I also work at another training facility where a number of pro athletes train. Someday I will be a strength coach at a D1 college, even if I have to go back to school for exercise science. All my friends bitch and moan they make 70 grand a year, but have to work 70 hour weeks. When I see them they look all run down and say “I don’t have time to work out like I did in college” I am in the best shape of my life. It was the best decision I ever made.
Sure people will tell you the negatives, “You’ll be broke and living on a street corner.” “You won’t make as much money as you could doing engineering.” “Don’t throw away your degree.” Well I say, they don’t have to be me. In 110 years, everyone on the planet will be dead. If I spent all my time in a lab, or soldering, or doing equations on a chalkboard, how happy would my life be? I’m one of the tiny percentage of Americans who get paid doing what they like to do. Money isn’t everything. If it is more important to you, be an engineer, an accountant or a stock broker. Every once in a while, I take out my old engineering textbooks, look at them, and thank God I made the choice I did. Good Luck.
Yeah, the majority of times you’re gonna get clients who will bitch and moan and NOT want to stop their comfortable habits - HOWEVER, when you DO get through to a client and they actually listen and become as motivated as you - it makes it ALL worth it.
Don’t listen to these nay sayers. If you don’t like being an engineer now you probably won’t grow to like it. Why torture yourself when you don’t have to. We live in the US. Being a ‘poor’ personal trainer will still allow you to live a pretty darn good life.