[quote]nz6stringaxe wrote:
So I’ve been thinking about what I want to pursue career-wise, but am unsure of what appeals to me the most. I thought a greater knowledge of what my options truly are might help.
I’m currently working as a personal trainer. I’m good with people, being a therapist of sorts, motivating people deep down to incite change, and love everything about the human body, nutrition, and psychology (the mind, I suppose).
For what its worth I have a Bachelor’s degree in music and have my CSCS in progress.
I’ve considered:
nutritionist/dietetics
research scientist
physical therapist
personal trainer
gym owner
strength and conditioning coach (university/professional)
I’m sure there must be a million more things I’m unaware of and consequently unaware of the paths which lead to them.
For example, I’m not exactly sure what an exercise physiologist is/does or what is required to become one. Things like that have stimulated my curiosity for “what else” exists since it’s a position in the medical field ($$$) and much more “official” than “personal trainer”.
Any help, T-Nation?[/quote]
An exercise physiologist primarily does lab research, though they can be employed as subordinates/assistants to a cardiologist in cardiac rehab programs. You need at least a master’s for both so it’s not a big deal that you have a bachelors in music. You really want a PhD though so you can also be a professor if your interest is research. Cardiac rehab programs are not a burgeoning business nor do they pay well though because they take up a lot of space and don’t bring in much money for hospitals.
Nutritionists/dietetics make no money and have a very unrewarding career unless you are in the top 1% of the field. They just don’t. Dieting isn’t sexy nor is it hard and doesn’t have the appeal that personal training does on the broad market. Most trainers will make their clients diets anyway for free, so you have them as competition. It’s hard to find full time employment in this field unless you want to work in a nursing home. It’s even harder to make money… you need to be a nutritionist for celebs/athletes or sell a diet book or be the top nutritionist in a large metropolitan area if you’re going to make more than ~40k/yr.
Personal trainer works, but you need good business acumen / sales ability if you want to do well here. Being knowledgeable is not enough and really if you ever want to make a decent living here you will have to branch out on your own. The same sort of thing goes with owning a gym. You can’t just plop down a gym and make money, it’s a competitive industry and most people don’t have success here.
Physical Therapist is the most reliable job here. PT is a growing business and is covered by health insurance and even the least ambitious person can have a nice career working for someone else.
You will have an extremely difficult time getting a job in S&C. The vast majority of S&C coaches are former collegiate athletes. With a degree in music and assuming no experience in S&C, you’re going to have to enroll in a master’s program and hope someone will take you as an unpaid assistant… which means you would be paying for graduate school. After a few years of that you might be able to get a job making 25,000-30,000 a year as a paid assistant.
Summary:
nutritionist/dietetics - hard to earn a living here unless you are in the top 1%. Many gyms don’t even have a nutritionist and client retention is hard in that setting. A master’s in public health nutrition is needed to gain steady employment… and at that point you really aren’t “working with the body” any more.
research scientist - this works, need a PhD though. Your undergrad is actually irrelevant here, but your lack of research experience will make it hard to get paid to go to grad school. Note that a lot of research is done on mice and rats though, so it might not be exactly what you are expecting…
physical therapist - this is the most reliable career path on this page. You don’t need to be a salesman to get a job starting at 60k out of school for someone else.
personal trainer - can make a good living here, but you have to worry about selling yourself and not just being good at what you do.
gym owner - being a gym owner is a business owner. most people fail here.
strength and conditioning coach (university/professional) - unless you played D1 sports you’re probably too old to get into this field. You’ll have to do a lot of free work followed by a lot of low-paid work before you get a decent position here.