For the record, continuing education is a big part of being a successful trainer. If you think its “take the course, get certified, train clients happily ever after”, you’re going to end up behind the times and eventually doing a disservice to your clientele.
When I was primarily focused on training, it was still just part-time work (less than 20 hours a week). When I worked out of a gym, it was an hourly base pay plus commission from selling training packages. When I worked on my own, I obviously made more, but I never went “all-in” to make training my sole income source.
It’s obviously possible to make a standalone living as a trainer, but those are generally the guys putting in a bunch of hours each week - either long days packed with clients and/or working 6-7 days a week, especially as a beginner. It’s definitely an industry that rewards hustle and grind (those buzzwords are overplayed, but they do still apply).
It absolutely can be, yep. Helping an 80+ year old guy strengthen his posture to stand up straighter and reduce shoulder pain, helping a middle-aged woman get her first chin-up, and helping a lady drop 25+ pounds for her wedding were all more rewarding than helping a dude hit a random deadlift PR.
General personal training is iffy, because it’s a luxury expense and not a necessity, but there’s certainly a bunch of possibility, especially if you’re athlete-focused.
I don’t know what the COVID situation has been like in Norway, but gyms were shutdown in a lot of places, so people found ways to keep training at home. Like plenty of other businesses, many personal trainers had to adapt by doing virtual sessions instead of live 1-on-1, and I don’t think that’s going away anytime soon.
So make sure you have an option to train people remotely, either via Zoom or whatever. As a bonus, that also opens up tons more potential clients since you’re not location-limited.
Also check out this thread where a bunch trainers have talked about what it’s like. There are also a couple of really good articles to check out: