It’s the new year and many folks have fallen out of sync with their resolutions and fitness goals because they don’t know what to do. One of the easiest ways to figure out what to do is to hire a professional for advice. There are thousands of personal trainers around the world, but rather than write a generic personal training post, our foreign correspondent has set up camp and chat with some personal trainers in Langley, British Columbia to get advice for fitness newbies, and provide some tips and tricks for selecting the right expert to help you get fit.
If you exercise regularly, then congratulations: You’re already doing better than the majority of Americans. One study found that less than one-fourth of us are moving around enough. If you’re already leading an active lifestyle, then there’s a good chance that you’ve at least thought about working as a personal trainer.
If you like to exercise, it’s tempting to think that’s all you need. After all, if you’re good at working out, maybe you should use your talents to help other people become fitness experts. It’s a nice idea, but it’s usually not that simple. Here are three questions you should answer when deciding whether or not being a personal trainer is the right call.
If you enjoy trying all different kinds of physical fitness and you like to keep your own body in peak condition, then perhaps you’re interested in finding a career that allows you to engage in physical activity and impart your knowledge of fitness to others.
Getting Certified in PT
As a certified personal trainer, you can not only meet these professional goals, but you can also put your outgoing personality, communication skills, and motivational strategies to good use by helping others to realize their true potential and meet their fitness goals through targeted training programs.
But before you can get started transforming your clients one physique at a time, you need to obtain the proper certification to practice. If you want to find the one that best suits your personal and professional goals, there are a few things you should consider before you choose.
If you truly want to become fit, there is more to it than just jogging or doing a few sit up every day. As a matter of fact, the food you eat can also cause you not to be fit. The best way to do this is to hire a personal trainer than will help you get a handle on your diet and what you need to know about nutrition in order to become healthier and fit while losing weight or just toning your body.
A personal trainer will not only help you learn about nutrition, but will start you on a fitness program that will fit your own personal goals. Some people without specialized diet requirements may need to hire a personal nutritionist as well, but many trainers, as I personally did, also receive certifications in sports nutrition and other nutritional disciplines in order to offer the most effective diet advice possible and in some cases even write personalized nutrition plans.
In the majority of cases, you will need to start out slow both with diet and exercise, especially if you have not exercised or followed a health eating plan in a very long time. The good news is that you can choose a private, semi-private or group training session so you can train along with a friend and not feel so alone. On the other hand, if you want to work alone with a trainer that can also be accomplished.
Become a gym instructor: and enjoy a fitness boost
You’re fit as a fiddle, bulkier than Hulk Hogan in his prime and a better cook than Gordon Ramsay – don’t you want to share your knowledge with the world?
Private gyms are attracting more members than ever, partly thanks to a proliferation of budget deals and a new found respect for a healthy lifestyle. Many folks the world over have recently become fitness fanatics and it’s pushing the demand for private gym instructors to a record high. (more…)
Becoming a personal trainer is something that only a select few are suited for. For one thing, it’s not enough to simply enjoy physical fitness yourself, although that is certainly a prerequisite if you want a career you love. You will need to exhibit specific strengths (pardon the pun) in order to excel in such a field.
You’ll definitely have to be committed to keeping yourself in shape; after all, who wants to listen to a personal trainer that isn’t fit? That’s like trusting a driving instructor that’s never been behind the wheel of a car. However, you also need to have the right disposition. If people want to be barked at and ordered around, they’ll join a boot camp class.
It’s the job of a personal trainer to motivate, not command. You need to be patient and nurturing and employ excellent communication skills. And above all, you have to be passionate about helping others become the best version of themselves. But you also need a fair amount of training under your own belt before you can train others if you don’t want to push them too far or cause undue physical harm. As a result, it may take you a little time to become a personal trainer.
Kinesiology is ostensibly the study of human movement, but there’s a lot more to it than looking at variations in gait or the way people tilt their heads. In fact, kinesiology, as a science, tends to be far more concerned with how an in-depth knowledge of movement, including the interdependent roles of physiology, psychology, and body mechanics, pertains to the study of human health, including applications for physical therapy, rehabilitation, and orthopedics, just to name a few areas of potential benefit.
So why might someone be interested in obtaining such a degree? And how can you go about getting one that is the most likely to net you your dream job?
Here are a few pointers to help you obtain the degree in kinesiology that’s right for you.
If you’ve ever wondered just what it is that makes humans function the way they do, what keeps our bodies and minds up and running, then you might take a shine to the academic field of physiology, which is basically the study of living systems.
Human physiology, in particular, focuses on the physical, mechanical, biological, and chemical makeup of the human body, including cells, organs, and the body as a whole. You might think this sounds an awful lot like anatomy, and truly the two fields are closely related in that they both study the human body.
Whereas anatomy is largely concerned with the form of the human body, including how all the parts are laid out and interconnected, physiology is more interested in the function of these parts and how they work together in a living organism. Most medical fields require the study of both, but if you’re a lot more interested in the function than the form of humans, a degree in physiology is what you’re looking for.
All kinds of businesses carry liability insurance as a way to protect themselves from lawsuits should a client slip on a wet floor or fall off a chair in the meeting room, for example. Whenever a client is on your property you are liable for their health and safety, so should they suffer some kind of accident or injury while in your care (so to speak) you could find yourself on the hook for medical bills and other expenses.
Of course, there are other types of liability as well, concerning the products a business manufactures, how they are promoted, copyrights, and so on. But when you’re a personal trainer, the main type of liability you’ll likely be concerned with is the physical variety.
But how does liability insurance apply when you don’t operate out of your own business location?
Does the average personal trainer really need to pay for this type of insurance?
