Are you curious about what Personal Trainer requirements you need to meet to be able to work in the fitness industry? Help is on hand with our essential question and answer guide revealing the need to know facts to help you make sure your fitness career path is firmly on the right track.

What is required?

Personal trainer requirements to start your career

You will need a recognised level 2 Gym Instructor qualification and a level 3 Personal Trainer qualification. If you are starting out the simplest and most cost effective qualification route is to complete a PT course package which leads to both your level 2 and level 3 qualifications. Or, if you’re already a Gym Instructor you can jump straight onto your level 3 Personal Trainer course.

It’s important to know that your course should also meet the following personal training requirements.

• Combine theory and gym based practical training.
• Be accredited by the fitness industry through CIMSPA recognition.
• Provide training in anatomy and physiology, client screening and programme design, how to instruct personal training as well as nutrition for Fitness Professionals.

These are important quality benchmarks of the standard of your qualification and will enable you to join a relevant industry body when you start working in the fitness industry.

Further it also ensures you meet the standards employers are looking for enabling you to apply for PT jobs in a gym setting working as an employed Personal Trainer or choose to set up your own freelance personal training business.

Are there additional personal training requirements to work self-employed?

You will need sufficient public liability insurance to cover your everyday client work and business services. Without sufficient PT insurance you are potentially leaving yourself wide open to being sued should a client suffer an injury.

It is also highly advisable to gain a combined first-aid and cardio-pulmonary-resuscitation (CPR) certification.  Typically these first aid course can be completed in a day and are valid for 1-3 year durations.  Without appropriate certification this poses unnecessary risk to your clients due to the fact that you will not be qualified to administer first-aid and you are also putting your professional reputation at risk.

How can I tell if I’d be successful working as a Personal Trainer?

If you enjoy meeting different types of people, are sociable and can identify with the reasons clients use the services of a Personal Trainer you’re already on the right track.

Our best Personal Trainers enjoy the variety of the role and the different challenges they gain from supporting different client needs and goals.  They are inspirational and encourage clients to achieve what typically at the outset seems like the impossible.

What does a typical personal training session involve?

Firstly you will talk to clients and find out about their lifestyle and medical history ensuring they are safe to exercise.  Then you will agree specific short, medium and long term goals, planning and instructing safe effective exercise programmes so these can be reached. You will also provide nutritional and lifestyle guidance to support their overall holistic health.

Do Personal Trainers carry out any types of medical assessment?

Your Personal Trainer qualification does not mean you are medically qualified and responsibility here rests firmly with your client’s General Practitioner (G.P.) and medical team.

Exercise can however pose a degree of risk and it is part of the Personal Trainers job role to ascertain if their client is safe to participate in exercise.  This is completed by undertaking effective client screening where a Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire (PAR-Q) is used to assess if your client is fit for exercise or requires a medical referral.

Personal Trainers also learn how to take blood pressure for any pre/post exercise checks, monitor heart rates using an appropriate fitness tracker and conduct physical assessments such as weight, height and body fat percentage.  In addition Personal Trainers are skilled in postural and flexibility assessment techniques as appropriate to the role, which is another essential personal trainer requirement.

Personal training is focused on the look and function of the human body and its imperative to your success that you have a solid education in anatomy and physiology, which underpins so much of the day to day role and ticks those all-important personal trainer requirement boxes. Here at the Academy of Fitness Professionals we believe this is such an important requirement for a Personal Trainer that it forms the first part of your level 2 and level 3 fitness education.

Accredited Fitness Certifications – How can I find out more?

If you’d like to know more about the personal trainer requirements that matter, please get in touch and we’ll be delighted to help.