Subject: Re: Personal Trainer certification question From: "John 'the Man'" [email hidden] Date: 12/24/2004 9:00 AM Eastern Standard Time
Just a few obvious pointers, which of course you will never see. Get a brain transplant, a body like Zeus, and don't quit your day job.
For the record and for serious replies, my desire to become a personal trainer is not for ego or $, but rather what seems like a next "natural" step in my own personal fitness and lifestyle change.
In the past three years I have lost a significant amount of weight by a committed lifestyle change. Whatever goes in my mouth has to be worked off. I developed a personal program of increased cardiac activity and weight training to help form the type of body I wanted to see when I looked into the mirror.
I ask the question with all seriousness and appreciate the serious responses I have received. While I do not feel pursuing a certification that borders along the medical and scientific professional degrees would be realistic, I also am not looking to simply pay for a set of initials to follow my last name and hopefully bring clients.
Please dual post here and my email, [email hidden]
1. Be a People Person. 2. Look like the personal trainer that your clients are expecting to see. 3. Be proficient at using the exercise equipment that your clients will be using. Know how to get results. Know everything that there is to know about getting results from exercise. 4. Study enough academic book knowledge required to pass the certification test. There are any number of ways of doing this from the school of hard knocks to Internet correspondent schools. The dumbest way, IMHO, is to get a 4 year degree in something that virtually any people person could do. 5. Take the certification test from one of the 2 organizations that certify personal trainers. The test will cost you around $300. Sorry, but worrying about which organization is the best indicates that you wont make it as a personal trainer. 🙁 6. Get a CPR certification from the American Red Cross. 7. Develop a personal trainer profile with at least one specialty, such as Karate. 8. Get a job as a personal trainer, or con rich people into hiring you as a personal trainer without any prior experience. Lots of Luck, Buddy!