Personal trainers are the heroes behind great athletic achievements, personal bests, and healthier individuals reaching their fitness goals. A career as a personal trainer can be both lucrative and extremely rewarding as you progress clients through your tailored programs.
In today’s closer look, we’ll explore everything it takes to become a personal trainer and the best ways to ensure long-term success in the fitness industry.
Getting Started with Personal Trainer Certification
There are many different certification programs out there for becoming a personal trainer. The most important thing is to choose a program that’s both recognized, as well as pertinent to the type of fitness you plan on getting into.
The National Academy of Sports Medicine, National Strength and Conditioning Association, ISSA, National Exercise Trainers Association, and ACE Personal Trainer Certifications are all very well-known and respected programs in the fitness world. These programs offer a variety of different methods with a focus on internet study for the bulk of the course load. Most programs also require you to have a current CPR/AED certification in place in order to sit for the examination.
It’s also a good idea to get some work experience under your belt as you’re progressing through a program. Your local gym may be open to you shadowing another personal trainer just to get a better feel for what you’re learning. If you are interacting with clients, it’s vital to go ahead and secure personal trainer insurance to make sure you’re covered if an unexpected event ever crops up. It may sound like overkill, but after an accident occurs is absolutely not the time to be wishing you were covered.
Starting Your Personal Trainer Career
As you move through your certification courses and pass your new exam, you’re ready to get out there and start offering services. But, just as you studied hard with fitness courses and crammed for the certification exam, you should take a moment to strategize your career goals and aspirations.
A few key areas to give consideration to as you embark on your journey to becoming a personal trainer include:
- Deciding Which Kinds of Services to Offer
Your personal trainer certification courses will have exposed you to many different fitness programs, routines, and best practices. Even with all of this new knowledge, you should consider honing in on a specific niche in order to develop a differentiating service offering. Being all things to all people is never a good strategy in business and the same applies to personal training.
Consider which programs really piqued your interest in training and focus on really developing your skill set within these specialized areas. This helps you develop yourself as an authority in a particular area and can lead to greater stability as your career progresses.
- Deciding Whom to Provide Services To
Coinciding with what types of fitness programs to offer is deciding whom you should provide these services to. Different clientele will require different strategies to attract, capture, and retain the client for any length of time. Do you enjoy helping to develop young athletes? Perhaps you’re better equipped for working with geriatric clients?
Focusing in on a specific segment allows you the freedom to strategize your service offering to best serve a particular group and develop programs that cater accordingly.
- Choosing Where to Provide Services
Personal trainers are in huge demand. In fact, the US Department of Labor pegged the growth rate for trainers at double-digits and far outpacing a number of other occupations. The best news is that trainers today have more options than ever for where and how they choose to provide fitness training. You can work in a gym as an employee, choose to go solo as an independent contractor, or even offer hybrid training models that blend technology and in-person training.
Consider where you’re at your best and play to your strengths. Do you work better alone or in a group? Do you get your energy from others or do you need time by yourself to contemplate?
Doing a little soul-searching up front for how you’ll best perform as a personal trainer will really pay off in terms of having a career you're best suited for.
Choosing the Right Personal Trainer Insurance
Personal trainer insurance is your career’s safety net for every rep and every session with your clients. In an industry as demanding as personal fitness, accidents are unfortunately a common occurrence. Having a stout personal trainer insurance policy protects everything you’ve worked so hard for. So how do you pick the right program for your unique situation?
Step 1 - Make Sure the Policy Covers the Risks Facing Personal Trainers Today
There are many insurance programs out there, but, as with most things in life, they are not all created equal. Make sure to dig into the weeds of the insurance policies you’re looking at to see coverage for general and professional liability, product liability, rental damages, stolen/damaged equipment, and even identity protection. Also, check to see if they have an affordable student policy.
Having a full suite of protections at your back and knowing these are available when you need them most gives you peace of mind to focus more of your energy on your clients.
Step 2 - See What Kind of Benefits Come with the Policy
Many personal training insurance programs come with some form of benefits, but, again, these will vary considerably from carrier to carrier. If the program you’re looking into doesn’t list it outright, ask what benefits are included with personal trainer insurance.
At IFG, we include additional protections, professionally-curated content, scores of fitness-related discounts and deals, including discounted continuing education courses - all so that our members get the best value and most support out of their insurance program.
Step 3 - Compare Your Insurance Options
Always do a little comparison shopping before deciding to go with one company over another. While one program may look great, after you dig into what they’re offering you may find the program lacking in actual coverage for your brand of fitness. Also be sure to check out a non-biased, third-party review site like TrustPilot. These sites post verified reviews from actual reviewers so you can be sure you’re getting an accurate picture. We’re pumped to maintain an “Excellent” rating on TrustPilot from hundreds of members reviewing our program.
Step 4 - Determine How Much Personal Trainer Insurance Will Cost
Easily the top item on everyone’s list is price. True, while price alone shouldn’t be your sole determining factor in any purchasing decision, it still plays a huge part. That’s where a combination of great coverage and real affordability goes a long way. At just $179 a year for coverage, our program is generally less than your annual gym membership.
Step 5 - See What Fitness Programs Are Covered Under the Plan
A great insurance program becomes not-so-great fast when it doesn’t cover a lot. Many programs out there only apply to a select few fitness programs and then charge additional fees when you want to offer something outside of that. With IFG, our members are covered for literally hundreds of different fitness programs, including online and virtual personal training, all so they can decide the best combination of services for their clients.
Making sure you understand what the policy does and doesn’t cover is important for determining how much protection you’re really getting. With personal training, you plan out the best course of action for helping clients achieve their goals and your personal trainer insurance should be no different.
Setting Yourself Up for Long Term Success
In order to achieve great results with your clients, you need to make sure you have proper protection in place. Hands-down the best long term success plan is to have a solid insurance program in place from the get-go. Insurance is all about risk mitigation. This may sound lofty but the idea is that you’re transferring the risk of having to pay out-of-pocket for a claim back onto your insurance carrier.
Risk mitigation is a strategy employed by top businesses and organizations the world over. The best news is you can create your own comprehensive risk mitigation strategy in just a few minutes with IFG’s personal trainer insurance program.
We’ve already seen where personal trainer insurance is important from Day 1 in the industry. With so many different types of risks, all it can take is one accident to completely sideline a career as a personal trainer. Without insurance, your career and your personal finances are at significant risk when the unexpected occurs.
For less than $0.50 per day, all-encompassing personal trainer insurance and the support of an entire fitness community is one of the best options for long term success as a trainer.
Signing Up For Insurance in Minutes
Ensuring a great career in fitness takes an insurance program made just for fitness professionals. At IFG, our programs are specifically tailored just for personal trainers and were designed to afford the best all-around protection possible from the risks facing today’s fitness pros. Signing up for our comprehensive personal trainer insurance is easy and only takes a few minutes.
