I’m finally able to sit down and give your questions the attention they deserve, Laura.
They’re all insightful questions and I give you a lot of credit for wanting to take a realistic look at the job instead of being dazzled by the ‘glamour’ of being a personal trainer. Sadly, we have a steady stream of trainers who last about three weeks due to unrealistic job expectations.
OK, I’ve worked for a Ballys for about six months now, so my gym is very different from Mel’s –- big corporation, huge membership, multiple layers of management -- but our experiences are remarkably alike, so perhaps it’s like this throughout the personal training industry?
First of all, despite any comments that I may make in this post, I love my job and probably would do it for free (but don’t tell my boss
). So I don’t have any regrets about becoming a PT and plan on doing it for a long time. But the realities of personal training are very different than what I imagined, even though I had worked with a PT for a year, am friends with a bunch, spend lots of time around them before I got certified, and thought I knew what I was getting into. I’m going to highlight several areas of ‘things I wish I have realized’ …
Selling – Personal training is a business. The bottom line is selling your services and making money for your employer. My gym doesn’t care who’s the best trainer – what they care about is who sells the most training each month. My boss has a white board on the wall in his office with all our names listed and monthly quotas of units and dollars for each of us and a running total of how much we’ve sold that month. The pressure to sell and generate income is omnipresent and stressful.
We aren’t handed clients – we have to go out and find our own or else we’re very quickly out of a job. Consequently, you have to be a salesman for yourself, which was very difficult at first for me. I thought being a PT would be all about training, but to a large extent it’s all about selling. I don’t have any prior experience with sales and felt really weird at first but am becoming more confident now that I feel that I can truly offer value for my services. But it took me a good two months to even begin to develop a technique and generate sales. I’m still extremely low key compared to some of the guys but it’s working for me now. So be prepared to be a salesman.
Pay – as Mel says, it stinks. More than half of what we charge a client goes to Ballys. The corporation gets its money up front but we trainers are only paid per session redeemed. So if someone cancels at the last minute, you’re not paid. You’re also not paid for all the gaps in your schedule or the work you need to do outside of the gym to prepare. It’s disheartening when I get my paycheck and I realize how hard I’ve worked for so little money. Honestly, I’m not in it for the money, so I’ll continue but you definitely couldn’t support a family as a PT, at least in my gym.
Erratic Scheduling – People want to work out when they’re not working, so the prime times for training are the early morning shift and after work that Mel was talking about. As a result, when you’re a PT, you’ll be working when everyone else isn’t because it’s awfully hard to find those lovely middle of the day clients we all dream of. My schedule is pretty much bits and pieces throughout the day – here’s a typical day from this past week: appointments at 7:30 am, 9:00 am, 1 pm, 2 pm, 4:00 pm, 5:00 pm, 6:30 pm, and 7:30 pm. Keep in mind that I’m only paid for sessions, so the hour and half hour gaps are unpaid but there’s not enough time to go home.
But that’s not a bad day – a bad day is four hours of appointments in a row with no breaks. I can do three hours without a rest, but four is really pushing it. A client gets an hour session, so there’s barely time to run to the bathroom between clients, let alone eat or sit down. It’s tough to do that for more than three hours at a time.
Appearance – I wish it weren’t this way, but being a PT means being judged on how you look. I was surprised to discover that clients don’t care much about your credentials, brains, or experience – they evaluate you based on your appearance. They want to look like you and will tell you that. So you are a walking billboard for your services and, as Mel says, you’re expected to personally walk the walk.
In my gym, all the PTs are in fantastic shape – many are bodybuilding or figure competitors. None are even remotely overweight. I’m 5’4”, around 140 pounds, in the teens in BF% and wear size 4 and am still the chunkiest female trainer by far. I probably get away with it only because I’m 50.
Our uniform shirts are skimpy little red T shirts that wouldn’t work for someone who was even a little chubby. Being extremely fit is a prerequisite for the job, at least in my gym, and an overweight or out of shape trainer would never be hired. I’m not defending it, but that’s the reality, at least where I work.
Odds and Ends – this is getting long, so just me just add a few more things that I was surprised at –
* I spend a lot of time outside the gym prepping for workouts. I do them all in advance on my computer and spend most of Sunday getting ready for the week.
* It’s an exhausting and physical job. Think about all the exercise demo’s and changing weights and being on your feet for hours, plus I do abs and some shoulders along with my clients (hey, it’s a sneaky way to get my abs done and they like it!)
* Ditto on the counselor function. Many of my clients are quite emotionally needy and that can really suck the energy out of you.
* The job is draining. It takes a lot of energy to completely focus on someone for an hour, then bam! here comes the next appointment and it’s time to regroup and totally focus on someone else. Remember, there aren’t breaks between clients.
* In my gym, being a PT is like running your own business. My boss doesn’t care what I do so long as I’m generating $$$. I make my own schedule and can do things my way, which I really like. So I can do things like my own weight loss journal and handouts for clients. I like the independence but it could be hard for someone looking for a little more direction or guidance about what to do. It’s very much sink or swim where I work - many are hired but few survive.
Whew – sorry this turned out to be so long! I could go on and on but will stop but please feel free to ask questions if any of this wasn’t clear.