Personal training is essentially a career that centers on advocating and providing a healthy lifestyle, both mentally and physically, for its clients. As many people are interested in the career, one of the first steps in getting familiar with the personal trainer certification.
Getting a personal trainer certification is a simple process. However, it involves a lot of dedication in order to obtain one. Therefore, aside from getting familiar with what a personal trainer certification is as well as the process, you should also look into a personal trainer as a career. If being a personal trainer resonates with you, then you are definitely in the right article.
Article Contents
What Is a Personal Trainer Certification?
Obtaining a personal trainer certification essentially allows you to become a beacon for people who seek a healthier lifestyle.
Although many people can do this out of self-taught methods, getting certified as a personal trainer means that you are more qualified to provide the knowledge of a healthy lifestyle than non-certified personal trainers.
The certification requires hard work and commitment. For example, getting a personal trainer certification online means that you have put in your hours at the library and the gym to understand how the body works and what method is best to accomplish that health-based goal. Additionally, getting certified means that people will tend to seek as well as pay more for your expertise.
What Personal Trainer Certificate Is Most Respected?
The most important thing when finding an organization that certifies personal trainers is if the organization is accredited. Accredited organization means that the organization has been credentialed by top entities. Ones who are accredited means that their standards are respected in the health and fitness industry.
The National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA) and the National Board of Fitness Examiners are among the most respected organizations for personal trainer certificates.
Below are five more respected organizations that issue personal trainer certificates:
- National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM)
- American Council on Exercise (ACE)
- National Strength & Conditioning Association (NSCA)
- International Sports Science Association (ISSA)
- National Council on Strength & Fitness (NCSF)
The organizations mentioned above are most respected as the standards and programs they provide for their students are recognized globally. Some of their programs are even adopted as a curriculum in educational institutions.
Which Is Better, NASM or ACE?
NASM and ACE are considered the two most reputable accredited organizations in terms of certifying personal trainers and other specialties in the health and fitness industry. Therefore, the majority of those who seek certification as a personal trainer likely sought these two organizations.
Further, those who attain their certificate from these two organizations are sought after by trainers and employers alike. These are due to the high standards a candidate must meet in order to pass the exam.
However, many who seek to attain a personal trainer certification have to choose one or the other. Is NASM better than ACE, or is it the other way around? See below for some things to consider when choosing between the two.
Getting started as an online fitness trainer can be tough, but both NASM and ACE will prepare you for what lies ahead!
Identify What you Want to Focus on as a Personal Trainer
NASM and ACE focus on different approaches. Therefore, you might want to identify this as well when you decide to pursue a personal trainer certification.
NASM’s teaching and courses are based around the organization’s “Optimum Performance Training” system. At first, NASM’s system will teach its students how to create a foundation by correcting muscular imbalances.
Once clients have corrected these muscular imbalances, then the personal trainer can proceed the clients to other specific regiments, such as:
- Strength & Conditioning
- Endurance
- Military-specific
- Olympic Lifting
- Calisthenic
- Bodybuilding
- Weight Loss
This approach reduces the chances of a client getting any kind of injury. Once the client builds a strong physical basis, they should be able to pursue their goals without any issue.
On the other hand, ACE has a more general approach based on their Integrated Fitness Training (IFT) model. ACE will teach its students to create an effective regimen for people seeking to improve their overall physical performance.
Therefore, the regimen primarily taught by personal trainers certified by ACE would focus on exercise and workouts that are easily digestible and doable to the general population.
Support and Pricing
Prices are sometimes a significant factor in the decision. If you have at least five choices to get your certificate from an accredited organization, you will likely choose the cheapest. All of them are accredited, so why not save some money?
NASM currently provides four packages for individuals who are trying to obtain their personal training certification. The four different packages differ in support of your exam. The cheapest package is of limited support, most likely a self-study guide. While the highest package price offers support from coaches so that you can pass your exam with flying colors
Below are the NASM packages:
- NASM Basic certification Package
- NASM CPT Self-study premium program
- CPT guided study program
- All-Inclusive program
ACE, however, provides a certain level of support from its coaches for all of its packages, which is a perfect choice for those who are not confident in self-studying. The different packages just differ in the level of support you receive from ACE.
The highest-priced package provides full support, including 1-on-1 assistance with their mentors. The basic ones do not have this level of support; however, they may include personalized reviews of test results, live Q&A sessions, as well as an email response from coaches and mentors in ACE.
There are three packages to choose from ACE:
- Basic Study Program
- Plus Study Program
- Advantage Study Program
Conclusively, one organization is not better than the other. Everything will primarily come down to which system suits you best. For example, are you looking for more of a general approach to health and fitness? Then ACE might be the best. Or do you want to focus on a proper foundation and specialize in the long run? Then NASM might be the best choice for you.
How Long Does It Take to Become a Certified Personal Trainer?
Every accredited organization that offers personal trainer certification courses will give you a different time to study and complete the final exam.
Taking online courses from accredited organizations typically take between 120 days to 180 days, putting around 80 – 100 hours of studying. Some organizations even offer a condensed and intense program to complete your studies and take the exam in a month.
If you happen to fail your first exam, this can end in two ways, assuming that quitting is not an option. First, if you purchased a “retake the test” voucher that some organizations provide, you have to wait at least a week to retake it. If you were to fail the exam for a second time, you would have to wait a month until you are able to retake your third.
If you do not have a “retake the test” voucher, then you would most likely have to pay a significant amount to retake the test. Luckily, you don’t have to pay full price. The majority of organizations out there will give you a discounted price, which expires within a year, for you to retake the test again.
How Much Does a Personal Trainer Make?
Based on the statistics provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average annual salary for personal trainers in 2017 was $39,210. Additionally, 10 percent of those personal trainers earned less than $19,640. These are most likely beginner part-time personal trainers.
The top 10 percent of personal trainers could earn around $74,520. However, it is no surprise that personal trainers out there could make a six-digit annual salary. One example is Jimmy Shiba, one of the most successful ACE-certified personal trainers who make roughly around that amount.
Note that your pay will depend on your dedication to the career (part-time vs. full-time) and working for a gym or as an independent contractor.
When you work for a gym, your pay will depend on how much a gym charges for personal training. Most gyms will charge roughly $50 per private session. So, a certified personal trainer can expect a cut of around 30 percent – 50 percent or $6 to $25 per private session from what the gym charges. And these private sessions last between 30 min to 1 hour.
The best chances of making a good profit are starting your own personal training business or as an independent contractor. Working for yourself doesn’t only allow a flexible schedule, but you get to keep the majority and sometimes 100 percent of the money you make from your client.
Experienced and certified personal trainers who run their own personal training business would usually charge clients between $50 and $150 per private session. Note that this depends on your client as well as on geographic location.
If you have a client that has their own personal gym or relies on a regimen that requires little to no gym equipment, then you keep the whole money you make in that private session. However, if you work in a local gym, the gym owner would usually require you to split the profit. You receive 90 percent while the gym owner will get a cut of 10 percent of the personal trainer’s fee.
The type of personal trainer that arguably makes the best money as a full-time personal trainer would be a celebrity personal trainer. A celebrity personal trainer can charge its clients between $100 to $500 per private session. According to Bix Fluent, a celebrity personal trainer can make roughly around $100,000 or more.
(In order to make money as a personal trainer, you’ll need to learn how to find clients as a personal trainer.)
Is Personal Training a Good Side Job if I Have a Full-Time Job?
Most part-time personal trainers are usually ones who are passionate about a healthy lifestyle or those who love pushing themselves to the physical and mental limits. These guys love to spread the same energy, habit, and lifestyle to other people while maintaining something else as their full-time job.
Most part-time personal trainers are freelancers. Therefore, they are not imposed on a strict schedule nor pay. Therefore, being a freelance personal trainer would give you more flexibility in your schedule as well as more profit because you don’t have to share it with anyone else.
Conclusion
Before you can be a great personal trainer, you have to be a great student. So remember to put in the required effort and focus on being a good student throughout the process of getting your personal trainer certification.
Focusing on a good student will automatically allow you to digest more information without distraction. Once you pass the exam, a career as a personal trainer will be an easier journey for you.
