Ready to Be a Personal Trainer? Personal Training Pros & Cons

You love fitness, you’re in the gym all the time anyway, why not make personal training your career? If you’ve had this thought, you’re far from alone. Many people who love working out will eventually ponder making a career out of it. 

While it’s true that this is a job for someone who is passionate about fitness, there’s a lot more to it. You need to consider all the pros and cons of working as a personal trainer before making a big career switch. 

One important factor is stress. All jobs come with some degree of stress, but it might look different for each person and situation. Here’s what you need to know about the stress of being a certified personal trainer and whether all the benefits of the job outweigh the potential stressors. 

Aspects of Personal Training That Can Be Stressful

All jobs have some degree of stress. What that stress looks like is specific to a career or industry. It’s important to understand what aspects of training can be stressful to decide if those are things you can live with. 

You Need to Be Certified

A lot of people assume that experience working out is enough to begin working as a trainer. While legally, you do not need a credential, practically speaking, you must be certified to be a personal trainer. You can’t simply jump into this career. Complete a personal trainer certification program, get some experience, find a mentor, and then strike out on your own. 

The Hours Are Not 9-to-5

This might be a draw initially, but the non-standard hours also have their downsides. Once you’re established, you’ll have more flexibility to create your own schedule. Initially, you’ll need to work whenever you can. That often means working evenings, weekends, or even as early as 5:00 in the morning. 

How much stress this causes you depends on how you like to work and how you spend your off time. Just be aware that you might need to work hours that are less than ideal and that this can interfere with other aspects of your life. 

Being Your Own Boss

There are two common routes to take as a personal trainer: be an employee or work for yourself. Many trainers go into the industry hoping for the latter, but being your own boss can be stressful. It takes a lot of work and requires some business knowledge. 

The good news is that if you complete the right certification program, you’ll learn some business skills to get started. Still, be aware that you will have to manage things like insurance, invoicing, marketing, and hustling to keep your client list full. Once you have a full client list, you have to manage it and your schedule. 

Meeting the Personal Training Session Quota at a Gym

If you go the other route and get a job at a gym, a lot of the business stuff is taken care of for you. But being an employee comes with its own stresses, including the session quota. 

Many gyms work on this model. They take a cut of the fees you charge clients. The gym requires you to hit a certain number of sessions per week or month or you risk being let go. Being part of a gym gives you a large network of potential clients, but it is still up to the trainer to book them. 

You’ll Be Active for Hours, But Not Necessarily in the Way You Want

Personal training is physically demanding. Except for when you’re working on administrative tasks, you will be moving around, demonstrating exercises, working out with your clients, and spotting them. 

But this is what you got into it for, right? You love working out. Keep in mind that most of this activity is dictated by what your clients need. It’s not your workout. You’ll have to set time aside for that later, which can be frustrating, not to mention exhausting. 

Working with Difficult Clients

Working with clients is both the joy and reward of training and also one of the most difficult aspects of the job. You can be the best trainer possible, educate a client, help them create goals, motivate them and be a cheerleader and they still might not do what you ask of them. 

And when those clients inevitably fail to progress or meet their fitness goal, who is to blame? Don’t be surprised if they take it out on you. As a fitness trainer, you have to learn how to work with difficult people and when to terminate a professional relationship. These situations can definitely be stressful. 

So, Is it Stressful to Be a Personal Trainer or Rewarding? 

As with any career, there is a balance to be struck. All jobs come with stress. It is inevitable and not always bad. Stress can be motivating. To be happy in your chosen line of work, whatever it is, you need to strike a balance. 

Whether or not you can find the balance between stress and the positive aspects of training depends on individual factors. Some people are more suited to working in fitness training than others. These are some of the most important traits that will not only help you be a good trainer but will also indicate the inevitable stresses of the job won’t overwhelm you: 

• Loving fitness, working out, and healthy habits is essential for trainers and the easiest qualification for most to hit. You must enjoy the fitness world but also practice what you preach. 

• Good personal trainers are patient. They are able to calmly work with difficult clients who don’t follow their suggestions. 

• Trainers are good communicators. It can be stressful and frustrating when clients don’t understand you, but it is your job to communicate effectively. Trainers are educators and must be able to communicate clear messages. 

• Training clients requires organizational skills. If you are always disorganized, it adds to the stress of the job. 

• You should be flexible and a good problem solver. Trainers need to make changes on the fly and adapt programs when their plans aren’t working. 

• Perhaps most importantly of all, you must enjoy working with people. If you don’t, this job will quickly become stressful and unpleasant. 

How to Avoid Burnout and Manage Stress as a Trainer

Stress management is an important life skill, no matter what you do for a living. If you can prevent stress from leading to burnout and cope with it in healthy ways as it arises, you can thrive as a personal trainer. Here are some tips: 

• Maintain healthy habits. It’s important to set an example as a trainer, but healthy habits will also help you manage stress better. This means eating well, getting enough sleep every night, and limiting alcohol intake. 

• Know when to drop a client. And be willing to do it for your own mental health. Some professional relationships are more trouble than they’re worth. Realize that you can’t help everyone and that doesn’t make you a bad trainer. 

• Invest in your organizational skills. It’s worth taking some time at the beginning of your career to develop and implement organizational tools, like software for scheduling or payments. Once it’s up and running, many aspects of your business will run themselves. 

• Set work hours and stick with them. Set office hours, times during which clients can reach you with questions. Be firm with those times. 

• Take time to relax. Your job as a trainer will be active and busy. Schedule downtime for relaxing, resting, and recovering. Use this time to do something you enjoy or to try mindfulness activities like meditation. 

Here is some additional information for avoiding burnout as a fitness professional. 

Becoming a Personal Trainer

Working as a personal trainer is like any other career with pros and cons. If you love fitness and you love helping and working closely with people, there is a good chance the pros will outweigh the cons. 

If you’re ready to start your journey in fitness, check out the ISSA’s Personal Training Certification program. It has everything you need to get certified on your own timeline and at your own pace.