Why Get Certified if You Don’t Want to Be a Personal Trainer?

Fitness training courses provide the knowledge needed to work as a personal trainer. They can also be valuable to a fitness instructor looking to expand their services, such as by teaching them how to lead group fitness sessions. As a result, these courses are often taken by people who want a career within the fitness industry. But they can be equally as valuable to those who don’t want to teach. 

Reasons to Learn More About Fitness—Even If You Don’t Want to Be a Personal Trainer

There are several benefits to learning more about exercise, physical fitness, and nutrition. Here are some to consider, including tips from industry experts:

• Help Loved Ones Achieve Their Fitness Goals

• Apply the Information to Your Personal Health

• Achieve Your Own Goals

• Understand How to Reduce Your Injury Risk

• Elevate Your Culinary Skills

• Find Work as a Physical Education Instructor

• Improve Your Personal Development

• Better Understand How the Body Works

• Build Blog Credibility 

• Round Out Your Professional Qualifications

Help Loved Ones Achieve Their Fitness Goals

Working on your own fitness is one thing, but that doesn't mean you can't work on the fitness of your loved ones. Fitness certifications can give you the knowledge to plan and implement effective wellness programs for your family, friends, and loved ones. You can take your personal training knowledge and use it to help others achieve their fitness goals.

Matthew Ramirez, CEO, Rephrasely

Passing on what you learn to help the people that you care about is a great feeling. Perhaps you have a family member who has health issues and, therefore, wants to get at a healthy weight. You can help them achieve this fitness goal.

Or maybe you have a friend who wants to be more toned but they’re not sure what exercises to do or how often to work out. You can use your knowledge to guide them in the right direction. You can also use your new motivational skills to keep them in it for the long haul. Because of your knowledge and involvement, they are better able to hit their fitness goals.

Apply the Information to Your Personal Health

Nutrition and fitness certifications usually include reading material that you'll have to ship to your doorstep. Even if you don't intend to become a trainer, you will still gain access to invaluable information that you can apply to your personal health journey. 

These certifications may only take weeks to months to complete, but the information they provide is science-backed and reliable. Many of these programs contain content similar to what you'd receive in a university-level introductory class in nutrition and wellness. The advantage is that you'll earn that same information without paying hefty degree costs.

Stephan Baldwin, Founder, Assisted Living Center

Have you ever created your own fitness program, yet it failed to provide your desired results? Maybe you were after a certain amount of weight loss but never hit that number on the scale. Or you wanted to build muscle strength but didn’t see any gains. Unless you know what works (and what doesn’t), achieving your goals can be hit or miss. 

Learning more about fitness helps you create an exercise program that offers you the best results possible. You will know how to get the most out of your cardio and strength training sessions. You’ll also understand how much physical activity you need to hit your desired fitness goal. 

You might wonder how much activity you need for better health, for instance. The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommend at least 150 minutes per week (1). This amount of time is also good if you’re trying to maintain your weight. However, increasing your activity to 300 minutes per week provides even more health benefits. It can also help you lose weight. 

Achieve Your Own Goals—Faster!

There's so much knowledge and information in a personal training or nutrition certification that can help one understand how to achieve their own fitness/weight-loss goals and gain the knowledge of what they're doing wrong or what they need to do to reach their own personal results and goals.

John Gardner, Co-Founder & CEO, Kickoff

What happens if you don’t get results as quickly as expected? It can be harder to show up for your workouts when you’re not seeing any real change in your weight or body composition. You may even become so frustrated by your lack of progress that you want to give up on your training altogether.

You can avoid both of these scenarios by learning more about fitness. You’ll know how to maximize your exercise sessions, resulting in faster fat loss or greater muscle gain. This helps keep you from “spinning your wheels” so to speak. All of your workout efforts will count. 

Understand How to Reduce Your Injury Risk

Learning more about fitness also helps you understand how to exercise safely. This is critical as it reduces your injury risk. If your cardio is too vigorous for your fitness level, for instance, it can send your heart rate too high. This can be extremely dangerous.

Not only are injuries painful or potentially harmful, but they can also keep you from hitting your fitness goals. It can be tough to run in a 5k if your training led to an Achilles injury. It’s also difficult to make regular exercise a habit if you’re so sore that you can’t bring yourself to work out.

The more you understand about how to exercise safely, the easier it is to avoid these issues. This can save you a lot of pain and aggravation as you work to improve your fitness level.

Elevate Your Culinary Skills

More people are becoming health conscious and mindful of the foods they put into their bodies. This has pushed many food establishments to revise their menus to include healthier options for their customers. 

As a culinary professional, adding a nutrition certification to your list of qualifications could encourage customers to dine more at your business. This would be an excellent complement if you decide to offer more gluten-free, dairy-free, and vegan meal options to cater to your guests. They'll find it easier to trust the authenticity of your menu as a credentialed health expert.

Brian Nagele, CEO, Restaurant Clicks

Find Work as a Physical Education Instructor

A personal training, nutrition, or fitness certification can open the door to many potential career opportunities, even if you don't plan on becoming a fitness trainer. Many schools are looking to hire qualified physical education instructors with certifications in order to provide students with a well-rounded education. 

With a certification, you could be prepared for such an opportunity when it arises and expand your job prospects beyond just being a trainer at the gym. Personal training, nutrition, and fitness certifications are invaluable investments that can pay off for years to come.

Jim Campbell, Owner, Camp Media

Improve Your Personal Development

Any reason is good to get a personal training, nutrition, or fitness certification, mainly if that includes personal development and improvement of your own fitness and health knowledge. By going through the certification process, you will familiarize yourself with fitness, nutrition, and health principles. 

This includes information about exercise physiology, exercise science, kinesiology, biomechanics, and more. You will learn how different exercise and nutrition plans can benefit different body types, medical conditions, and fitness goals. This knowledge can help you make better choices about your exercise routine and nutrition, leading to improved health and physical appearance. 

Furthermore, a certification in fitness or nutrition can open up opportunities to work in related fields, such as health coaching, corporate wellness, and consulting. These can provide you with some work job opportunities or extra gigs offering a more financially secure career path.

Nina Paczka, Community Manager, Resume Now

Better Understand How the Body Works

Getting a personal training, nutrition, or fitness certification is beneficial for anyone looking to learn more about health and fitness, even if they don't want to be a fitness trainer. 

With the right education, people gain a better understanding of how the body works and what it needs in order to stay healthy. Additionally, gaining this knowledge through a certified program gives people the confidence they need to take ownership of their own health since they have the correct information to back up their decisions.

Logan Nguyen, Co-Founder, MIDSS

Build Blog Credibility 

I am a BSN/MSNA and transitioned several years ago into owning a business. While we specialize in medical emergency certifications, I spend a lot of time developing content for my blog. Because of this, I hired a certified personal nutrition coach to build credibility for my blog. 

By having a certified personal nutrition coach on staff, I can publish articles covering healthy eating habits and have an extra reference to cite. This is a significant reason to get certified as a personal nutritionist with no intention of becoming a fitness trainer. 

I intend to pursue my certification this year. The ultimate benefit for me is that it gives me another way to help people while making them feel comfortable that we know what we are talking about. It's great to say that you are a nurse as a reference, but adding this certification will help!

Brian Clark, CEO & Marketing Director, United Medical Education

Round Out Your Professional Qualifications

There are several benefits of holding a fitness certification outside of being a fitness trainer. Some people will pursue a fitness or personal training certification to help them reach their own personal goals. That extra knowledge can help them build personal plans that they don't use on clients or anyone else. 

If you want to work in the fitness industry, but not with clients, it's also great to be familiar with what happens in different parts of the industry. With these certifications, you can manage a team of trainers or a private gym. This knowledge means you can provide excellent quality assurance for the services you provide, and know that your team members are doing right by your clients. 

Finally, these certifications are great to have if you're going into another health-related field, like physical therapy, because they can give you exposure to exercises and stretches that can enrich your practice.

Erny Peibst, Founder & CEO, Inside Bodybuilding

How to Expand Your Fitness Knowledge

If you want to increase your knowledge of effective fitness techniques and tactics, taking a personal trainer course provides this information. Just as this course teaches exercise professionals how to train others, you can use the same information to create a better training program for yourself. It can also provide the skill sets needed to effectively apply what you learn.

Most personal training courses can be completed in a couple of months, with some offering a fast-track option. In the case of the latter, you can learn what you want or need to know about fitness in a matter of weeks.

Enrolling in an online personal trainer course provides both convenience and flexibility. You’re able to boost your knowledge at the time of day that works best for you. And you can log into your training class from anywhere. The information is always accessible. All you need is a good internet connection and you are able to learn.

You don’t have to take a personal training course either. There are numerous training options within the fitness industry. You could take a course that teaches you how to be a health coach, for instance. This might interest you if you have a health condition that makes it harder to hit your health goals. 

If you’re older, you might get a lot of benefits from a senior fitness course. If you have kids and you’d like to increase their activity safely, you may take a youth fitness course. You choose which knowledge you want to obtain then find a class that supplies it. 

Keeping Your Knowledge of Fitness Up to Date

In any field, they are constantly making advances based on the latest research and science. The fitness industry is no exception. This makes the pursuit of fitness knowledge important on a continual basis.

Once you have your personal training certification or are certified in another area of fitness, you’ll have access to continuing education courses. These courses help keep your knowledge up to date. They also enable you to dive more deeply into topics you are interested in learning more about.

Maybe you want to know how caffeine affects you or you’d like to learn about the latest supplements. Or you might want to develop a deeper understanding of certain areas of the body or specific types of fitness. You can take continuing education courses that cover all these topics.

If you own a business, you may want to take courses focused on business growth. Learn how to create an authority webinar or stand out with your marketing efforts. There are also courses that help you learn more about branding, how to develop a strong team, how to create a business plan, and more.

In the end, you don’t have to want to be a fitness trainer or have some other role in the fitness industry to benefit from expanding your knowledge. There are several benefits of taking this type of course that extend beyond working as a certified personal trainer. You can also use the information to benefit yourself and the people you care about.

Ready to Start a Personal Training Program?

If you’re ready to get started, ISSA offers a Personal Trainer Certification course. This course teaches you how to structure an exercise routine based on your specific fitness level and goals. You also learn how to stay motivated when trying to create a healthy habit. This is beneficial to you and, if you want to pass your knowledge on to those you love, it can be helpful to them too.

References

1. Physical Activity Guidelines. Health.Gov. (2021, August 24). Retrieved January 31, 2023, from https://health.gov/our-work/nutrition-physical-activity/physical-activity-guidelines/current-guidelines