Being in the fitness is one of the coolest jobs out there as it, if nothing else, will promise your fitness in the first place! And considering how important fitness and health is to people, you will get the opportunity to change people’s lives.
Here is a detailed enlightening of the parameters you’d need to exploit to be a freelance Fitness Instructor.
Job Requirements
1. Get Certified
In order to be a fitness instructor, you must have certification that’s recognized vastly from reputed institutes and academies.
There are organizations who provide certification after a fully fledged training program. The course can range from a period of 15 days to 3 months. But mostly all the certification programs make you eligible for getting jobs as a gym fitness trainer at different locations.
The fees can range from Rs. 10,000 to 40000 depending on the course content, workshops, or if the course is being taken at the academy or at home. Home training is more expensive than live academy training.
If you are wanting to get trained from an Institute out of your state, then home training might work out for you. However, it’s better when the training is taken by being physically present at the location rather than from the comfort of your couch as it will definitely help you learn and practice more. In such a case, you would need to travel to places of your choice for the training. Many academies also provide paid accommodation and food. Of course, the food they’d give would be strictly a healthy one!
These training programs cover multiple topics like:
- Information about human body
- Metabolism activities
- Anatomy
- Cardiovascular regulatory processes
- Workout methods
- Nutrition
- Diet planning
- Scheduling
- Special workouts
It’s recommended, though, to look for a place in your city or town that provides training and certification programs.
2. Commitment
Being a fitness trainer needs massive commitment. You need to be extremely dedicated towards what you do! After all, the trainer should realize that his/her clients depend on them. If you would be having somebody as your fitness coach, how are you wants them to be? This is how exactly you have to do the job. The job requires extreme passion and a genuine wants to help other people.
3. Authentic care
One needs to be focused at the job, let that include waking up early, or showing up at locations before or after your preferred timing. You need to understand each client’s body, and mind both to be able to impart the training needed. Be extra careful and concerned about them as a little malfunction could go worse.
Skills Needed
1. Patience
Freelance Fitness Instructor should understand that body isn’t that easy a machine to work on, however done in the right way, it will show great results. People trying to gaining weight or losing weight takes a lot of efforts and strategic planning. It’s said by experts in the industry that a transformation of body is majorly dependent on the diet and then work out sessions.
A fitness trainer should also be able to help the clients in terms of nutrition and diet methods, at the same time they instilling into the clients the feeling and that they will be seeing the results after a lot of hard work and determination for which patience is one of the keys.
2. Passion
Bing a fitness instructor is not an easy job in itself. It requires you to be available for your clients at all times. Do not forget that you are dealing with peoples bodies in this profession. Hence working up to the complete benefit of your clients is one of your prime responsibilities.
One cannot claim to be in this business just for the sake of money; as the job demands much more than that. It is as much hard work for the client as much for the fitness instructor themselves. Hence it requires extreme passion for fitness, healthy living and personal care for one to be a successful fitness instructor.
Tips to be successful
1. Willingness to help
Changing people’s lives is something that everybody wants to do. It is not uncommon to read about people coming up with life changing stories and ‘before-after’ transformations. So, a fitness instructor should be generally all up to help.
2. Leadership qualities
You, as a fitness trainer will be responsible for the workout sessions of a lot of people at the same time. If you are working at a gym, this requires a fitness trainer to have qualities of leadership and team building which will make you impart and maintain excitement and interest levels on the clients. It’s important to develop encouragement with proper imparting of knowledge and work out methods.
Job Responsibilities
1. Instruct and inspire
Working out is one of those tasks that makes you go back in the blankets all the time. People procrastinate working out and. If this a person takes up a membership at the gym, it is the responsibility of you as a fitness trainer to make sure, to the maximum possible extent, that your client is sticking to a good diet and being on time along with instructing them about the working habits. You have to inspire them to stick to their routine of workouts and wait for seeing the results patiently. A fitness instructor should have group talking skills, should inspire, and educate the clients t the same time.
2. Monitor
A fitness instructor not only does he have to tell people which workouts they need to do for the day, but also need to consistently keep an eye on all of them to make sure they’re doing it in the right way. Even the slightest mistake by any of the people working out could lead to injuries.
It’s the duty of a fitness trainer to monitor every person working out in the gym and help them pro-actively. He needs to understand all those he is working with to be able to help them out in the way that they are most comfortable in.
3. Come up with routine workouts and diet plans
One needs to research about latest trends, exercise methods and see what the connoisseurs are doing in the industry. Analyze the best for your clients depending on their specific requirements.
4. First aid handling & Safety
A fitness trainer should be prepared in case of an emergency like a machine breaking down. Being aware about first aid techniques will also have a fitness trainer to widen his/her scope of skills.
How to find work
Once you have your training certificate in your bag, start on making phone calls and use search engines to find out jobs available in your area. Call up different gyms you want to work in, and visit some. Explain to them about your qualifications and passion for being a fitness instructor. Use social media to look for potential leads. You might just get your first break as a fitness coach. Visit freelancing websites and find potential work. and reach them up with your freelancing proposal.
Working hours
Fitness instructors normally work in two slots. One in the morning and the other in the evening. You might suit yourself with the one that works best for you, provided you are given the freedom to choose by a gym.
In other cases, you are asked to strictly appear at random times depending upon the availability of your clients. It’s extremely required to be flexible in terms of timing when ever needed.
Pay scale
Normally, fresh fitness instructors start getting paid with 12k-20k per month. Some gyms also pay you hourly. Once you get into the industry, there is a great scope for you to create more clients widening your reach and pay scale.
