Interested in personal training

[Mad-Bull]

How would one go about it to get started? A degree in Kinesiology is far out of my budget right now with my mortgage, but I definitely want a career change. I know there are lot of weekend crash courses, but besides actually getting a degree what is the best one. Would like to hear from some people with experience as well.

[Talo]

ICS has a good Health and Fitness course. I just got my diploma for that. It's all home base ,so you can go about it at your own speed. The cost is aprox $800 .

Can-Fit-Pro has some good courses also.

[Tribe]

You can get a job as a trainer in a commercial gym with just a Canadian cert (CanFit or CPTN) or US cert (ACE, ISSA, etc.). You'll just have the very basics if you have no other education or experience other than these weekend courses. The rest of your education will likely come from self study (internet, books) or working with an educated and experienced trainer. You can attain higher quality and more repected certs by persuing a CSCS, ACSM, NASM (some require a degree though) or RTS.

To make money in the business you need to know how to train AND how to market/sell your services. I've seen many technically sound trainers waste away simply because they had no business/sales savvy. It's unfortuneate that many successful (in terms of income) trainers exist with no ability to make they're clients better - any monkey can put a beating on their client.

[Mad-Bull]

Thanks a bunch you guys, anyone else have any input?

[ubcpower]

ACSM- American College of Sports Medicine, you can write the test in different cities in Canada. Widely accepted in all gyms/clubs and insured by all insurance agencies. Costs 100-200$. Youll generally have to start in a health club, but once you got a good enough client base you can start to think about going independent...thats where money can be made. Also, group sessions are better bang for your buck

[Mad-Bull]

If anyone wants to chime in on anything else that would be great

[Mad-Bull]

Shameless bump!!

[marino]

My knowledge here is lacking but of the many personal trainers at gyms they make shit for money. What about physiotherapy then you can perhaps open more doors career wise.

[GYMBRAT]

ICS has a good Health and Fitness course. I just got my diploma for that. It's all home base ,so you can go about it at your own speed. The cost is aprox $800 .

Can-Fit-Pro has some good courses also.

I know scads of ppl that have the Can-Fit training, but also have yrs and yrs of knowledge and training/nutrition from their own personal experiences as well. Some do fairly well as personal trainers as a "part time hobby" and do quite alright though as Tribe mentioned, one has to be very business savvy to make any money at it!