To stay relevant in the fitness industry, one has to keep up with the client’s requirements and the changes in the industry. Personal trainers are at a higher risk of losing clients if they don’t attain the latest qualifications. That’s mainly because a lot of clients like to try the latest fitness trends. When Pilates workout routines went viral on social media, many people jumped on the trend and hired professionals to help them get started.
The same goes for every trend in the fitness industry. Clients want dynamic trainers that can handle all of their needs. While learning complex forms of workouts like Pilates isn’t easy for busy trainers, they can expand their expertise beyond regular fitness training by taking courses and specializations that give them more credibility.
Here are some of the courses you can take as a personal trainer to grow your business and gain more clients.
Who Is a Personal Trainer?
In simple terms, personal trainers are instructors that help people accomplish their health and fitness goals. Trainers are responsible for designing exercises and fitness programs such as workout routines, understand nutritional choices and helping clients set long-term fitness goals. These goals are there to help clients become better versions of themselves physically. These goals can be related to weight loss, muscle gain, toning, strength training, and health management.
The reason people prefer personal trainers is because trainers can pay attention to the individual needs of a client and develop fitness plans based on their strengths and weaknesses. All of this makes it easier for clients to achieve their fitness goals which would not have been possible without trainers. Moreover, trainers plan routines based on their client’s needs.
Some clients are fitness enthusiasts who need extra training, while some need basic exercises to help them get started. Commonly, personal trainers can incorporate different exercises in their planned routines. On the other hand, some trainers are specialists, such as bodybuilding specialists or sports nutritionists, who only work within their field.
The Benefits Of Getting Specializations
Getting specializations in new fields of personal training opens many doors of opportunities for personal trainers. You’ll be able to offer various services to your clients, turning first-time clients into loyal customers.
For example, if you specialize in nutrition, you can assist clients with specific dietary requirements. This makes it easier for you to cater to clients with different medical and nutritional needs. Apart from that, you’ll also get a better salary, because people generally pay more for specialized services.
Knowing multiple forms of workouts enables you to create routines for your clients, mixing different forms of exercises. This is especially helpful for senior clients and those with special medical needs. Similarly, you may be approached by athletes to either train them to help them maintain their strength through nutrition or performance enhancement workout routines.
Some Popular Courses and Specializations
The fitness industry is quite broad and diverse, meaning there’s a specialization course for everything. Depending on your background, you can go for medical fitness and nutrition, or if you’re into weight loss, you can specialize in training and toning programs designed to help clients lose weight healthily. Or you can help bodybuilders and enthusiasts with weight training and core strengthening exercises.
In a nutshell, there are countless specializations and specializations within them to help you move forward in your career. Here’s a list of some of the most common and general courses you can enroll in.
Group Fitness Instructor Course
For some clients, the idea of working with a group of people with similar goals seem to be more appealing. It helps them interact with others and feel less insecure about their current fitness state. As a result, these clients hire group exercise trainers. This is because they monitor individual progress and performance and plan exercises that fit each member’s needs. Group exercises can include regular fitness workouts to yoga, and Pilates.
You may ask why you need certification to train a group when you already know the exercise? Managing a personal trainer group is different from simply getting a few people to exercise together. Trainers need to learn how to monitor individual members’ health, progress and figure out how to incorporate new exercises that help everyone.
Weight Loss Specialization Course
Social media and influencer culture motivate people to lead a healthier lifestyle. This includes losing weight and slimming down, but most people don’t know how to lose weight healthily and resort to poor dietary and eating habits that harm their health and do nothing to help them lose weight. Connecting with Registered Dieticians with a degree speciality can help these clients lose weight while staying healthy.
These trainers are educated on different aspects of weight loss, such as the client’s health, diet, B.M.I. ratio, and ideal body weight. These aspects help them design nutritional plans while considering the medications and such for their clients. The result is that helps them lose fat and build their muscles.
Health and Nutrition Course
Health and nutrition courses use a holistic approach to help different clients attain a better lifestyle. The course teaches trainers how to improve and change their client’s nutritional habits and compel them to make better and healthier choices. These training lessons are also great for trainers dealing with clients with chronic health issues or allergies. These trainers ensure that their clients incorporate healthy eating and workout habits into their lifestyles. Sometimes, they work in the capacity of wellness coaches to help their clients achieve a healthier body and mind.
Corrective Exercise Specialization Course
Injuries that result in bad body and muscle movements require trainers that can help correct these defects. These trainers need a deep understanding of anatomy to apply the right techniques to fix their client’s movements and imbalances. As a trainer, you’ll need to assess the health and extent of movement of your client and develop exercises and stretching techniques that help them relieve pain and improve their condition.
These exercises improve the client’s mobility and posture.
Bodybuilding Specialization Course
Bodybuilding is one of the most popular fields in the fitness industry after weight loss. In the past, bodybuilding was mainly preferred by males, but women have taken a keen interest in the mainstream bodybuilding industry. A lot of trainers get female clients, but the problem is that they need different training and diet to build muscles.
As a result, many institutes have developed courses that help trainers give the best training to male and female bodybuilders, keeping in mind their physical requirements. Bodybuilding specialists are in high demand because there are a lot of risks involved in achieving the desired muscle mass.
Youth Fitness Specialization
If you like working out with kids or are interested in improving children’s health, then this specialization might be for you. Children are at a higher risk of developing health and fitness issues that stop them from living their lives to the fullest. The number one emerging issue with today’s youth is obesity. Early-stage obesity in children can cause many lifelong adverse effects on their health.
However, the main issue with kids is that they need a dynamic approach. The one size fits all formula doesn’t apply to them. Their growth and health are different from each other, and that’s why youth fitness instructors are trained to understand these things and improve children’s health.
Senior Fitness Specialization
Just like kids, seniors also need customized fitness and health care depending on their unique needs. Senior fitness is an emerging market dedicated to keeping the aging population healthier and more active. Many senior people have started to join gyms to remain healthy.
However, the problem is that most gyms are not equipped with the proper tools to help them. Senior fitness trainers can help the older population remain fit by assigning them modified exercises that benefit their health. They need to make sure that the exercise doesn’t cause heart or blood pressure issues in seniors or any further health problems.
Strength Conditioning Specialization
This area of specialization is mostly preferred by athletes and serious sports and fitness enthusiasts, the kind of people that want to improve their strength and performance. While the market for this specialization is still developing, the trainers get a handsome payout for their services. A lot of pro sports companies hire these trainers to train their athletes and help them deliver peak performance through constant exercising and training.
That’s not all! Many personal trainers serve as strength conditioning coaches for people as well. These are the people who want to increase their mass muscle ratio without considering bodybuilding and weight training. So endurance and strength conditioning is their next best option.
Fitness Management Course
A fitness management course like the one offered by W.I.T.S. Education is a great way for a trainer to expand their business and manage their employees. This course is for those who don’t want to do all the training by themselves, but rather by hiring fitness specialists.
Other than that, lots of gyms and fitness institutes have many branches that need management. Fitness managers can work at those places as well. They work behind the scenes to ensure that all the operations run smoothly and their clients are satisfied with the services. These managers also deal with any mishaps and issues between the clients and trainers. Fitness managers are also responsible for hiring new trainers and handling client registrations.
Sports and Exercise Nutritionist Course
Sports nutrition is a field that has gained a lot of traction in the past few years. Sports nutritionists are in great demand, especially by agencies managing pro sports athletes. Each athlete needs a specialized diet to fulfill their calorie requirements. But the issue is that each type of sport has different dietary requirements, and nutritionists must understand them and then devise diet plans.
As a sports nutritionist, you’ll get a chance to work with and train many top and upcoming athletes to ensure that they stay in their best shape and form for their tournaments. Since this is a relatively new field, the pay for being a nutritionist is quite high.
Work Opportunities For a Personal Trainer After Specialization
Personal trainers with multiple specializations can work in different settings to train their clients. The more specializations a trainer has, the more diverse their line of work becomes. Normally, beginner trainers start out as apprentices to already established trainers. They work in their institutes and gyms to train their clients and gain further experience.
Once they have a bit of experience, they can start taking up bigger responsibilities or can start working on their own. These days, personal trainers are taking advantage of the internet and offering online and in-person lessons to their clients all over the world.
Sometimes, personal trainers can work as specialists and coaches depending on their specializations. For example, there’s a dire need for medical fitness to keep athletes in top shape, and senior fitness experts are also high in demand to help keep them active.
Recently, youth fitness has become an emerging field for trainers as well. Due to the popularity of social media and the influencer culture, lots of people are hiring personal trainers to help them attain toned bodies like their favorite influencers. All of these things give trainers many opportunities to make their mark in the fitness world and generate a steady source of income.
Are you struggling to find reliable courses to further your career in the fitness industry? Check out W.I.T.S. Education.
We are a fitness training institute that offers a number of courses related to health, fitness, and management. Our courses include Certified Personal Trainer Course, Youth Fitness Course, Group Exercise Instructor Course, and Fitness Management course. Each course is specifically designed to give you the necessary skills as well as to keep you updated with the latest developments in the fitness world.
The best thing about our courses is that they are hybrid in nature. You can take virtual ‘LIVE’ lessons as well as in-personal training labs. For college students, our N.C.C.A. accreditation system allows them to transfer credits from the course to their degree program.
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us.