Personal trainers offer a lot more than just workout training. They are responsible for balancing a physical workout and a healthy diet. A personal trainer needs proper training before they start working.

Unlike other fitness certifications that focus on one aspect of fitness, a personal training certification covers all areas related to fitness. These include exercise, catering to people of different age groups, and dealing with clients with different health concerns. That’s why when developing exercise programs and diet plans, personal trainers need to look at multiple aspects of their client’s lifestyle.

Now, as the fitness industry is merging with the wellness industry, these personal trainers are required to pay attention to nutrition as well. To help expand their expertise, certified personal trainers are getting specializations in nutritional or wellness—these specializations, such as the one we offer at W.I.T.S. Education will enable them to broaden their horizons and take on more challenging clients.

Who Is A Nutrition Specialist?

In simple terms, a nutritional specialist is a professional who is responsible for helping their clients maintain healthy lifestyles through smart dietary choices. Nutritionists are normally certified by a board or a governing body before being allowed to practice their skills. In training itself, these nutritionists go through several courses ranging from fitness to medical nutrition so they can cater to the needs of each of their clients.

Once certified, these people can work with people suffering from obesity, high blood pressure, heart issues, cholesterol, and even diabetes. Some nutritionists can go beyond this and can even develop diet plans for people with chronic illness and allergies.

How Can Nutrition Specialization Help You As A Personal Trainer?

As a personal trainer, you can prescribe special exercises to people depending on their physical needs. With the addition of nutritional education, you’ll be able to go a step further and help people maintain good physical health as well as a good diet. Here are some areas you can work with after getting a nutritional certification.

Create Better Diet Plans

Normally personal trainers are responsible for assessing the physical health of their clients and then developing a general diet plan for them. For clients with dietary restrictions or non-lethal allergies, trainers can also make special diet plans. But they can’t offer help beyond that as they aren’t trained to deal with specific medical conditions. With a nutrition certification, they’ll be able to get an in-depth understanding of their client’s health condition.

This will allow the trainer to create diet plans that are unique to each client’s health needs. Not just that, but for clients with chronic diseases, the trainers can work with their doctors to come up with diet programs that won’t harm their health and allow them to reach their fitness goals faster.

Give Nutritional Advice And Guidance

Besides developing diet plans, a personal trainer can also guide clients. For example, if the trainer is working for a fitness center and training a few different clients, it is possible that they don’t pay for the full service. It could also be that their gym membership doesn’t cover diet plans. In this scenario, a trainer with nutritional education can give advice on specific diets. They’ll be able to help people who have specific medical conditions and allow them to reach their fitness milestones faster.

Can Help People Of Different Age Groups

The biggest benefit of a nutritional certification is that a personal trainer can cater to a wider range of clients. Instead of training young adults, trainers can help kids as well as senior citizens in staying on top of their health. But both of these demographics require strict adherence to a diet that may be out of the expertise of a regular personal trainer. A certified nutritionist, however, can handle such requirements.

In the case of senior citizens, their diet is more of a lifestyle if they suffer from any health issues. On top of that, their old age puts a lot of restrictions on their body in processing certain foods. So, they need a diet plan that works with their age any medication they need to take while helping them get fit.

What Type Of Nutritional Specializations Can You Take?

A full-fledge nutritional specification may not be possible with just a certification unless you have prior education in it. However, you can opt for certification that covers the basic requirements of becoming a nutritionist through the specializations mentioned below.

Medical Fitness Specialization

Medical fitness certification allows trainers to take on more challenging clients. These clients have a history of chronic health issues that need serious attention. That’s why they can’t work with regular trainers. A medical fitness specialization will allow you to devise diet plans, workout routines, and identify problem areas to help clients reach their fitness goals. You can even identify medications that’ll help them manage their illness better and work with their physician to evaluate their health status and the extent of their illness.

Lifestyle Wellness Coaching

A wellness coaching certification covers broader areas related to health and fitness. You can work with your clients on improving their general lifestyle to include healthy habits that’ll improve their health. You can easily create exercise programs, diet plans, lifestyle guides to ensure your clients live a more fulfilling life.

Lifestyle coaching focuses on mental as well as physical health, and you’ll be required to help clients reach a peaceful state of mind through exercise and diet. With this certification, you’ll be able to review in-depth each client’s lifestyle and determine areas that need improvement.

If you want to check out some more courses from W.I.T.S. Education like group exercise instructor, senior fitness instructor, and youth fitness instructor; check out our catalog of certifications. W.I.T.S. is a fitness training institute that has state-of-the-art training centers all over North America. Our institute is the only one that offers NCCA accreditation and hands-on in-person training labs.

The institute focuses on giving its students practical skills and not making them book smart. Our unique learning method involves online as well as physical lessons. If you have any queries, feel free to reach out to us.