Advice for starting out in the fitness industry?

J

jsnowash

0
Hi,

I'm new to this forum, and hoping someone here might be able to offer some advice. I'm beginning to explore the option of getting some fitness instructor certifications, and could use some input from some of you more experienced folk.

A little background on me - I'm in my mid-40's, and have been a stay-at-home mom for the past 10 years. When the kids were little, I got pretty out of shape. When I saw my weight approaching 180, I decided I needed to do something about it. I started training for triathlons, and have gotten back down to a healthy weight, and greatly improved my fitness over the past few years. I'm at a point in my life now where I would like to get back into the workforce, and since I have come to be pretty passionate about fitness, I thought I might try to break into the fitness industry.

To start out, I am mainly interested in teaching indoor cycling classes. I plan to pursue certification for that through Mad Dog (aka "Spinning"). But I am also wondering if further certification, either as a Group Fitness Instructor or Personal Trainer would be helpful. Right now, I'm just looking to teach a few classes/week. Eventually I would like to pursue additional certifications (I'm thinking along the lines of Pilates, Aqua Fitness, and maybe nutrition counseling). I'm not looking to make a full-time job out of this, but to work part-time, and bring in a little bit of extra income for our family.

I guess my first question woud be whether Group Fitness Instructor or Personal Trainer certification would be more useful to me as I begin down this path, and if such certification would be beneficial in starting out as an indoor cycling instructor. Also, I have a college degree, but not in a fitness related field (BS in wildlife biology, MS in Environmental Science). Would there be any advantage now or down the road to taking some college-level classes in topics like Anatomy-Physiology or nutrition (both available pretty reasonably at our local community college).

Sorry this post got so long!! I would really appeciate any advice you might be able to offer!

Thanks,

Jenny
 
If you want to be a nutrition councelor, you'll want to peg down some nutrition classes. But you'll have to go beyond the basics of nutrition 101 because a lot of those classes are filled with outdated research and horrible instructors. ISSA does have a nutrition certification. They also have a personal training certification program that's not too bad at all.

If you're serious about it and want people to take you serious, you'll need some sort of certification. There are far too many PTs and other trainers out there that have certifications that are starving to make money and doing it full time.

I would suggest that you call your local gyms and see what certifications they require of the spin instructors and whatever else classes you are looking to teach.

If you want to get into personal training, then it would behoove you to at least take the basics of applied anatomy, exercise phys, and human movement.
 
There are a slew of "certification" organizations. The most popular are NSCA, ISSA and ACE. You can do a google search to get more information about each one. Most of them require a written exam, which consists mostly of memorizing the latin names for the major muscles and bones and that particular organizations set of exercise and nutrition "factoids". It is a pain and doesn't mean you really know how to train. You would get a better education by reading and understanding the stickies on this site than most organizations study manuals. Short of getting a degree though, you have to do one of them to have some degree of credibility. The best thing to do is check with the clubs where you would want to work and see what certifications they prefer. Good luck!
 
In different countries, there are different certifications. In Australia, there is Certicate III, Certificate IV (which is the PT course) and Diploma of Fitness. Each have different components. You should really check out the courses in your area. I can help with Australia, but that is it :)
 
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