What does it mean to be a Personal Trainer?

It would be safe to say that many trainers have their own natural ability, natural affinity, and natural talents for sports, movement and physical exercise. So maybe we feel that we had become so adept at our craft and at a young age, that we decided we must help others become more fit and physically capable also.

Many PT’s that I have spoken to foster a burning need inside them to not just exist with good physical capabilities, and have good strength and cardiovascular fitness etc themselves, but they had the urge inside them to guide, help and assist others to be more physically well-rounded and balanced in a basic sense at the very least.

Trainers also desired to be continually advancing and becoming the best they could possibly be in their chosen area of athletics, sport, or competition that involves the physical body. Commonly, we have a deep desire to assist and nurture our clients because that's what we're good at, and we want them to evolve to be holistically well, healthy and fit too.

Not Just a physical role

In regard to our valued clients, other roles come to mind. PT maybe ‘personal trainer,’ it could also be ‘physical trainer’ or ‘performance trainer’. Consider that we indeed need to be a counsellor, and an emotionally intelligent, empathetic ear to our clients struggles and emotional issues in life. We need to be a leader, strongly empowered, and be a role model for young people, and also for aspiring teachers and trainers in various industries and fields.

We need to be broad and diverse in our knowledge and we need to be able to communicate any advice or support diplomatically and empathetically with various populations and demographics. It is sometimes our role to bolster, reinforce and uplift our clients who may be business owners, professionals, tradespeople, or workers that have extremely physical daily tasks to perform such as heavy lifting and manual labour.

Further training and diversity

We cannot be closed minded to outside information that’s out of our comfort zone either. We must expand our awareness and consciousness to include furthering our education and learning (knowledge and upskilling), to again cater for the diverse clients that we might encounter. These diverse and valuable clients that we may interact with for some time will help us as trainers and teachers to specialise in a particular field later where we feel we can assist and guide in a more aligned way.

 We need to be intellectual enough to work closely with professionals and entrepreneurs. Indeed, we need to run our own business too. Financial control (income and expenditure) budgets and planning daily, weekly and yearly. Manage our teams and our business operations. We have equipment and facilities to build, expand upon and maintain. We need to be an excellent communicator and enable ourselves to build rapport and relationships with customers and respond to their needs. We need to be an adept marketer, social media expert, and salesperson. As Personal Trainers, we need to be able to control, encourage and motivate a group or an individual.

Additionally physical trainers need to be able to understand the deeper areas of anatomy and Physiology, physics, and human movement to assist where necessary on rehabilitation or corrective exercises, and many times working in conjunction with Allied Health professionals such as physiotherapists and nutritionists.

In Summary

There is much more to being a PT then just giving orders in the gym and designing exercise programmes. Although designing programmes for individuals is a lot of fun and takes a good deal of skill development. This brief blog gives you an insight into some of the other diverse roles that you will play in this extremely profound, needed, and purposeful career. I encourage you to begin your journey as a fitness professional by beginning and enrolling into the compulsory Certificate III in Fitness. This nationally recognised training in Australia will be the pathway and the catalyst to an extremely rewarding and meaningful career.