Need life advice about part time personal training brahs

[Sethinator]

So lets start with a little about me. I work full time at Costco wholesale, I have no college credits, I have 2 kids (age 2&5) and married, And I need more money.

I have been consistently lifting at least 3-5 times a week. A true passion of mine.

I need advice on part time personal training/group training certifications.

I really like the way NSCA sounds considering strength and conditioning is my strong suit but am also contemplating ACE and NASM.

My true fear is if because I have no college courses that I may fail the final exam.

Also if I do pass how flexible is part time training.

Thanks for any advice in advance brahs

[Ronin4help]

The real question is what other options do you truly have? Weighing those other options against your fear of failing the exam will give you the answer you seek.

[401Delta]

So lets start with a little about me. I work full time at Costco wholesale, I have no college credits, I have 2 kids (age 2&5) and married, And I need more money.

I have been consistently lifting at least 3-5 times a week. A true passion of mine.

I need advice on part time personal training/group training certifications.

I really like the way NSCA sounds considering strength and conditioning is my strong suit but am also contemplating ACE and NASM.

My true fear is if because I have no college courses that I may fail the final exam.

Also if I do pass how flexible is part time training.

Thanks for any advice in advance brahs

Have you also considered becoming a Starting Strength coach? You wouldn't need much equipment or space and you could just do it during your off time for extra money in your garage (if you have one). There are some videos on youtube from guys who went this route.

[Sethinator]

Have you also considered becoming a Starting Strength coach? You wouldn't need much equipment or space and you could just do it during your off time for extra money in your garage (if you have one). There are some videos on youtube from guys who went this route.

Yeah that sounds really cool I don't have a garage but definitely clever. I would probably still like a to get certified though.

[Sethinator]

My fear is I don't have a whole lot of money to blow

[Sethinator]

The real question is what other options do you truly have? Weighing those other options against your fear of failing the exam will give you the answer you seek.

My other option is get another job doing something lame.( Liquor store, warehouse jobs etc)

[401Delta]

Yeah that sounds really cool I don't have a garage but definitely clever. I would probably still like a to get certified though.

You mentioned that you weren't confident about passing the certification test. The thing you may like about getting certified as an SS coach is that you get to take the test home with you afterwards and complete it. You will have to answer the questions in essay format and will probably need to do a bit of research in order to answer the questions, but you get a couple of weeks to complete it (as I remember). I think the 3 day course is around $900. You can advertise yourself as a certified coach at that point, which is as good or better than some PT certifications out there.

[401Delta]

My other option is get another job doing something lame.( Liquor store, warehouse jobs etc)

Where in San Diego are you? I was stationed at the amphibious base in Coronado...lots of clubs in SD to get a bartending job at. Good pay...$100-300 per shift, but your wife would probably frown on that .

[KyleAaron]

My fear is I don't have a whole lot of money to blow

If your training style is mostly free weights, then it's not that expensive, it's $1-$10k to kit out a garage's worth of stuff.

If you're charging PT rates of $60-$120ph, then to pay for $5k worth of gear you need to do around 50hr of personal training; at even a small commitment of 2x30' pw that's one person for a year, or 4 people for 3 months. If you think you're not going to get 1-4 people for 3-12 months then you definitely shouldn't go into PT, it's honestly not a big ask, those numbers.

If you're charging small group rates like a bootcamp, in Australia that's like $250 for 6 weeks. So you'd need 20 people for 6 weeks, or do 8 small groups of 3 over a year, etc.

But what you do is start small and build up. I started with a few kettlebells, a barbell, a set of stands and about 100kg in plates. As I got more clients I bought more stuff, as I could both afford it and now needed it. You can see that here, https://www.********.com/pg/athletic...47384985525817

[KyleAaron]

And this is what you need to do, in order,

1. get a trainer, and set moderately ambitious goals that will take 6-12 months to achieve - something hard enough that you'll have setbacks and have to figure out a way around them
2. while doing this, start studying anatomy and biomechanics, and save some of your current income aside to keep you going while the below is getting you started as a trainer
3. get a certification
4. get a job at a big box gym, preferably a community gym like the Y rather than a commercial gym like Fitness First
5. Never stand behind the gym desk; every day speak to at the gym at least one new person - doesn't have to be about fitness, and note down what they tell you in a little notebook immediately afterwards; refer to it and greet them next time, following up on something they told you - "how did your daughter's graduation go?" etc; assuming 48 weeks of 5 days a week, this is 250 new people a year
6. every day teach someone new to barbell squat or deadlift, or whatever bunch of exercises you think are useful based on your experience in #1; again this will be about 250 people a year, it's okay if it's the same people as in the previous step
7. do this for at least two years, so you will have spoken or coached the movement of 500-1,000 different people

[rockangel]

So lets start with a little about me. I work full time at Costco wholesale, I have no college credits, I have 2 kids (age 2&5) and married, And I need more money.

I have been consistently lifting at least 3-5 times a week. A true passion of mine.

I need advice on part time personal training/group training certifications.

I really like the way NSCA sounds considering strength and conditioning is my strong suit but am also contemplating ACE and NASM.

My true fear is if because I have no college courses that I may fail the final exam.

Also if I do pass how flexible is part time training.

Thanks for any advice in advance brahs

If I am not mistaken, NSCA requires a college degree for strength and conditioning, though the Tactical conditioning does not. You may want to look into that first, its also a bit "easier" IMO (ive ordered the book for it).

As far as passing the exam, ive taken dozens of them and had no issues. I don't feel like they are a big deal.

For the "being flexible", it is and it isn't. Mostly, you need to be available to train people when they are available to train. That means usually early mornings or evenings to late nights, possibly weekends, with slow times being summers and holidays. Its not the most steady of incomes at all times. Factor that in to your full time job, are you open to working late nights or early mornings?? You may not be able to get YOUR training in working those hours plus training others, something to thnk about.

Also, it depends on how much money you are willing to throw out to getting certified. I would maybe suggest getting into group fitness first so you can have a bit more steady income. Group Classes are easier to fill and steadier than personal training, plus you can sub classes for extra income and work at multiple locations. I also end up getting more personal training clients from classes than from "cold" selling. Gyms ALWAYS need more subs.

From there you may want to look at personal training certs. I can tell you that in SD Crunch Fitness is a popular chain, but all they care about is if you can sell, and they will not be too flexible IME. Where I worked in SD required you to have a college degree to train, and a few others wanted a few years of experience before they hired you. So it can be tricky finding a training job. There are gyms that hire anyone but they can be a "challenge" to work for as well in many cases. Low pay, suck hours, crazy quotas.... its not all rainbows and puppies.

Not trying to dissuade you but I don't want you going in thinking that its gonna be the easiest money either.

Starting off for yourself will be even more money and more time. Gaining paying clients with no experience and no base can be tough (ive done that in SD as well out of my garage and online clients). You need to be able to spend considerable time getting at least basic equipment, setting up a website, business licenses, checking out your zoning and such... again, its a lot of work for a little extra money. I had to really hustle and even then I had to limit how many clients I had just due to time constraints.

You need to think long and hard about how much money, time, and resources you can put into this before jumping in. Chances are you will spend a lot trying to break into this, then not make all that much going part time.

[Ronin4help]

My other option is get another job doing something lame.( Liquor store, warehouse jobs etc)

You validated my suspicion. The point I was trying to make to you was this... you have no other options. You have to go for your dreams and you cannot allow fear to be an obstacle. Otherwise, you will end up stocking shelves for the rest of your life.

[Ronin4help]

My advice would be this... get a job at a good, popular gym. Any job you can get. Talk to the guy/gal who runs the place (GM/manager) every single day. Do you job (whatever it is) very well. Work harder than anybody else in there and always talk to the head person and express to him/her you desire to be a certified personal trainer. Soon enough (as nature has it) he/she will start to see you are the real deal. A hard working family man who is serious about fitness and hard work. Get as much advice from all the trainers who currently work at the club and get advice from the head person. Someone is going to notice you deserve a shot and that person will open up opportunities for you. In the meanwhile, do what ever you can to study exercise science and basic nutrition and get certified by any company the gym recognizes.