casual PT job for uni student. good idea? (sydney,aus)

[PovertyLifter]

Looking to do a certificate 3 and 4 in fitness (minimum requirements to become a PT in australia).

I'm about to start my 2nd year of sport and exercise science at university. i work in retail on a casual basis.

I 100% feel like i will be somewhat different than the typical trainer in terms of actual knowledge. I actually spend a huge portion of my time reading books on training theory, primarily in strength, sports conditioning and hypertrophy, in conjunction to university studies. Reasonably self-educated on body composition and sports nutrition. I'm a regular poster on the exercise/workout program forums of bodybuilding.com (poster as in advice, not questions). I try my hardest to separate pseudoscience from real exercise science.

Obviously i'm not an expert or extremely experienced but I feel I have a knowledge that surpasses my own training (~1 year of consistent training, 1 year inconsistent, 4 year sporting background). This + my young age is what i feel may potentially hold me back.
I would say right now I train quite intelligently.

Doing PT, based on estimates from looking at job vacancies that require no experience, would give me approx 30-40% more pay than what i get working my retail job. This was based off a few hourly paid jobs I saw, not the high rent jobs based primarily off how many clients you get.

I really do not enjoy my current job, I do however enjoy lifting and have an authentic passion for exercise science. So I imagine working as a PT would give me a better income, improve my resume' when i graduate from university and make working more enjoyable.

Good idea?

cliffs:
-18 y/o, 2nd year exercise science student
-Pretty decent knowledge on exercise science, training, sports science. Decent knowledge of sports nutrition/body comp nutritition. Self-educate myself on training in spare time as a hobby.
-Currently in retail, would make approx 30-40% more per hour if i became PT and secured an hourly paid job @ private PT studios. Do not enjoy retail job, strongly enjoy helping/educating/talking to others about fitness/exercise/sports.
-Worried lack of experience lifting, young age, are factors that may hold me back from being successful.
-Good idea?

[KyleAaron]

Your lack of experience may make it hard for you to be an effective trainer, but it will not stop you from making money, ineffective trainers make money all the time. Remember the two words in the job title: personal trainer. You only have to be good at one of the two to succeed financially.

But in our first year or two most of us were useless. Some of us learn, some don't. Just accept that you'll be learning along with your clients.

And lift some more.

You don't need a degree to be an effective trainer.

[rockangel]

Agree with KA, just wanted to add...

Since you are young and inexperienced, I would narrow down your market. Its a good time of the year to work with beginners and they are both an easy and challenging group to train. Easy, because newbs get results quickly and from any kind of work (so your inexperience would not be too much of an issue), and challenging because getting them to stick with it and teaching them is tough work.


But, I think if you started there, it would give you a chance to work out the kinks so to speak and get some experience. After that, you could move on to doing other things.

And chose the studio you work for carefully, many (at least here in America) are no better than a retail position, more about sales than actual training... and since you don't enjoy retail... I would suggest looking for a studio that also cares about training. Personally I would rather be treated as a trainer than a sales person... just my 2 cents fwiw.

[PovertyLifter]

Thanks to both for the advice.

I think I'm going to go ahead and attain the certification, I don't want to sound like a naive teenager but training knowledge/exercise science is something I've always been confident in. Of course I'm still learning, everyone is, but I feel i've learned enough to make me a competent trainer

On the other hand i definitely realise field experience is just as important as knowledge, and that's something I'll just have to pick up as i go right?

Thank you both again, it's very helpful getting a trainer's perspective on this. Appreciate it very much.

[KyleAaron]

The principles of effective training are simple, the practice is more complicated.

If you have a young healthy motivated athlete who eats well, okay that's easy.

But what if they're old? What if they've got osteoarthritis and a hip replacement? What if they're recovering from cancer? What if they're extraordinarily self-conscious? They're obese? What if you ask if they get 5 serves of vegetables daily and they ask if french fries count? What if they're always 10 minutes late to a 30 minute session? And so on.

This is why everyone starts their PT certificate wanting to train young healthy motivated athletes who eat well. We tell ourselves it's because we're so ambitious, but really we're afraid of the challenge and not confident we can handle it.

The practice is more complicated than the principles would suggest, but it's simpler than all that NASM/ACSM bollocks we Aussies get secondhand from the seppos.

[rdferguson]

This is why everyone starts their PT certificate wanting to train young healthy motivated athletes who eat well. We tell ourselves it's because we're so ambitious, but really we're afraid of the challenge and not confident we can handle it.

I'm genuinely the other way around. I started out wanting to train athletes because I envisaged that as the peak of success. Now that I have some experience, I prefer to train them (and people with similar capabilities) because it's easier than figuring out how to productively work through people's injuries and health problems. Issues are intimidating, and whatever injuries people have ultimately leave me saying: "Well, here's something that might make it better, but I make no promises." So far I've always been able to make things better for clients with injuries, but every time someone comes to me with an injury, I do a fairly long mental checklist of possible causes (and leave infinite spaces blank for causes I wouldn't even think of), and only have a very short list of things I can do to make it better. If that short list doesn't work, all I'm left with is avoiding activities that exacerbate the problem. Safety first, but if I can't make the majority of normal movements safe, I don't feel like I'm doing my job very effectively.