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The disadvantages to be a personal trainer

I started working as a fitness instructor in 1990 and later became a qualified personal trainer trained all over the world various elite athletes and bodybuilders for competitions and transferred to general population clients few years ago in 2000. The difference between a coach and personal trainer is that usually the coach have practised in the sport he has chosen to teach and has been a recognised athlete with the same sport prior he became a coach while a personal trainer not always has been an athlete and may never been recognised as an athlete not to mention some personal trainers never have been in the gym before they have decided to become trainers. However this topic is about the disadvantages of being a personal trainer whether you have been an athlete prior starting your personal trainers career or not there are some things to be considered when working with people in this industry.

Training general population clients is very different to coaching elite athletes and one should consider many things if chooses as profession personal training.
Being a personal trainer is not as easy as it looks like and people often misunderstand and underestimate our profession. There are also certain qualities a personal trainer should have to be successful and good and to stay and be happy with his own work. Not only he has to be qualified and educated, experienced and with fit professional appearance and attitude. But some training approaches may get the personal trainer into trouble if not used wisely.
The aggressive personal trainer’s approach- Some personal trainers choose to have the aggressive approach which should apply more to coaching elite athletes rather then general population clients (screaming at clients and pushing them to a limit), recently I had a feedback from one of the personal trainers client who works at my gym he overtrained a girl who was very sore after the session, so she cancelled her sessions with this trainer not only but she never came to the gym after this case, another client of him tore abdominal muscle and now is resting until further notice not returning sometimes soon if at all. This approach not always works with clients. Clients may end up injured- a big head ache for a trainer. No one trainer wants to be in this position with the fear to be sued over an injury or medical condition!
The sales personal trainer-some personal trainers do well at the start because they have the qualities of a sales man to sell sessions and communication skills but will it be good for clients who will not achieve any of their fitness goals at the end most of clients will drop out. I once went to an interview for personal trainers and we had a group interview the person who got the job was a girl who previously worked in a liquor shop selling alcohol! So now how good will she be as personal trainer who knows…. If you are a personal trainer worked as a sales man in another field prove the client that although you have worked behind a bar in a night club or in an insurance company you still believe and are practising healthy and fit lifestyle. After all clients want results and not just unmet promises.
The personal trainer with perfect body are those with perfect fitness model bodies and for them is not hard to maintain their body shape but when it comes to training others they often haven’t gone through the hard work their clients have to do in order to achieve their fitness goals, they often don’t understand the client- who has body battles and finds hard to achieve any fitness goal.
The qualities and necessary strategies a personal trainer needs to be able to run successful business and stay happy with what he/she does as well as keep clients happy too- are education and strong knowledge, experience and confidence, communication skills, punctuality, friendliness, time flexibility, professional attitude and appearance, willingness to keep learning, access to new information and researches in the industry to keep up dated always, target the proper group of clients he is capable and knowledgeable to train, first aid skills, insurance, love his/her job, understand the clients needs, patience, another secure income, marketing skills, new inventions etc. A good clientele that can give a great testimonials as well.
These aspects are often neglected when one is looking for a personal trainer and chooses the wrong one leaving the client unhappy.
However being in the industry for more then 20 years I can certainly point some of the disadvantages to be a personal trainer.


First and the most- working hours- most clients prefer to workout very early in the morning or late at night, this doesn’t allow for the trainer to have a good night sleep often with only 4 to 5 hours sleep a day, although there can be a gap of hours off during the day- it can be exhausting to work this hours for years- When I was working full time as personal trainer my first client wanted to train at 5am and my last clients session was finishing at 11pm. I lasted only 2 years with this working schedule! And wasn’t able to train myself properly during these 2 years so I couldn’t compete during this period not to mention that I was always tired and not able to even function normally.
Second you have to put up with clients always rescheduling or cancelling in the last minute and even not showing to your sessions. Unless your payment system is really very advanced (direct debit) you always find your self attending a session that you don’t get paid for because your client didn’t show up or he forgot to bring money. Then there are the times of the year when the public holidays come and when you need money the most you simply don’t have any clients.
3. Clients who are not following your advice-Have you had clients who never achieve any results and you wonder why-they always say they are following strictly your diet and the rest, no matter how many diet plans you write and no matter how hard you train them –they just remain the same all their life. I used to have a client who will come to my sessions very regularly, he was chubby and wanted to loose weight, one day I went to the café after the session he was there eating French fries- I knew from that day that he will never be able to loose the weight he wanted to.
4. Having you as a trainer just for a status in the society-some clients have personal trainers just for show and to maintain certain status in the society- I know some clients who just want to tell their girl friends that they have a personal trainer- they don’t want to be pushed in the gym at all and prefer just to walk on the treadmill- and mostly do talking during the session. Oh well you still get paid so you might as well just sit there and listen.
5. Aggressive clients who are never happy or not committed- some clients always complain no matter how hard you work them and even though they get the results from training they can never see it or be satisfied even in their own life. Other clients are never committed to the sessions they miss workouts they don’t come on time and after they blame the trainer for their luck of results.
6. Being underpaid- Commerciality in the personal training work is very common- Personal trainer often doesn’t have a choice when it comes to clients he/she simply needs the money and will pretend doing some work just because of money matters. Even though the initial goal of the personal trainer was to help people achieve their fitness goals and be fit and healthy at some point if the personal trainer is underpaid he/she starts working for money and it gets very commercial at some point. I have seen web sites designed to manufacture money-good marketing strategies automatic replies and at the end the client is paying for a machine that is suppose to train them and help them achieve their fitness goals.
7. Following some one else’s rules-working for a gym or company doesn’t help much either often personal trainers are underpaid and don’t have any other choice but work for peanuts and put up with rules or training approach they are not happy about. I once was told that I had to train every client with only compound exercise and had to use the same program for every client although I wasn’t agreeing with this training approach I didn’t want to loose my job so I did the routine I was told to do with every personal training client. My clients obviously didn’t gain any results from my sessions and after sometimes I quit my job and changed my employers.
8. Putting up with client’s attitude and characters- Loud Clients who will scream while you training them-how embarrassing is when a female trainer coaches a male client who screams like an animal-I have had a client like that and nothing you can really say but close your ears and pray the session will end fast!
9. Investments- Being a personal trainer requires to think about available equipment unless you have your own gym or personal training studio-then if you have invested in a studio or equipment you start calculating your finance strategies and you might find your self the whole purpose of training people and helping them achieve their goals turned into a commercial machine for earning money some how to be able to pay off your investment. In other case you will just have to use an available equipment of the gym you are working at or a near by park- Recently the local council has applied a rule for group personal trainers and boot camp trainers to pay a fee to the council to be able to train people at parks and outdoors. Another investment to be done before you even has attracted any clients not to mention that for marketing and promotions you will need some investment as well. Some gyms ask for paying a rent even worst similar to fitness first gym system for personal training- your weekly payments are so high forces the personal trainers to work extreme hours, to have certain number of clients and I often see the trainers in fitness first where I am working out with very tired and exhausted look.
10. A Personal trainer has to undergo yearly studies updates, courses and workshops in order to maintain his license as well as there are payments for insurance and other permit ions as well as we mentioned above the park group exercise permits. Which all costs money another must investment that has to be considered!
11. Areas, locations, suburbs disadvantages-Not every area or city has demand for personal trainers, some very good qualified and educated personal trainers simply do other jobs whether is related to fitness or other professions in order to survive and pay the bills. Especially when lately schools and associations produce massively new coming personal trainers. I wonder if one day the personal trainers will be more then the clients who need personal training. Unless you are prepared to travel or work in weather extreme conditions, drive to another suburb or client’s house, city or country you might end up bankrupt before you have even started your personal training profession.

Of course there are also advantages to be a personal trainer too. Hmmm let me think what is it, ah just kidding for me the biggest thing that still makes me stay in this profession is to be able to transform people bodies and their lives as well-there is nothing more rewarding to watch people happy and accomplished that means I have done my job properly!

Mariya Mova
Qualified Personal Trainer and fitness coach
1990-2010