Intro

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Obviously, the first quality you should look for in any fitness professional is that they’re me. (www.sweatandjoy.ca) 

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In all seriousness, though, there’s thousands of great trainers and fitness coaches out there, who offer their services in brick-and-mortar gyms, online, on a completely mobile basis, or any combination thereof. 

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Most of advertising one’s self as a trainer consists of honing your specific niche appeal as much as possible, and/or convincing people why they should hire you over someone else. This is just the name of the game- most of us are either sole proprietors, contractors expected to bring a certain amount of business to a facility, or both. And some poor souls are entrapped in the farcically exploitative business models of most “big box” gym franchises, which belong several levels below MLMs in late stage capitalism hell. 

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To help you parse it all, this article will cover the most important things to consider when looking for a personal trainer/fitness coach.

 

Three Main Questions

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I’ll go into more detail below, but if I was to summarize as briefly as possible, I’d say the most important things to look at are: 

• What are their qualifications?

• Do their services fall within my budget?

• Do I like their vibe? 

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What Are Their Qualifications? 

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In Canada, the fitness industry is very unregulated. You can, unfortunately, legally call yourself a personal trainer without having done diddly squat. Most gyms won’t hire you, but if you’re good enough at social media, you can make money. 

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To give you an idea of how much actually does go in to doing this work- the gold standard certifying body in Canada (CSEP) requires candidates to have completed at least a two year college diploma in order to challenge their exams. 

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I’m not out to trash the minority of uncertified trainers who actually do know what they’re doing, at least outside of an extremely narrow area of speciality. As a writer who’s spent hours on end pulling my hair out over grant application instructions which use a specialized brand of obfuscating language and cryptic double meanings that they literally just give you the key to if you do artsy university (thank god my sister did), I have plenty of hate for academic elitism. But I also have plenty for some of the crap I’ve seen passed off as fitness services. Especially since these “trainers” tend to get more audacious the more impressionable/vulnerable their target market is. 

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In short, you want to check someone’s qualifications before you consider hiring them. As previously mentioned, CSEP (Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology) is generally the most trusted. You’ll also see CANFITPRO a lot- it lacks CSEP’s prerequisites (you purchase the study materials as well as the exam attempts directly from CANFITPRO), but like I said, I’m not into academic elitism, and I’ve never been able to guess by watching someone work whether they had CSEP or CANFITPRO. 

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You’ll also see ISSA and NASM show up in Canada a lot. They stand for “International Sports Sciences Association” and “National Academy of Sports Medicine”. Both of these are also legit. 

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There’s numerous other acronyms that might show up, especially if you’re looking for virtual services. Plug what you see into a search engine and see what comes up. As a rule of thumb, some level of certification + obvious job experience is the green flag you’re looking for. 

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Do their services fall within my budget? 

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Personal training is a notoriously expensive service. Some people do sliding scale, but even then, it’s still not cheap. 

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This seems like as good a place as any for me to list some ways to access this type of service if you don’t have a huge budget; 

 

• Buy a package of 3-5 sessions, and tell the trainer you want to space them out over several months. They’ll design a program for you that they can check in with you about periodically. (Be aware that if you’re inexperienced, many trainers will want to do a consultation session and then a training session relatively soon after, to make sure you’re doing things properly and aren’t going to throw your back out.) 

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• Virtual COACHING, where there are few/no realtime sessions, is a cheaper option than conventional personal training. The obvious drawback is the lack of direct hands on assistance if you’re trying to learn something new. At the same time, however, a lot of people prefer the flexibility and independence of virtual coaching. 

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• Some virtual coaches also offer realtime virtual training (or in person, if location allows), and are happy to do bundles where they combine some realtime sessions with a mostly hands-off virtual coaching program. (And you can bet that if/when I offer this, I’ll plug it here.) 

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• Sometimes, gyms and rec centers will offer a free session if you’re a member. Depending on the business model of the place, you might be able to get a program out of it that you can use for months, or it might be entirely designed to hook you into buying more sessions. When I worked at a rec centre, I always tried to do the former for people who were doing the free session- and go figure, I ended up making a ton of sales! But rec centres, which generally care more about member retention than anything else, allow you to take such an approach. I’ll elaborate more on this in the next section.

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Do I like their vibe? 

This is honestly going to be the biggest determining factor after the basic questions of qualifications and budget are answered. This reflected in how most of us market ourselves. It’s also the reason why I’ve worked with many awesome trainers who I felt like I was not competing with for clients whatsoever, even though on paper we had the same qualifications. 

If you’re new to fitness, you may have an idea in your mind of what a personal trainer/group instructor/fitness coach/etc looks like- the reality is that we are an extremely eclectic and diverse bunch. Even if all the trainers employed by your local rec centre look similar on the surface (unlikely, unless you live in an extremely homogenous area), odds are they all have different backgrounds, specialities, and interests. 

Even in areas where the industry is more regulated, different professionals will conduct their business very differently. This is usually according to what makes sense for their target market and their region. For instance, I once knew a woman who rented out the gymnasium of the school she used to attend, to host a weekend fitness class for children in her community. And I once knew an ex-roughneck who had a side hustle doing a 5:30 a.m. bootcamp for nightshift workers. You can imagine that these two people had completely different personas and marketing strategies, not to mention training styles. 
Whatever precise niche appeal you’re looking for, they’re probably out there somewhere. 

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What to Expect from Trainers at Different Places

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Independent gyms 

 

• The trainers working here are most likely contractors. Sometimes they’re employees, sometimes they have a share in the place. 

• If the gym is specialized for specific sports or activities, the trainers will generally be qualified and/or experienced with said sports or activities, or at least have an applicable skillset. 

• Standards are typically high; trainers who get a spot here are generally fairly experienced and established already. It’s unlikely that someone working at one of these doesn’t know what they’re about.

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Rec Centers

 

• At least in Canada, most of the trainers will be employees who are also given a certain number of guaranteed hours manning the desk, doing head counts, and stuff like that. Some may be contractors, especially if they do group classes. 

• It’s almost never guaranteed full time work, and while they don’t typically make commission, they’re expected to be good for business and fill up their schedules with clients. Some rec centers make this easier than others. The ones that don’t have a near-total staff turnover rate are the ones that make it easier. People will often sign up for training sessions through the rec centre, who will match them with a trainer, unless they indicate a preference for a specific one. 

• Per the typical business model of these places, you are less likely to encounter pushy sales tactics here. Like I said in the previous section, the big focus tends to be member retention, and people with rec center memberships tend to have chosen them over gym franchises for a reason. 

• Rec centers in larger places will often deliberately hire a very diverse cast of characters, in order to both appeal to as many members as possible, and so that they have a roster of trainers whose skillsets and teaching styles compliment each other, who are likely to decide they’re better off referring to each other rather than always competing. 

• You will find newer trainers here, as it’s where they tend to go if they can, over the next option on this list. However, because of this, rec centers get to be selective about who they hire, so newer trainers here will generally be well certified. 

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Franchise Gyms 

 

• It’s awful to work here. It’s so, so awful. And I’m not afraid to say that, because after several years of doing various manual labour jobs in order to avoid having to ever apply at one of these places ever again, I can now use a chainsaw, handle pesticide, operate a bobcat, and back up a trailer, and as such can just fall back on that, instead of having to ever apply at one of these places ever again. I’ve also been a housekeeper, and would also do that again over working at most big box gyms. But frankly, there aren’t many jobs I wouldn’t do over working here, because most big box gyms don’t even give you the facsimile of an actual job.

• Trainers here are generally entirely on commission, and expected to come in to do “unpaid prospecting”. In addition, they often have to sign exclusivity agreements, meaning they can’t do trainer work anywhere else. They’re expected to bring business in- but not allowed to advertise externally. 

• On a few occasions, I asked how this was supposed to work. The answer was always the same- word of mouth from the existing client base. Nothing works like this, everyone knows it, and the staff turnover rates can speak for themselves. 

• The level of hustle-culture BS is also through the roof, and if you work out at a gym like this, you can see this reflected by the rate at which you can observe the young new hires burn out in real time. 

• Some franchises even offer their own certification program, so if you want to work for them, you have the pleasure of being indebted to them for a certification that isn’t recognized elsewhere. 

• In short: you might get good service here. You might not. It is almost guaranteed to be very salesy, but that’s not the trainer’s fault. 

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Online

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• Most everyone working online is self employed. Many are self taught at how to be self employed, and the learning curve is steep. (Have I mentioned the level of hustle culture BS this industry is imbibed with? I was literally told in college to just “figure it out as you go”. Maybe the college was hoping I’d end up coming back for a business diploma too.) 

• Because the learning curve is steep and “figuring it out as you go” is highly normalized, a lot of online fitness businesses don’t last long. This is kind of just how it is- but reviewing the refund policy before you buy is a wise move. 

• There is an important distinction regarding virtual fitness services that is worth noting here- the difference between virtual training vs virtual *coaching*.

• Coaching tends to mean a lack of realtime interaction. As previously mentioned, many professionals do both and are willing to combine them. 

• You can imagine that online is where the snake oil sellers wanting to take advantage of the lack of regulation in this industry thrive the most. Always be sure to check someone’s certifications before hiring them for virtual services.