Designing and setting up a personal training studio can be hugely profitable and rewarding on your journey to be self-employed as a personal trainer.
Your, you will learn everything you need to know to get your studio up and running. I highly recommend checking out my article on corrective exercise specialist training and sport nutrition certifications, as they can help you make more money being self-employed.
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It takes the right amount of knowledge and motivation to pull off building your studio, but once it is all done, there’s nothing you will be more proud of. Not only will you be proud of your accomplishment, but it will also be hugely profitable for your business and will give a good bump to your training salary.
In general, working as a personal trainer can be tough if you are working for a corporate gymnasium or even a local studio. This is because you split the money that comes from your clients between multiple people, including the owners of the trim as well as the people that sell the personal training.
If you start your training business and work out of your own private training studio, you will be making 100% of what your client pays for your time and knowledge. On top of this, if you have other personal trainers that work in your studio with clients, they will typically pay you a certain percentage of the money they make using your facility.
Let’s go over everything you need to do to achieve your goal of creating a studio.
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Purchasing studio space or renting it out
Out of all of the expenses you will need to consider while creating your personal training studio, this will undoubtedly cost the most. The cost of your training space will vary depending on where you live. A rough guess would be anywhere between $400 a month to $3000 a month.
On the more expensive end would be someplace like San Francisco, California, where rent is extremely high. The best place I would suggest to look for studio space is craigslist.com. By searching on that website, you should be able to find a reasonable estimate of how much it will cost.
The amount of space you need depends on the type of clients you work with. Are you a cross fit personal trainer that likes to do circuit training? What specific kind of equipment do you need? Do you need squat racks? (These take up a lot of space).
Also, how many people are you expecting to join your studio once you open? Will you mostly do one-on-one personal training, or will there be group exercise sessions? These are all fundamental questions when considering how much space and equipment you will need!
It may be a great idea to start on the smaller end and work your way up once your studio becomes popular and you have more clients to work with. You can always switch locations and get a bigger studio if need be down the road.
Creating a space that is optimal for fitness training
If the studio you rent out is not optimally designed for exercise and fitness, you will need to renovate your own. Depending on how much renovating is necessary, this location may not be worth it for you.
At the very least, you need to get rubber floor tiles for all types of exercises. This is especially true if you do Olympic style weightlifting to protect your floor.
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Depending on what type of equipment you need, you may need to switch things around. For example, if you like doing workouts with TRX bands, I would suggest you have beams that you can suspend them.
Purchasing the necessary equipment
The second largest expense will probably be buying all the equipment required to complete your studio. Once again, It all depends on the type of clients you train and the equipment for excellent workouts.
If you are a functional trainer or a corrective exercise specialist that only uses light dumbbells, stability balls, Bosu balls, and resistance bands, you can get away with just spending $1-$2000. If you train athletes or powerlifters, you will most likely need large pieces of equipment such as bench presses, squat racks, and lots of Olympic weights to have sufficient workouts.
This equipment is costly! You will also most likely want preset dumbbells. These dumbbells can cost close to $5000 if you work your way up to weights that are over 100 pounds each.
This necessary equipment will most likely be your most considerable upfront cost, but once you have all of it will last a very long time and eventually pay itself off tenfold.
Purchasing liability insurance
Previously if you had been working for a local studio owner or commercial gymnasium, you most likely never thought twice about liability insurance. Most of these companies or studios pay for liability insurance for their trainers.
Once you are working on your own, you must purchase liability insurance either through the certifying agency company such as NASM or ACE or wherever you received your certification or some other insurance agency.
Also, if you have other personal trainers that are working in your studio, it is a good idea to get liability insurance for them as well. You can always ask them to buy their liability insurance, but it is an excellent incentive for them to work at your studio if you include it for them.
Most studio owners pay for their trainer’s liability insurance. Dozens of personal training liability packages are on the market that will be able to cover you and any trainers in your studio. Check out my complete article on personal training liability insurance!
Conclusion on creating a personal training studio
Ultimately, running your personal training studio may be difficult initially but it is hugely profitable and rewarding in the long run. It may not be in your budget right now to pull off this transition to working for yourself in your place.
Make sure to calculate all the expenses I listed above to determine how much it will cost you. If you have many clients willing to work with you in your studio, it might be an excellent option for you.
Although you may not see a high return in your first few months of owning the studio, this is a long-term investment, and you should see it like that. Eventually, you will be making much more money than you would be at a commercial gym.
You will also be working entirely for yourself and running a much more elaborate business. Let me know if you have any comments or experiences with opening a studio!
Also, make sure to check out my article on writing up personal training contracts for the trainers in your studio that you will run!
Hey Tyler,
I thinking about pursuing a PT certification. A fellow PT told me to check out NESTA because they offer a four year certification. I don’t see NESTA on your list of certs, but would like to hear your opinion on them as an option.
NESTA is a decent certification but I would not put it in my top 5 personal training certifications. Have you checked out the National Academy of sports medicine?
a PT studio does not have to register as a health club with Florida Dept of agriculture?
Hello Bobby
this is a very good question. I’m not sure if a personal training studio needs to register with the Florida Department of Agriculture. It might very state-by-state and since I live in California, this is a very good question.