Top 9 Jobs at the Gym - The Complete Gym Jobs list

There is no doubt that more and more people are focusing not only on their health but also on their looks. And the easiest way to do that is by working out! Getting fit means staying healthy and shaping a body to be proud of. And where do most people go to do this?

Well, it’s something they can try at home but with a lack of equipment and with no one to motivate them or work out with, within a month, most people give up. Things change when they hit the gym for the first time!

Here, not only do they have access to professional help and all the equipment they could ever need, but it’s also motivating to see other people transform themselves.

And if YOU were ever thinking of joining the fitness world, well, now has never been a better time, that’s for sure.

If becoming a personal trainer interests you, make sure to take the quiz to see which certification is the right one for you.

Top 9 Jobs at the Gym - The Complete Gym Jobs list for [year] 6
Top 9 Jobs at the Gym - The Complete Gym Jobs list for [year] 7

The menu at the top of this page will answer any question related to your personal training. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to leave me a comment here (I’ll respond within 24 hours). Also, visit the home page for the most recent and popular articles.

Gym Employment… So Many Opportunities

Gym employment... so many opportunities

The thing is, if you have no background in fitness, deciding on what type of gym employment you should focus on can be a little intimidating.

But don’t worry, that’s why we have written this blog. In it, we are going to outline a wide variety of gym jobs that are available.

Better still, by looking at each closely, we can give you a far better idea of which would suit you best.

While some may require certification, we will advise you on the best way to get that necessary paperwork.

This is the definitive guide about gym employment, primarily for positions that require you to be certified.

And those are:

  • Personal trainer
  • Nutrition coach
  • Strength and conditioning coach
  • Corrective exercise coach
  • Group exercise instructor

Of course, there are other positions, such as gym manager, gym sales consultant, personal fitness sales consultant, and front desk employee, but we will cover those a little later.

1. Personal Trainer… an Expert in Exercise

Personal trainer... an expert in exercise

Perhaps one of the first job types you think of at a gym is that of the personal trainer. And although it might seem like a simple job to have one-on-one training sessions with clients, personal trainers are highly specialized.

But what exactly is it that they do?

Well, a personal trainer is a very specialized position. In fact, not just anyone can be a personal trainer.

You need to be certified in some way, for example, through organizations such as the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) or the American Council on Exercise (ACE).

People who hold a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist certificate may also work as personal trainer.

A personal trainer in a gym will be tasked with the following:

Determine a client’s level of fitness

A personal trainer has multiple clients but works in a one-on-one relationship with each and every one. When a new client signs up, a personal trainer will first establish the client’s fitness level.

And each and every client will be very different in that regard.

Once a level of fitness has been determined, the personal trainer and the client will discuss what exactly each party hopes to achieve from their relationship.

Again, this will be very different for each and every client.

Some may want to work out to get a little healthier and improve their overall fitness. Others might want to lose some weight, while fitter clients might want to focus on toning their muscles.

By finding out what a client hopes to achieve, the two parties can focus on setting realistic and attainable goals.

Draw up an overall fitness program

The next step, once the two parties have decided on a set group of goals, is to draw up the fitness program that will help the client to achieve them.

Here, a personal trainer will use all of their experience in working out daily exercise programs using the gym equipment available to reach the predetermined goals.

These programs are continually adapted as the client’s fitness level rises.

They could also target a particular group of muscles, for example, the abdomen, when a client wants to lose belly fat.

And that’s the great thing about the job of a personal trainer, as every client is unique, and no two fitness programs are the same.

Guidance and motivation

The final step is setting the fitness program devised by the personal trainer for their client in motion.

At each and every gym session, a personal trainer will spend time with their clients acting as a guide and motivating them.

The first few it’s about teaching the client how each and every piece of equipment works and explaining the benefit they bring. Once a client knows what to do and how to train on each piece, a personal trainer helps them reach their goals during the session by motivating them along the way.

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Gym work can be tough, and there are days when clients will struggle. Often, a personal trainer’s motivation can help them draw on their determination to pull them through.

If you haven’t done so yet, take the quiz to see which personal training certification would be the best option for you if you decide to get certified.

Top 9 Jobs at the Gym - The Complete Gym Jobs list for [year] 8
Top 9 Jobs at the Gym - The Complete Gym Jobs list for [year] 9

Also, check out my article that talks about the top five personal training certifications in depth.

2. Nutrition Coach… Helping People to Eat Right

Nutrition coach... helping people to eat right

Besides getting fit, people often opt to move to a healthier lifestyle by watching what they put into their bodies. And that’s in the form of food and drink.

Making dietary changes and eating healthily can profoundly affect a person’s overall health. And to make those changes, people often call on the services of a nutrition coach.

So how exactly does a nutrition coach help them achieve that change?

Gather dietary information

A nutrition coach will first sit with a client and meticulously go through their diet. This is an in-depth look into what it is a person eats daily.

And this can often be a difficult process and requires a nutrition coach to be fairly persuasive. Why? Well, people are often embarrassed to admit what they might eat.

Great care is needed to show them that they can only make the necessary changes in their lives by revealing the truth.

Establish goals

The next step involves establishing what it is the client wants to achieve from their lifestyle change.

The most common is normally weight loss, but it could include other health issues like lowering cholesterol levels.

Advise on dietary changes.

Next up, it’s time to take what was learned earlier and start to advise their clients on the dietary changes they need to make to reach their individual goals.

This will involve drawing up dietary plans, daily menus, and more. By providing the client with the building blocks, they can change their lives and become healthier.

Motivate

Last and certainly not least, a nutrition coach will motivate. It’s about far more than just the number of calories in versus calories out.

It’s about guiding clients in various aspects of their lifestyles, such as nutrition, exercise, relationships, and more. Each and every one of these plays a part in someone’s overall well-being.

Ultimately, it’s about creating a new healthy lifestyle, positive outlook, and mindset.

3. Strength and Conditioning Coach… Sports conditioning

Strength and conditioning coach... building muscle and preventing injuries

It might seem like a personal trainer and a strength and conditioning coach might be similar, but they are different in several ways.

While it all has to do with fitness overall, a strength and conditioning coach will generally work with athletes or someone looking to improve their overall performance when it comes to their chosen sport.

But it’s not only about building muscle, improving fitness, and improving performance. Injury prevention is also something a strength and conditioning coach knows a lot about.

Raising the athletic performance bar

Undoubtedly, most athletes will use a strength and conditioning coach to help them improve their overall performance. But how do they achieve this?

Well, a strength and conditioning coach will devise individual and group programs, depending on who they work with. These will often revolve around devising a program that improves an athlete’s overall strength, power, and, in certain cases, their speed.

And these programs change depending on whether the athlete is in season or not.

If in season, the work of a strength and conditioning coach is more about keeping levels of fitness high and the athlete in peak condition.

Out of season programs will see a strength and conditioning coach work more on helping to improve fitness levels, which can drop when no competition is taking place.

Of course, this is all based on the sport the athlete participates in and can even be more refined by which position they play, for example, in a team sport such as American Football.

Injury prevention and education

Perhaps just as important a role that a strength and conditioning coach plays is that of injury prevention and educating athletes about potential injuries they are at risk from.

But how can a strength and conditioning coach help with injury prevention?

Well, it’s actually simple, really. Most sports have injuries that occur regularly. In anticipation of those injuries and to help prevent them from occurring a strength and conditioning coach will devise a strengthing program for their athletes.

For example, a common injury for baseball players is to their ulnar collateral ligament (UCL).

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To try to help prevent this, a strength and conditioning coach will devise various strengthening exercise programs that players can use both in and out of season to keep the UCL in good shape.

4. Corrective Exercise Coach… Making Sure They Do It Right!

Corrective exercise coach... making sure they do it right!

While you may never have heard of a corrective exercise coach, they are quickly forming an important part of the fitness world. But what is it that they do?

A corrective exercise coach is somewhere in between a personal trainer and a physical therapy specialist. It’s quite a niche position and certainly a certification that a personal trainer can add to their bow.

Corrective exercise coaches work on correcting muscle imbalances that are causing pain.

And pain is something millions of Americans live with daily.

Examples include neck pain, back pain, or shoulder pain. In fact, in the United States, around $213 billion is spent on treating musculoskeletal pain EVERY year!

That’s staggering, right?

And it’s not just regular folk like you and me. Athletes, too, can suffer from pain due to muscle imbalances, for example, cyclists or runners.

This is often a result of incorrect repetitive movements.

Accessing movement dysfunction

So the first thing a corrective exercise coach does is to assess their clients, specifically for the pain they are experiencing and any movement dysfunction that might be causing it.

Often, the reason for the pain is a shortened muscle, for example, neck pain or an overused muscle, which an athlete might suffer from.

Eliminate/reduce joint or muscle pain.

Once assessed, it’s about helping the client reduce or eliminate their pain. This is usually achieved through self-myofascial release methods.

By applying these methods, overall muscle pain is reduced, muscle tension is eradicated and circulation is improved in the muscle area.

And better circulation means the muscle can heal itself.

Improve muscle strength

The next thing a corrective exercise specialist will do is to begin then to improve muscle strength.

And the easiest way to do this is by teaching the client various stretching procedures through static and neuromuscular stretching techniques.

In some clients, the problem might result from muscles that aren’t active enough. In this scenario, a corrective exercise specialist will help improve them through strength training techniques.

This will help activate the muscles and build their endurance over time.

Develop a total body program.

Lastly, once all of the above has been achieved, a corrective exercise specialist will help to devise a total body program for the client.

This will improve overall muscle coordination and develop the correct patterns of movement to prevent future injuries.

5. Group Exercise Instructor… and a 1,2,3,4!

Group exercise instructor... and a 1,2,3,4!

No doubt you have seen aerobics or spinning classes at a gym. There is always somebody at the front leading energetically leading the class.

That’s a group exercise instructor.

But it’s much more than jumping around at the front of an aerobics class or picking out a funky piece of music to keep the participants going.

Design and lead fitness classes

The first responsibility of a group exercise instructor is to design and lead fitness classes.

Regarding the design of a fitness class, one-size certainly doesn’t fit all.

Why?

Well, not everybody who wants to take a group exercise class has the same fitness level.

So generally, a group exercise instructor will design programs aimed at beginners, intermediates, and advanced, where the person’s fitness level determines which class they enter.

And then they must help run those classes. So yes, a group exercise instructor needs to be EXTREMELY fit!

Motivate!

Once the classes begin, it’s all about motivation! A group exercise class is tough on the body, and motivation levels flag easily, especially towards the end, so motivation is key.

But it goes beyond that.

By having one-on-one encounters with clients, a group exercise instructor can discover what makes them tick, why they want to exercise, and more. This then can form part of their motivation strategy for each and every person attending the class.

Make sure they do it right.

It’s not just enough to run an exercise class. A group exercise instructor needs to keep their eyes on all the participants.

The most important thing is that they perform each exercise routine properly. If not, they must be shown exactly how to do it. This can help stop any injuries from occurring.

Help individuals towards their fitness goals

Each person attending a group exercise class will have unique fitness goals. And it is the job of the group exercise instructor to help them reach these goals.

Again that means dealing with each person individually from time to time and helping guide them toward the level of fitness they want to achieve.

The Need for Certification

Top 9 Jobs at the Gym - The Complete Gym Jobs list for [year] 10

All of these positions have one thing in common. To find employment as one of them, you must be accredited by a reputable company such as the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM).

Getting accredited is not too difficult; it means taking a course with the ACSM or another licensed body and passing their exams to receive your accreditation.

While they have useful study material that can help you do that, supplementary online study material from reputable web-based training portals can make it all so much easier.

A website like Trainer Academy is the perfect way to ensure you pass your certification exam the first time.

Other Gym Positions

Other gym positions

We mentioned them earlier, but let’s look at a few other gym positions that you might consider.

6. Gym manager

Essentially, a gym manager is a person in charge of the gym at a given time.

Like most gym positions, a gym manager will work a certain shift, from 06h00 to 14h00. Of course, that means that the gym will have more than one manager.

Gym managers are responsible for securing equipment, recruiting of staff, budgets, and drawing up staff schedules. These are just a few of their day to day activities.

Gym managers generally have worked in the fitness world before, as their past experience will make it far easier for them to run a gym daily.

7. Gym membership sales

A gym is nothing without its members.

And while members of the public who sign up themselves are important, a gym can only be successful through membership sales.

Gym membership sales are all about following up with potential leads, for example, email queries or phoning clients who perhaps filled in a query card at an outside exhibition.

It can also be about cold calling to sell individual memberships or corporate packages.

8. Personal training sales

A person working in personal training sales mostly targets people who are already gym members.

It’s about encouraging them to get one-on-one training with a personal trainer to enhance their gym experience.

9. Front desk workers

Front desk workers are tasked with manning the front desk at a gym.

Their most important job is meeting and greeting gym members as they enter and leave the gym. They will also do clerical work, answer any incoming phone calls, deal with member queries, and more.

Last Words…

Last words...

So there you have it. A comprehensive list of all the employment opportunities you can find in the gym.

Each of them plays its own unique part in making a gym a place where people can improve their health and fitness and enjoy themselves!

Tyler Read - Certified Personal Trainer with PTPioneer

Tyler Read


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