In this article, I will discuss all the essential equipment you need for personal training.

The approach I will take for this article is to break it up into two separate parts.

In the first part, I will discuss the essential personal training equipment you will need to give your clients challenging workouts to achieve their goals.

In the second part, I will be talking about particular tools that will help measure and track your client’s progress through their journey.

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. If you’re not a trainer, take the quiz to determine which personal training certification is for you.

Personal Training Equipment! - Everything you will need! 3

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If you work at a corporate gymnasium, such as 24-hour fitness, you will have all of this equipment and tools at your disposal. This article is more geared towards individuals that are trying to start their own business by working out of their own home or that are opening their personal training studio.

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Let’s jump right into my article on PT equipment so that you can find out everything that you need!

The Essential Personal Training Equipment you will need for Your Stellar Workouts.

If I were to list all of the different types of equipment that are possible for you to purchase, the list would go on for thousands of pages! Luckily for you, you could quickly get by with only a few essential pieces of equipment.

With these pieces of equipment, you can perform thousands of variations of exercises! If you are not working with athletes or do not need heavy Olympic weights or large squat racks, you can get away with equipment that can easily be transported from one location to another, even in a small sedan.

The first type of equipment you will need is resistance training equipment. These will be barbells, dumbbells, and elastic bands. TRX bands are also acceptable because they use your body weight for resistance.

You do not need all of these, but if you want to increase the number of exercises you can use with your clients, I recommend most of them.

Next, you’ll need equipment that will challenge your client’s balance and stability. Some of the most common stability training equipment on the market today are Bosu balls, stability balls, Dyna discs, and, once again, TRX straps.

By combining free weight or resistance equipment, as I mentioned above, with these stability trainers, you can quickly perform thousands of different exercises.

Getting some functional training equipment, such as kettlebells, body bars, and medicine balls, would be best. These three pieces of equipment when mixed with any of the stability or resistance training equipment above, these three pieces of equipment will only add to your exercise repertoire.

If you do not have rubber floor mats in your home or your location of working out, you should also invest in some workout mats for groundwork abdominal training!

The Equipment that you should have close by to measure and track results

If you want to be a competent personal trainer, you need to follow your client’s results quantitatively. I will discuss the tools and equipment needed to measure your clients’ progress.

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You should have these tools at your disposal at all times because measurements should be done approximately once every month, but you can do them every week if you would like. Showing quantitative data to my clients is one of the most significant factors that keep them motivated!

The first piece of equipment you will need is either a clipboard (and pen) or a tablet to keep track of the exercises, repetitions, and sets performed by your client.

The most common way to keep track of these numbers is to carry around a clipboard with an exercise template on it that you could fill out throughout your workouts. Although most personal trainers still use this method to keep track of their client’s progress, I feel it is incredibly outdated.

Check out my article about my exercise template that you can print out or upload on your tablet/phone! Most people nowadays have some form of a tablet, whether an iPhone or an Android tablet.

Even most phones can suffice regarding recording progress. The only problem with phones is that it looks like you are not paying attention to your client if you are holding your phone in your hand.

The great thing about storing all this information electronically is that you can keep a copy and e-mail your client a copy of the workout so they can do it on their own if they want to.

It is a pain to re-write the whole workout so that you can both have a copy of the workout. It is also tough to lose an electronic copy compared to carrying around a piece of paper.

If you invest in a tablet for your personal training business, I guarantee you will not regret it. There is also excellent software you could purchase for personal training that I talk about my article here!

The other equipment that you should purchase for measuring and tracking results are a measuring tape, a scale, body fat calipers, and a bioelectrical impedance body fat measurer.

On your first meeting with a new client, you should take all of these measurements to get a baseline from where they are starting. In taking circumference measurements with a measuring tape, you need to ensure you measure from the same spot every time.

Typically you should measure the shoulder circumference, waist circumference, hip circumference, just circumference, upper arm circumference, and thigh circumference.

If you are a male trainer that is working with a female client, you may want to get, a female personal trainer to take some of the measurements (especially the chest measurement).

Make sure to take weight measurements once a month, whether your client is trying to lose or gain weight. It is up to which form of body fat measurement you would like to use.

Calipers are quite tricky to use unless you have a lot of practice. Bioelectrical impedance is a good secondary option and should be done once a month.

Conclusion on personal training equipment

I hope you liked my article on training equipment. These are all the equipment or tools you will need to run a successful personal training business.

It would be best to use all of these whether you work for a corporate gymnasium or yourself. If you have any other pieces of equipment that you would recommend using during your workout, shoot me a comment below and let me know.

I hope you guys liked my article on personal training equipment! If you are getting started out in the personal training industry, also check out my article on the best personal trainer organizations, how to become a rockstar fitness trainer, and how much money you can make doing PT!

If you are purchasing this equipment to start your own training business, check out my article on personal training contracts, liability insurance, how to market yourself, and how to sell personal training! Not get out there and start having some kickass workouts!

Tyler Read - Certified Personal Trainer with PTPioneer

Tyler Read


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4 thoughts on “Personal Training Equipment! – Everything you will need!”

  1. Hi Tyler,
    I work for a big box gym but have had a lot of requests for in-home training. How do I know clients equipment is safe and can I use it from a liability standpoint?
    Thanks!
    Janice

    Reply
    • If you take your clients outside of the gym, you will no longer be covered by your insurance provided by the gym. You should look into independent personal training insurance.

      Reply
  2. Hi! I am wondering where most personal trainers buy their equipment from. Are there specialty distributors and wholesalers or do they also just go to the same retailers as “normal” people (e.g., Walmart, Amazon)?

    Thanks!
    Gregor

    Reply
    • Hey Gregor,
      This is a fantastic question. Honestly I personally by my workout equipment from Amazon.com or from any other sports retailer in my area. Unless you were buying wholesale, I don’t see a better opportunity.

      Reply

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