Become a Personal Trainer
What Does a Personal Trainer Do?
From the FASTER syllabus: this article is taught in full in The Certified Personal Trainer route →
In short: A personal trainer's job splits into two halves: running a business to find and sign clients, and then coaching those clients safely and enjoyably towards realistic goals.
What does a personal trainer do? It is the question every new trainer should ask before signing up for a course, and one that rarely gets asked. Every job is slightly different, so it pays to know what kind of role you actually want before you commit.
The different roles
Personal trainers are recruited into a few distinct set-ups:
- Freelance in a gym, paying rent
- Freelance in a gym in exchange for hours
- Freelance going into people's homes or training in a park
- Employed by a gym
The freelance roles are broadly similar and centre on the trainer tasks below. But if you are freelance in a gym in exchange for rent (or an employed equivalent), or you are employed by a club, you may also be expected to take on more gym-instructor duties.
The gym-instructor side
Trainers with gym-instructor responsibilities can find themselves doing:
- Cleaning
- Programme writing and inductions
- Teaching small group classes
- Taking prospective members around the gym
- Maintenance
- First aid
- Reception duties
- Opening and closing the gym
None of this is glamorous, but it is part of many trainer jobs, so go in with your eyes open.
Finding clients: the business side
Before you coach anyone, you have to find them. That means running a small business, whether you think of it that way or not:
- Marketing
- PR
- Social media management
- Networking
- Setting your price, considering positioning, competition and cost of living
- Sales
- Approaching a client, booking a trial session, and running it
- Asking for money
- Collecting money
Plenty of capable trainers struggle here, not because they can't coach, but because they never expected the job to include selling and getting paid.
Coaching the client
Once you have a client, and provided they have passed the PAR-Q and are within your scope of practice, the enjoyable work begins:
- Set realistic short-term and long-term goals, and plan programmes to reach them.
- During sessions, entertain, educate, motivate and coach clients so they can follow their programmes safely and effectively.
- Where it helps them reach their goals, offer appropriate advice on health, nutrition and lifestyle within your scope.
- As part of a good service, build programmes to support their home workouts too.
So the honest answer is that a personal trainer does two jobs: running a business to win and keep clients, and coaching those clients well once they are in front of you. Knowing that before you start makes choosing the right course, and the right role, a lot easier.
You just read one answer. The course is all of them.
The Certified Personal Trainer route: every answer marked by a real tutor, with free return access for life. The price is on the page, payment plans at checkout, no sales calls.
What every FASTER student gets
Built around you, not around the course
- A real person marks every answerEvery answer is read and marked by a tutor, with written feedback.
- Marked as you goEach teaching point is marked as you answer it, not at the end of the module.
- Dictate instead of typeA microphone on every written answer: say your answer and it types it for you (Chrome, Edge and Safari).
- Listen to the lessonsVoice-overs on the lessons, and the audio to download.
- Built for the way your brain worksShort lessons, one point at a time, marked as you go, with the choice to listen, read, print or speak your answers.
- Streaks that never punish youYou set how many days a week you want to study. Miss a day and your streak pauses; it is never lost.
- Accessible to WCAG AA, with an AAA optionEvery page measured against the WCAG accessibility standard: no faults at level A or AA, with a skip link, screen-reader labels and pages that hold together zoomed to 400%. A high-contrast option takes it to AAA.
- Keep it plainOne switch turns off the extras, the streaks, the badges, the celebrations and the movement, so the site stays plain and calm. Switch them back on whenever you like.
- Bigger text and wider spacingTwo steps of bigger text, and more room between lines, words and letters, on every page.
- Calmer motionOne switch stops animations and videos that play on their own. It is on already if your phone or computer asks for reduced motion.
- A personal video lessonWhen an answer needs real explaining, your marker records a video that lands in your course.
- A note before you sendBefore you send, the page tells you if your answer copies the lesson word for word, so you can put it in your own words.
- The skeleton and muscle labsTap any bone on the skeleton, and see the muscles light up on the model.
- Print the notesPrint the lessons and go old school.
- Case studies on your phoneBuilt into the site, saved as you go, there on your laptop when you sit down.
- Pin it to your home screenNo App Store and no Google Play. It is just there.
- No resit feesWork sent back is a chance to add more, with no resit fee.
- Return access for lifeQualify once and come back to the content whenever you need it.
- PT Manager from day onePT Manager is yours to learn on from the day you sign up. Using it with real clients comes once you hold your Level 3 and are listed on the FASTER Trainer Register.
- The FASTER Trainer RegisterA free listing on the Register once you qualify.
- Your certificates in one placeEvery course and its certificate on one page.
- Ask JohnThe Ask John button on every page, and his WhatsApp.
And PT Manager, free
51 tools to run your business, with no monthly fee and no cut of your money
PT Manager is yours to learn on from the day you sign up. Using it with real clients comes once you hold your Level 3 and are listed on the FASTER Trainer Register.
See all 51 tools
Set-up
- Import clients Bring a whole client list across in one go.
- My quotes Daily lines your clients see — yours, not stock.
- Programme templates The programme shapes you reuse — a session or twelve weeks. Pick one for a client, get your own copy.
- Exercise library Every exercise with FASTER coaching detail.
- Money Products, payments and who owes what.
- Send from your own email Connect your own email service so invites arrive from you, on your domain.
- My brand & client view What your clients see when they walk in — views, header, accent, logo.
- Your enrolment pack What every new client gets the moment you enrol them — your forms, ours, or a mix.
- Products and services What you sell — blocks, packages, memberships and one-offs, with their prices.
- Insurance Your policy on record — provider and expiry. Client features unlock while it is valid.
- My menu Switch any tool on or off — for your menu, your home and your whole account.
- Your website A free website on your own web address, filled from PT Manager. Or just the client sign-in door on your domain.
- Your public page Your verified Trainer Register listing, linking out to your own site and socials.
Business day to day
- Clients Your client list — invite, open a client, manage their space.
- Clubs Group your clients — a board they share, a programme or a monthly price if you want one.
- Challenges A dated push everyone logs against — for everyone you train, or for one club.
- Calendar Sessions, classes, capacity and bookings.
- Reminders The dates your business can't let lapse — insurance and first aid, nagged ahead of time.
- Nudges Who needs a nudge today — opportunities, one tap each.
- Who needs chasing Every conversation about money, in the order to work through them.
- What needs doing Your own list, in your own words — the jobs you keep meaning to get to.
- Till Sell at the desk — cash, card or on their phone — and download the sales sheet.
- What you are making What is coming in every month, what was paid in the last 30 days, and what sells.
Templates and systems
- Forms & interviews PAR-Q, consent, consultations and your own forms.
- Coaching room The coaching tools shelf — wheels, journeys and resources in one place.
- Radar wheels Build a life or performance wheel a client fills in — see change over time.
- Nutrition by FASTER Nutrition sheets and habits without meal-plan pretence.
- Pathways Automated coaching journeys you assign to clients.
- Programmes Start a programme — a session, a month, 12 weeks or a season — and find the ones you have built.
- Games & drills planner Build game-based sessions and drills.
- Sport screens Pick a sport — the shots to film, the analyser, and a ready-made radar of the qualities that matter.
- Movement screen → radar Read joint angles off the analyser — they auto-score and fill a radar wheel.
- Assessment builder Build and run client assessments and re-tests.
- Tag analytics Every tag across your clips, grouped and exportable.
Client
- AI prompts Your reusable prompt library for coaching copy.
- Before & after Side-by-side progress comparisons.
Trainer tools
- Exercise generator Fresh exercise ideas from constraints you set.
- FASTER dice & wheel Spin-and-roll session variety for groups and games.
- Movement demonstrator A 3D model of the FASTER movement patterns — body or skeleton view, prime movers lit up, live joint angles.
- Client video analysis Your media library — client folders and your own. Pick a clip to analyse.
- Movement by FASTER (HMAC) Human movement analysis charts — see how a client moves.
- Live analysis Mount your phone and coach live — skeleton, reps, angles and depth in real time.
- Tell a group One thing, to the right people — and you see exactly who it reaches first.
Media centre
- Video builder Reels, stories and client report videos, in your own branding.
- Image builder Branded posts and cards for your socials, at the right size.
- Shot list builder Every shot with its size, angle, lens, location, people, kit and sound; sorted into shooting order, ticked off on the day, printed or sent as a sheet.
- Storyboard builder Plan a video shot by shot: what the camera sees, what is said, the move and the cut.
- Script writer Write what you will say, with the word count and how long it takes to say.
- Teleprompter Read your script off the screen at your speed, and film yourself behind it.
- Video and image organiser Everything you have made and every source you can pull from.
- Ad builder Make your own ads, coached as you go, in your branding. As many as you like, no fee, no cap.
Frequently asked
What are the main ways personal trainers work?
Freelance in a gym paying rent, freelance in exchange for hours, freelance visiting homes or training in parks, or employed by a gym.
Do personal trainers do more than train clients?
Often yes. Trainers with gym-instructor responsibilities may also cover cleaning, inductions, classes, tours, maintenance, first aid, reception and opening or closing.
How does a trainer find clients?
Through marketing, PR, social media, networking, sensible pricing, sales, and running trial sessions, plus the unglamorous parts of asking for and collecting money.
What happens once a client signs up?
After a PAR-Q and checking scope of practice, the trainer sets realistic goals, plans programmes, and coaches the client safely while entertaining, educating and motivating them.
Reading this for your own training? Every trainer on the FASTER register has been assessed by us — search by town or speciality, free.
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