Introduction
The time it takes to become a personal trainer is highly dependent on which course you take, the amount of time you can dedicate to your studies, and also your rate of learning. In this article, we’ll break down the process of becoming a personal trainer, including the qualifications needed, training durations, and other considerations that you should have to become a certified personal trainer.
What Qualifications do you need to become a Personal Trainer?
Before you start your journey to becoming a personal trainer, it is important to know which qualifications personal trainers need. In the UK, the standard qualification is the Level 3 Personal Trainer Certification, which is the minimum requirement you need to work legally as a personal trainer in gyms, or to establish your own personal training business.
In order to gain your level 3 personal trainer qualification, you must first acquire the level 2 certificate in fitness instructing, which teaches many of the foundations that level 3 builds upon. Whilst you can take these courses separately, some providers like ourselves provide a combined course. The PFCA Certified Personal Trainer Course (CPT) will provide all the training and qualifications you need from scratch, with completion of the course rewarding you with the level 3 gym instructor and level 3 personal trainer qualifications.
Full Time, Part Time and Self Paced Learning
The time it takes you to become a personal trainer depends on the type of learning that you go for. Generally, you can learn on a full time course, a part time course, or on a self paced learning course:
Full Time Personal Trainer Courses
Generally, full time learning can take around 6 weeks to complete. These intensive courses often involve daily classes, with both theory and practical sessions. In many cases, courses of this nature are for rapidly qualifying as a PT, and whilst they tick the boxes for qualification, they often have outdated curriculums, a lack of support post purchase of course, and do not involve further education in areas such as growing a fitness business.
Part Time Courses
Part time courses may be the best option for most people. They usually take around 10 weeks to complete, but offer more flexibility in your learning. Our CPT course offers this. A combined Level 2 and Level 3 Personal Trainer Course, it has a set start and end date to ensure that you stay accountable to completing the qualification. You have over 30 hours of direct mentor led education alongside a classroom of other students (all online), alongside an application focused curriculum built from scratch to support your learning.
Our 10 week, hybrid learning course will take you from 0 experience to a fully qualified PT through 6 distinct modules:
- The Coach: We’ll teach you the fundamental coaching principles to set you up for success.
- Consultation & Goal Setting: You’ll learn how to design a professional onboarding process to ensure that clients feel supported from the start. This’ll help you feel more equipped to handle diverse client needs.
- Nutrition: You’ll learn the core principles of nutrition to help deliver a well rounded approach to fitness for your clients.
- Strength Training: You’ll dive deep into anatomy, physiology and movement screening to fully understand how the body works. You’ll learn about executing the essential movement patterns correctly, understanding the science behind them so that you can take that knowledge forward and apply it to creating safe and effective workouts.
- Flow (Conditioning): You’ll gain a clear understanding of energy systems and how they apply to different fitness levels, from beginners to advanced athletes.
- Personal Training Business Foundations: You’ll learn about tried and tested methods for setting up a successful fitness business.
Self Paced Learning
Self paced learning can take anywhere from a few months to over a year. It may be an ideal option if you have an unpredictable schedule or you prefer to take your time on things. The main issue with self paced learning is that without a set start and end date, likelihood of completion is greatly diminished.
Course Structure
Regardless of how you choose to learn, more courses will follow a similar structure. Whilst they vary in terms of depth of content, degree of quality learning and length, they will all generally include a combination of:
- Theory Based Learning: Which includes anatomy, physiology, some nutrition and basic exercise principles. Understanding the theory behind fitness is key for developing effective training programmes for your clients.
- Practical Skills Learning: It goes without saying that to become a PT, you must learn how to perform exercises, correct clients’ form, and create tailored fitness plans with practical considerations.
- Assessments: In order to become certified, you’ll need to pass practical and theoretical assessments. Assessments are not there to catch you out, but to ensure that you are keeping up with the course learning to help you stay on track, so that by the end of the course, both you and the course providers are confident in your ability as a personal trainer.
Further Specialisation
After you’ve earned your Level 3 Personal Trainer Certification, there are lots of opportunities to continue professional development into level 4, allowing you to specialise in certain areas such as nutrition, strength and conditioning, or specialising in training specific populations such as the elderly or athletes.
At the PFCA, we recommend the Functional Fitness Coach Certification (FFC 1) for further education. FFC is a 12 week digital course which has a strong focus on functional movement quality. It builds on the principles of Level 3 to help you confidently coach all functional movement patterns, as well as weightlifting and gymnastics. The principles we teach in FFC can be applied across different offerings such as in person PT, online PT, small group PT and large group fitness classes.
Work Experience & Building a Client Base
After you’ve gained your qualifications, gaining practical experience is instrumental for long term success as a personal trainer. Building a client base can take time, and many gyms offer different methods to help you build up your client base, such as offering you gym floor shifts to give you the time in front of members and opportunities to introduce yourself to them. Many gyms might also ask you to teach group classes to further develop your experience and time in front of members.
At the PFCA, we believe that upon qualifying, you should already have been given the tools for success, which is why we teach personal training business foundations as part of our course. Even with this knowledge though, it can take on average up to 6-12 months to start to build a reliable client base. Remember, the more people you work with, the more your skills as a personal trainer will develop. The more skills you have, the more confident of a PT you will be and the better results you will get for your clients.
Remember, Personal Training learning and experience only really begins once you have qualified. The level 3 qualification is simply your ticket into the industry; the greatest and most successful PTs are those who always have a learning mindset, are willing to continue their education, and adopt new knowledge and experience along the way.
Conclusion
The time it takes to become a personal trainer largely depends on your lifestyle and time you can commit to the course. Whether you choose to study full time and qualify quickly or you go for a part time or self paced course, the flexibility of many personal training courses makes it a very accessible industry.
You should always bear in mind though that becoming a personal trainer is not just about ticking the boxes of qualification. In order to be successful in this highly competitive industry, you must have dedication to continuous learning and a limitless passion for helping others. If you’re ready to start the journey, then be sure to check out CPT, our combined level 2 and 3 personal trainer course.