Fitness/Lifestyle Business: Experience vs Education

Lost_Prophet

Morning All,

I have been toying with this idea for a while as I am passionate about the area and want to eventually run it as a side project to my main career, possibly overtaking the main career if the results become more profitable

I currently have vast experience of self-personal training and fitness/lifestyle coaching. When I was 20 I was unfit, weighed around 20 stone with little muscle mass. Now at 26 I am very fit, just ran a marathon, regularly run long distances, cycle often and generally do some form of exercise every day. My weight is around 13 stone but more important my %body fat has decreased to around 12% (I think it was)

I'm wondering how much you can rely on experience alone to lead a successful business in this area? I keep questioning myself as to the clients eventually questioning any formal education in this area that I may have

I am pursuing a Masters of Business Administration degree so there is little opportunity to move into a fitness relating topic and to be honest, I don't think it will be as profitable as the MBA

I'm interested of what peoples opinions are on this

Regards,
Stephen

honeypop

Do fitness trainers still need to be registered with REPS these days? If so, I think to qualify to be a member that you will need a qualification.

If all you have is your own experiences, how will you deal with training people with various conditons or problems without having detrimental effects? I'd at least expect my trainer to be qualified in anatomy and physiology (the basics of any fitness course). Add to that, that your vast experience seems to be with getting results on one person, rather than a range of different people with different goals.

Not trying to be mean, just a few things that immediately came to mind. I have worked in the fitness industry, and unless you have something very special and unique about you and your methods, you will be just the same as any other basic trainer and people will have no real reason to choose you over someone else.

Acc72

Lost_Prophet wrote: »

I'm wondering how much you can rely on experience alone to lead a successful business in this area?

I keep questioning myself as to the clients eventually questioning any formal education in this area that I may have

I am pursuing a Masters of Business Administration degree

Just a few thoughts ......

As with most things, the ideal is to have both the academic/technical training/qualifications as well as the necessary experience.

As already mentioned, if anything potential clients may look for qualifications such as in nutrition, physiology etc. rather than an MBA (although the MBA should help you to start and develop a business).

You say that you are questioning yourself - what do your actual clients say?

I would have thought that this type of service is very dependant on word of mouth recommendations.

Lost_Prophet

This is the point, it is just an idea (pipedream to be honest) and am doubting it because of my lack of educational experience

While I would never expect to be an elite fitness consultant, I feel as thought I have something to offer. But it seems this is all a dream without having some formal education to back it up?

heretolearn_2

I doubt you would be able to get the liability insurance without the right qualifications - too much risk that without the full training you could injure someone. As stated above, you need to have studied anatomy and nutrition for example, different types of training and exercise and how to do them properly (just having done it yourself doesn't teach you much about how other people should do it. Suppose you had someone with heart disease? How would you train them? Or someone 3 months after giving birth? Or someone with sciatica?)

IF it's what you really want to do though you could do the training after your MBA - most trainers are self employed so it would be great to into it with a business head.

Lost_Prophet

Thanks everyone

So what certifications would be recommended?

honeypop

It is really easy to find this information on the internet, I've already mentioned REPs, their pages should tell you what qualifications you should have. http://www.exerciseregister.org/