Do not confuse colleges with Universities. A University will offer a degree in the health and fitness field and those degrees are legit and will help you find great employment. A local college whether in your town or online will offer a “personal training degree” in their school or on their website. They will charge you a lot of money to attend made up classes and after a year or 2 you will be a certified personal trainer.

What they don’t tell you is that none of their classes or made-up personal fitness trainer degrees is necessary or even valid in any state. To become a personal trainer you simply need to take a test from an accredited institution of which I would only recommend 3. The three are ACSM, ACE fitness and NASM. They are accepted at every gym and they certify you to be a fitness trainer.

You simply have to pay the money to take the test and if you pass, you are a certified trainer. Never pay a college for a bogus degree and made-up classes. Most gyms will usually pay for you to take the tests as long as you do so in your first week of training.

Any college offering a degree in personal training is a scam and should not be trusted.

So what happened at those gyms? They didn’t care that I had a bachelors degree and knew more than every trainer in their gym, all they wanted to see was a certification that I had take some expensive test that would say I was a certified personal trainer.

I was furious! I had a degree and it was hard to get, I had more knowledge of the human body than any other trainer or even the managers at the gym. But it all boils down to money. You pay hundreds of dollars to a company so you can take their test and that big gym only accepts people that have taken the test. Most likely it is because the big gym gets a cut of what you pay the company to take that test. This way you are actually paying your employer for the first few weeks of your employment.

So the good news for you is that you don’t need any type of schooling or formal training to become a personal trainer. All you have to do is fork out a few hundred dollars, take a test and get a certificate mailed to you in the mail. You are then qualified to train others.

This is another reason I own this website. It’s time that trainers start finding their own clients so you don’t have to pay 50, 60 or 70% of your income to the gym where you work. Finding local people that are searching for personal trainers on the internet is a great way to improve people fitness while getting paid directly. You don’t need a gym to get a good workout, you can be creative and get a great workout anywhere.

So it’s time to cut out the middleman and find clients here. If you are looking for personal trainers near you then you have come to the right place as well. Whey pay a gym outrageous wages for a trainer when you can find one here for a fraction of the price.

I would put more trust in someone that has a bachelors degree in the health, fitness or exercise field than a simple certificate stating they are a trainer. So if you are looking for a trainer you can put your contact info here to find local health and fitness professionals near you.