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Personal Trainer Courses


Davo1990

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Hello,

Wasn't sure what forum to put this in..

But I'm looking at doing a Fitness/Personal Trainer course next year..

Was wondering if you guys could give me and good and bad points on some of them.

Im in Christchurch, and have been looking at these ones:

Southern Institute

CPIT

NZ College of Fitness

NZIS

after I've completed the course, I want to start working in the gym...

Cheers

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Useful thread ...

I have a friend who doesn't live in the city and wants to know if there are good courses/qualifications (ie well recognised if she applied for a job as a PT) that she could do mostly via correspondence - as having to move to a city to do it is not always possible. Maybe some can be done 100% correspondence, or with correspondence plus some short on campus element etc.

So any feedback on that would be good as well.

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Yep I did my qualifications by correspondence thru Netfit. I was lucky tho as I was able to work as an instructor at a gym while I was doing my qualifications. You do have to do some pratical stuff and there's also pratical and theory exams plus work experience in the industry.

I've heard many people giving the Netfit courses a bit of grief but I found if you were willing to put the hard work in yourself you walk away with a pretty good qualification that most gyms in NZ recognise. Courses aside I think good PT's have it in their heart as such - I've met many a "very qualified & lots of degrees" PT who has no people skills at all! Good Luck it's an awesome career choice :P

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NZ college of fitness seems to have gone downhill a bit from what I hear. Most graduates love it while they're there, but then when I catch up with people a year from then they don't really feel they know anything other than how to do a once a week workout, where you do 3 exercises, one set of each. Also, the staff seem to be getting really political there.

Doc, one of the teachers there is telling students you can charge $90 for half an hour. This is what you will get: a 5 minute boxing pad warm up, one set on the bench press, one set on leg press, one set on lat pull down. A stretch and 2 minute massage after. That's it!

Before going there, or even becoming a PT in the first place, I suggest going to a few PT's and seeing if you think they are valuable and asking where they got their qualifications.

They are really good at selling, and giving the impression that they're the best, which is why so many people go. The college of fitness is different to say going to SIT (which is free!), NZIS, and CPIT. Those schools are tertiary institutions governed by NZQA. NZCF is a business.You come away with a "certificate" that gets you minimum entry to REPS. Many graduates are now going to NZIHF in order to gain a real NZ qualification. NZCF goal is to make money (that's probably why they charge over $5000 for an 8 week course). Someone told me that the owner said that most of the people who go the college are just 'bums in seats' bringing in revenue, while only a few will actually be successful in the industry. The salespeople will also tell you that seats are filling up fast etc. There is no rush, there is a new course every 8 weeks.

Other PT's have told me, many graduates end up going to them to learn how to do squats, deadlifts, and other exercises as they only learn how to do bench press, leg press, and lat pull down.

They teach, and only teach a consolidated high intensity training workout. According to them anything other than say 1 set of bench press, 1 set of lat pull down, and 1 set of leg press is crap. Hmmm, anyone out there get good results from something other than a workout like this?

They do teach how to give good customer service, and some very good business skills as well. As someone else said, being a successful PT has less to do with what you know and more to do with how you interact with people and market yourself.

NZCF is just a really expensive stepping stone into the industry to me. If you decide to do it keep an open mind, and keep learning from other sources. You will find once you do continuing education, most of what you learn will be the opposite to what you learn at the college of fitness.

Correspondance wise, open polytech has a diploma in fitness, run by the new zealand institute of health and fitness.

Just a reality check: richard beddie (owner of olympus, and one the high up dudes in REPS) gave us a talk at the college telling us the average life of a PT is about 370 days. 70% of people quit in the first year. One trainer I know who worked at Les mills told me he barely broke even in his first year. gym instructors are paid just over minimum wage. look in the paper or a job site and check how many jobs are available.

you have got to really want to be a PT. ask yourself why you are wanting to do it, how you will do it, where you want to work, what will i be selling as a PT etc.

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Yeah from what i have heard NCOF is not worth it. 8 weeks is a very small time for something such as a PT course. Im doing a 2 year PT course in Dunedin at the start of next year. 1st year is a certificate and 2nd year is a diploma and as long as the course is it is very full on. Shocked to hear about the 70% of PT leave after the first year.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Im doing a degree in Human Performance at UCOL palmerston north. Awesome course a. Lots of theory but alot of practical as well. Just done my first year and kicked arse. Top of the class with nearly all A's. Hell of a change from when i was at school. The course is REPS accredited which means your registered as a personal trainer in NZ, OZ and UK. I know its in Palmerston North which doesnt help you but maybe they have extramaural.

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did nzcf with joel , as he said after the course peoples futures and opinions change...

find the cheapest course that gets u into the industry as nzcf's 'training advice' does not agree to my knowlege and real life experiences.

in other words take what you learn with a grain of salt and focus on saftey and technique.

blah

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  • 1 month later...

im starting my course at cpit in the july intake. its the preferred qualification (other than bachelor of sport and recreation) ie. all the council gyms and canterbury fitness prefer ppl who have gone through cpit's course. also cpit are in the final stages of going through the approval process so after the cert in fitness completion, there will b a option to move onto a 2 year, level 7 degree in the fitness industry, with majors you can choose pretty similar to uni. i think they are modelling their concept off AUT's bachelor of sport and recreation course structure. hope that helps :)

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  • 1 year later...
NZ college of fitness seems to have gone downhill a bit from what I hear. Most graduates love it while they're there, but then when I catch up with people a year from then they don't really feel they know anything other than how to do a once a week workout, where you do 3 exercises, one set of each. Also, the staff seem to be getting really political there.

Doc, one of the teachers there is telling students you can charge $90 for half an hour. This is what you will get: a 5 minute boxing pad warm up, one set on the bench press, one set on leg press, one set on lat pull down. A stretch and 2 minute massage after. That's it!

Before going there, or even becoming a PT in the first place, I suggest going to a few PT's and seeing if you think they are valuable and asking where they got their qualifications.

They are really good at selling, and giving the impression that they're the best, which is why so many people go. The college of fitness is different to say going to SIT (which is free!), NZIS, and CPIT. Those schools are tertiary institutions governed by NZQA. NZCF is a business.You come away with a "certificate" that gets you minimum entry to REPS. Many graduates are now going to NZIHF in order to gain a real NZ qualification. NZCF goal is to make money (that's probably why they charge over $5000 for an 8 week course). Someone told me that the owner said that most of the people who go the college are just 'bums in seats' bringing in revenue, while only a few will actually be successful in the industry. The salespeople will also tell you that seats are filling up fast etc. There is no rush, there is a new course every 8 weeks.

Other PT's have told me, many graduates end up going to them to learn how to do squats, deadlifts, and other exercises as they only learn how to do bench press, leg press, and lat pull down.

They teach, and only teach a consolidated high intensity training workout. According to them anything other than say 1 set of bench press, 1 set of lat pull down, and 1 set of leg press is crap. Hmmm, anyone out there get good results from something other than a workout like this?

They do teach how to give good customer service, and some very good business skills as well. As someone else said, being a successful PT has less to do with what you know and more to do with how you interact with people and market yourself.

NZCF is just a really expensive stepping stone into the industry to me. If you decide to do it keep an open mind, and keep learning from other sources. You will find once you do continuing education, most of what you learn will be the opposite to what you learn at the college of fitness.

Correspondance wise, open polytech has a diploma in fitness, run by the new zealand institute of health and fitness.

Just a reality check: richard beddie (owner of olympus, and one the high up dudes in REPS) gave us a talk at the college telling us the average life of a PT is about 370 days. 70% of people quit in the first year. One trainer I know who worked at Les mills told me he barely broke even in his first year. gym instructors are paid just over minimum wage. look in the paper or a job site and check how many jobs are available.

you have got to really want to be a PT. ask yourself why you are wanting to do it, how you will do it, where you want to work, what will i be selling as a PT etc.

Exellent points have been made here! I have been a PT for 17 (private contractor)years and I feel sorry for most of the people that attend courses like the ones put on by the new zealand college of fitness. These courses are a complete rip off as they are not preparing people for the real world. The number of people who have completed these courses and then had to pay to come and see me is incredible! It is a complete failure of the educational industry, and I dont know why people havent taken the administrators of these facilities to task.If you go to these "colleges" and ask them how many of thier students go on to become succesfull PTS they will fall strangely silent.

I have students of these courses coming to see to learn how to do squats!! And other basic movements! Far to much time is spent in the course on the buisness side of PT and not enough time spent on pratical work in the gym.

We have students coming in the gym to interview our manager to see what sort of managerial style she has, dictorial,diplomatic etc, then they have to go away and write an essay on it! What the hell does that have to have with being a pT!

An incredably small percentage of the students who come out of these courses go on to become succesful PTs. These poor students then feel like failures, but their failure is not thier faut, it is the fault of the colleges that that promised them the earth then took thier money.

At the end of the day it is up to the manager of a particular gym as to wether they will higher you or not. And most of the time they dont care where you have recieved your qualifications, as long as you have something they are quite happy. Especially if you are going to work as a private contractor and pay them rent, then they will bend over backwards to take you on board. Less mills of course will make you do thier 2000$ course first even if you have a PHD is sport science, as this is where they make thier money.

Your best bet would be to get your qualifications from a government run institution AUT etc. From my experience these will give you the best value for money, and the best educational experience.

As for holding a qualification that is REPS recognised, as I stated earlier it is up to the individual manager as to wether they think your quals are sufficient or not. I myself refuse to be REPS registered. As do half of the pTS at all the club physical branches. REPS is merely a dictatorship that trys to scare everyone into joining thier organisation, paying them an exhorbatant amount of money for nothing in return.

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good thread :nod:

Human Performance raises some good points.

We (myself and partner - Bar-Belle) have just started a 36 wk part time course with the New Zealand Institue of Health and Fitness to obtain my/our PT qualifications. The course seems to be pretty well laid out, has a huge content, regular asignments, we get plenty of "one on one" and practical learning and we each have a skills coach assigned to us. Class size is small 10-12 students. It is fully NZQA accedited. Course costs are about $3800.

When speaking with PTs and gym owners this was one of the better courses they reckoned along with AUTs course. Our course is week nights and as our business is busy on the weekends suits our schedule.

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good thread :nod:

Human Performance raises some good points.

We (myself and partner - Bar-Belle) have just started a 36 wk part time course with the New Zealand Institue of Health and Fitness to obtain my/our PT qualifications. The course seems to be pretty well laid out, has a huge content, regular asignments, we get plenty of "one on one" and practical learning and we each have a skills coach assigned to us. Class size is small 10-12 students. It is fully NZQA accedited. Course costs are about $3800.

When speaking with PTs and gym owners this was one of the better courses they reckoned along with AUTs course. Our course is week nights and as our business is busy on the weekends suits our schedule.

Yes I have heard good things as well about the NZ institute of health and fitness. But one of the main things steak that will set you apart is the fact that you regularly train hard yourself. A colleague of mine who lectures at AUT says he has had classes where half the students (aspiring pTS) had never been in a gym!

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NZ college of fitness seems to have gone downhill a bit from what I hear. Most graduates love it while they're there, but then when I catch up with people a year from then they don't really feel they know anything other than how to do a once a week workout, where you do 3 exercises, one set of each. Also, the staff seem to be getting really political there.

Doc, one of the teachers there is telling students you can charge $90 for half an hour. This is what you will get: a 5 minute boxing pad warm up, one set on the bench press, one set on leg press, one set on lat pull down. A stretch and 2 minute massage after. That's it!

Before going there, or even becoming a PT in the first place, I suggest going to a few PT's and seeing if you think they are valuable and asking where they got their qualifications.

They are really good at selling, and giving the impression that they're the best, which is why so many people go. The college of fitness is different to say going to SIT (which is free!), NZIS, and CPIT. Those schools are tertiary institutions governed by NZQA. NZCF is a business.You come away with a "certificate" that gets you minimum entry to REPS. Many graduates are now going to NZIHF in order to gain a real NZ qualification. NZCF goal is to make money (that's probably why they charge over $5000 for an 8 week course). Someone told me that the owner said that most of the people who go the college are just 'bums in seats' bringing in revenue, while only a few will actually be successful in the industry. The salespeople will also tell you that seats are filling up fast etc. There is no rush, there is a new course every 8 weeks.

Other PT's have told me, many graduates end up going to them to learn how to do squats, deadlifts, and other exercises as they only learn how to do bench press, leg press, and lat pull down.

They teach, and only teach a consolidated high intensity training workout. According to them anything other than say 1 set of bench press, 1 set of lat pull down, and 1 set of leg press is crap. Hmmm, anyone out there get good results from something other than a workout like this?

They do teach how to give good customer service, and some very good business skills as well. As someone else said, being a successful PT has less to do with what you know and more to do with how you interact with people and market yourself.

NZCF is just a really expensive stepping stone into the industry to me. If you decide to do it keep an open mind, and keep learning from other sources. You will find once you do continuing education, most of what you learn will be the opposite to what you learn at the college of fitness.

Correspondance wise, open polytech has a diploma in fitness, run by the new zealand institute of health and fitness.

Just a reality check: richard beddie (owner of olympus, and one the high up dudes in REPS) gave us a talk at the college telling us the average life of a PT is about 370 days. 70% of people quit in the first year. One trainer I know who worked at Les mills told me he barely broke even in his first year. gym instructors are paid just over minimum wage. look in the paper or a job site and check how many jobs are available.

you have got to really want to be a PT. ask yourself why you are wanting to do it, how you will do it, where you want to work, what will i be selling as a PT etc.

Exellent points have been made here! I have been a PT for 17 (private contractor)years and I feel sorry for most of the people that attend courses like the ones put on by the new zealand college of fitness. These courses are a complete rip off as they are not preparing people for the real world. The number of people who have completed these courses and then had to pay to come and see me is incredible! It is a complete failure of the educational industry, and I dont know why people havent taken the administrators of these facilities to task.If you go to these "colleges" and ask them how many of thier students go on to become succesfull PTS they will fall strangely silent.

I have students of these courses coming to see to learn how to do squats!! And other basic movements! Far to much time is spent in the course on the buisness side of PT and not enough time spent on pratical work in the gym.

We have students coming in the gym to interview our manager to see what sort of managerial style she has, dictorial,diplomatic etc, then they have to go away and write an essay on it! What the hell does that have to have with being a pT!

An incredably small percentage of the students who come out of these courses go on to become succesful PTs. These poor students then feel like failures, but their failure is not thier faut, it is the fault of the colleges that that promised them the earth then took thier money.

At the end of the day it is up to the manager of a particular gym as to wether they will higher you or not. And most of the time they dont care where you have recieved your qualifications, as long as you have something they are quite happy. Especially if you are going to work as a private contractor and pay them rent, then they will bend over backwards to take you on board. Less mills of course will make you do thier 2000$ course first even if you have a PHD is sport science, as this is where they make thier money.

Your best bet would be to get your qualifications from a government run institution AUT etc. From my experience these will give you the best value for money, and the best educational experience.

As for holding a qualification that is REPS recognised, as I stated earlier it is up to the individual manager as to wether they think your quals are sufficient or not. I myself refuse to be REPS registered. As do half of the pTS at all the club physical branches. REPS is merely a dictatorship that trys to scare everyone into joining thier organisation, paying them an exhorbatant amount of money for nothing in return.

Yeah I agree - the nzc of fitness was shit and thought so the whole time i was sittting it , half the people that worked there would 'move on' to other things constantly , i could crap on for hours about the place but you get the idea - $4000 down the toilet and is a very obvious money grab - seems to be many courses like that these days in all industries

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hmmm ..

I started my qualification with network (now netfit) many years ago. And like some was fortunate enough to secure a position as a trainer before I even had a base qual as a fitness instructor. There is always going to be pros and cons to how one should go about establishing themselves in the industry - but essentially in my opinion - as long as you get the basics right from your studies, the rest you will develop in time.

In the early years - I remember when the first batch of AUT fitness instructors came out of college .... I was regularly reminded of how superior they were to me academically based on this new 12 months course attaining NZQA etc etc - truth be known --- you can teach anyone the basics but if they don't have personality, drive, self confidence and any sales/marketing experience they won't make it past their first year as a contractor. And why would you want to study for over 12 months only to start on minimum wage as a gym gromit.

My advice is get your physiology sorted - do a quick course(s) to qualify as a PT (short courses) - get a job as a gromit straight away - then Study nutrition and marketing as your key focuses 12 months +.

As soon as you develop a big enough network of contacts as a grommit - go contract ....

Doesn't matter who you are - most clients in a training evironment are not confident enough to organise and understand what they eat, very easy money. I used to (still do) get referrals from PTs that don't know anything about nutrition.

- and if you can't sell yourself ... no matter how good your knowledge of training is, our your background in sport/competition ... you will fail before you begin.

Very few PTs make it in there first to 3rd years.

$70+ per hour is achievable but you need to know how to market yourself.

I have witnessed trainers with degrees burn clients and fail to get more than 2 - 3 sessions per week at $40 per hour ---- wrong person / wrong industry.

That guy at college of fitness needs a head check >

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hmmm ..

I started my qualification with network (now netfit) many years ago. And like some was fortunate enough to secure a position as a trainer before I even had a base qual as a fitness instructor. There is always going to be pros and cons to how one should go about establishing themselves in the industry - but essentially in my opinion - as long as you get the basics right from your studies, the rest you will develop in time.

In the early years - I remember when the first batch of AUT fitness instructors came out of college .... I was regularly reminded of how superior they were to me academically based on this new 12 months course attaining NZQA etc etc - truth be known --- you can teach anyone the basics but if they don't have personality, drive, self confidence and any sales/marketing experience they won't make it past their first year as a contractor. And why would you want to study for over 12 months only to start on minimum wage as a gym gromit.

My advice is get your physiology sorted - do a quick course(s) to qualify as a PT (short courses) - get a job as a gromit straight away - then Study nutrition and marketing as your key focuses 12 months +.

As soon as you develop a big enough network of contacts as a grommit - go contract ....

Doesn't matter who you are - most clients in a training evironment are not confident enough to organise and understand what they eat, very easy money. I used to (still do) get referrals from PTs that don't know anything about nutrition.

- and if you can't sell yourself ... no matter how good your knowledge of training is, our your background in sport/competition ... you will fail before you begin.

Very few PTs make it in there first to 3rd years.

$70+ per hour is achievable but you need to know how to market yourself.

I have witnessed trainers with degrees burn clients and fail to get more than 2 - 3 sessions per week at $40 per hour ---- wrong person / wrong industry.

That guy at college of fitness needs a head check >

:nod: :nod: :nod: :nod:

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I did the NZCoF course too, but i expected to get nothing out of it. Saw it as the quickest way to get reps registered and start my own business. I already had all the knowledge I needed from 19 years of training, but wanted official recognition. The course is a rip if you go into it knowing nothing and expect to be a personal trainer. I dont even know why most of my class were there. They were mostly young and not even really interested or educated about the gym life. Go figure, easy money for the NZCoF admin. I did take some useful stuff out of the course, (anatomy and some training ideas that I hadnt tried before (outdoor etc)) but over all, Its a chump course that fulfills the REPs requirements and gets you registered. Thats all it is. As for REPS... they have to be one of the most incompetent organisations i have ever had dealings with. It is amatuerish at best and they need some one in there to run the ship with some sort of balls and business acumen. I only stay with them because the yearly subs include a good insurance package

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As for REPS... they have to be one of the most incompetent organisations i have ever had dealings with. It is amatuerish at best and they need some one in there to run the ship with some sort of balls and business acumen. I only stay with them because the yearly subs include a good insurance package

Well said mate - REPs is a crock of S#%T. It's a cash cow basically -- money for nothing. How many physios/dentist/Drs do you know have to re'qualify or attend a minimum number of course every year to keep their qualification valid?

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I went the same way as Optimass, I went through Net Fit and loved that you could do the education as block courses.

I merely took off my holidays and went to the Block Course. Studied my ass off and enjoyed the process. Net Fit gives you back what you put into it, if you are lazy and are approaching a career in fitness for the wrong reasons, then you may struggle. (we had some guys go out on the piss 1/2 way through it and miss a lecture or two who were told they would have to resit that part of the course at the next block course. They werent very impressed, but they missed the simplist requirement: Attendence to all lectures is a compulsory requirement and I can almost garuntee that those guys arent in the industry now as they just simply were approaching the learning for the wrong reasons, they werent professionally minded).

If you are motivated, like I was, you will lap it up with open arms, however Net Fit wont spoon feed you, they provide the information and convey it well and then it's up to you to get off your arse, sell and promote yourself to a gym who thinks you can be a success for them and get some job experience in the trenches.

What I like was that you HAD to do a certain amount of floor hours at a faciltiy and have them signed off by the manager before you could sit each stage(fitness instructor theory/practical/pt) and had some pretty heafty assignments to complete before you could sit these also.

Personally I did mine over a year and loved it.

Seeing 5-8 clients per day, 6 days per week and learning how to educate and prescribe correct, safe exercise and lifestyle prescriptions to each of them forces you to improve and learn. Every single client is different and presents a different study.

I have heard there are some courses out there that can certify you in as little as 6 weeks(to a PT standard)by merely doing role plays with your tutor presenting as a client with certain health issues etc. I do not agree with this. IMO their is no better training than learning the theory and then getting your hands dirty with real clients, it forces you to draw on your knowledge then think on your feet and be creative, it alos forces you to interact with would be customers and sell the idea that using your service would be of benefit to the client.

Where I train you can see the guys that do well and the guys who wont make it.

If a gym is gracious enough to give you a chance working as a fitness instructor/floor walker, GRAB IT WITH BOTH ARMS! This is a prime opportunity to work on building rapport with future would be clients. It amazes me, even with the reputation of some of these gyms that guys still stand around in the SENTRY POSITION, not talking or engaging with any of the customers. Is it any wonder that most of the really busy PT's project an outgoing, and confident persona. Yopu can guarentee they didnt cut there teeth "WATCHING" the Floor, they enged customers in conversation, offered a spot or advice to build relationships and show there knowledge to future clients.

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