Marlborough and online Personal Training Courses

[mettadown]

Hi everyone,

First post so I hope it's in the right spot.

My fiance recently got offered a job in Blenheim starting February next year and I'm going to change my career to a personal trainer, as an intermediate step to becoming a strength and conditioning coach.

Considering there are no personal training courses in Blenheim or Picton, is there any merit in doing an online course such as fitlink, open polytech etc? If so does anybody have any experiences with a particular couse, good or bad?

 

I know there is a great course in NMIT (based in Nelson) that runs AUT's Bachelor's degree in Sport and Rec, but to get into that you need the diploma, which you need the certificate for, all up 3 years. While the course is airtight I don't have 3 years of travelling the hour and a half there and back in me.

[Dinahlady]

Though I dont have direct experience with NZ PT courses IMO most direct personal trainer courses are a bit of a waste of time and are just to get you safe (i.e not gonna kill anyone) and are mainly a formallity. 

You shouldnt need any previous requirements to take a degree in sport and exercise science, or PE (and im sure there are plenty of other options that might fit you better too) (saying that - you might need some high school quals - but if you're older you can usually get around that) and you can do degrees like that via correspondence from otago or auckland (or cantebury maybe - or other unis). 

And imo the money it costs for a degree compared to the amount of knowledge you'll find that other trainers around you and who are doing better than you might leave you feeling dispondent. 

If you want to be a strength and conditioning coach the best courses are run out of the US and you can do them by correspondence but they are hard to pass and can be expensive - but contain good knowlegde. 

If you can get a basic cert to be a PT then commmit to doing your own nutrition and training research. work as a PT while doing a degree by correspondence - and/or those strength and conditioning certs.... 

IMO if you want to be the best strength coach you can be and you want to get the most out of a degree and the most knowlegde I'd consider taking doing as much pure science as you can rather than just taking papers geared just towards PE or just the PE papers e.g chemistry/maths/physics/biology/wider health papers/psych... you could still major in PE or sport/ex etc but definitely don't forget the pure sciences. 

 

[mettadown]

Thanks for taking the time to respond,

Its funny you should say that, I actually already have a Physics Degree with quite a bit of maths in it.

[Dinahlady]

Well having a degree definitely means you can get graduate entry into bsc programs so doesnt seem like any need to do heaps of certificates first. 

You'd have to check out what kinda distance learning is offered at the different uni's though!