Play Video

Fitness Instructor

Getting people off the couch and into shape

Staying in shape through the pandemic
People are paying increasingly more attention to their health, and fitness instructors can help them take better care of themselves, whether working with an individual or a small group. Training may take place in a gym, a park setting, or even a client’s home. Working as a trainer allows people to be their own boss without incurring a ton of overhead costs.

With the holidays upon us, some are looking to 2021. What lies ahead? For many people, it’s the vow to take better care of themselves. According to IBISWorld—an industry research company—gym, health, and fitness clubs are a $33 billion industry in the U.S. Analysts say that’s a decline in revenue due to facility closures as a result of the pandemic. But it doesn’t mean people have stopped working out.

A Fitness Instructor Can Get You Off the Couch

Who is helping the clientele get in shape? Personal fitness instructors work with an individual client or a small group. Group fitness instructors run larger group exercise classes. Training may take place in a gym, a park setting, or a client’s home.

Online Workouts Can Have a Further Reach

Steve Zim is a fitness instructor and the owner of A Tighter U in Culver City, California. Zim has worked as a trainer for more than 30 years. He was used to creating individualized workouts and seeing up to 15 clients each day.

When the pandemic started, Zim took his training online. He says, “In this whole new era, we find the internet to be a really great tool to use to reach our clients.” Zim notes he has added some clients worldwide, including in Europe and Africa.

Certification Safeguards the Client

Zim—who is certified by the American Council on Exercise—says it’s important to know how to train people. Without proper certification, clients are put at risk. “I highly suggest that somebody get certified to protect their clients from getting hurt.

Some fitness instructors have an associate’s or bachelor’s degree, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Those may be degrees in exercise science, kinesiology, or physical education.

Working as fitness trainer allows people to be their own bosses and doesn’t necessarily require incurring a lot of costs, according to Zim. “I can take charge of something myself. I can create my own business by myself. There’s no major overhead to becoming a trainer. I mean, really, you just need to learn what to do. And you can call yourself a trainer. You can take people to a park and train them in a park.”

Zim says he likes to switch up his clients’ routines to keep them from getting bored. He says, “My concept is to never do the same workout twice. I always want to push the client. If you’re doing the same thing over and over again, clients will get bored and leave you. I believe in always making it interesting, changing it up.”

Zim’s workouts isolate specific muscles. He says, “So using weights, using cardio—I created a whole program that’s very unique. I use much lighter weight than people are used to using in gyms.”

Zim says that increasingly, people are paying more attention to their health. “Everybody works out. Your parents work out, you work out. People understand nutrition better.”

The role of the fitness trainer is to help clients see the results of all their hard work. Zim says the work has rewards for him, as well. “The reason why I love being a trainer is I love to see people succeed. I like to see people happy in their own skin. When somebody is happy in their own skin, they feel great about themselves. That’s really what this world is about.”

According to the BLS, the median earnings in 2019 for fitness trainers and instructors was $40,390 per year. Employment of fitness trainers and instructors has been projected to grow 13 percent from 2018 to 2028. Among the reasons for this growth, is an increase in employers’ focus on health benefits for their workers. Additionally, baby-boomers should continue to be active to help prevent injuries and illnesses associated with aging.

I Want That Job! is our signature digital series that shines the spotlight on the most innovative initiatives helping to train and re-skill Americans for the most in-demand jobs now and in the future.

I Want That Job

Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.