Fitness Training, Exercise, and Sports Degrees

What is a Fitness Training, Exercise, and Sports Degree?

Are you an athlete? Do you feel incomplete unless you've ran your 15 miles for the week? Are your hands callused from lifting weights? You would make a great fitness worker. Apply to study fitness and learn how.

People who work in fitness serve a critical role. They teach and motivate others to achieve their fitness goals. For that reason, they must be good role models and be effective leaders. They typically fill one of three roles:
 

• Personal trainers—Work with one client at a time. Besides instructing and encouraging work outs in the gym, they might record work out sessions, monitor progress, or give advice on diet and lifestyle.
• Exercise instructors—Lead group exercise sessions. Generally, the sessions are stretching, yoga, pilates, aerobic exercise, spinning, or muscle conditioning. They lead the group by example, coaching proper form when necessary. They are responsible for the safety and benefit gained by their students.
• Fitness directors—Operate the administrative aspects of a gym, health club, or fitness center; including but not limited to: hiring new staff, scheduling exercise programs, acquiring new-members, or anything else their customers may need.

How can I get a Fitness Training, Exercise, and Sports Degree?

To find a job position in a related field, most employers will require you to have a degree in Applied Science and to be certified in Health or Physical Fitness Specialist.  An associates degree is the minimal requirement in which students learn about physical fitness, the human body, the body's response to fitness, and its lasting effects on the human body.  Coursework related to fitness degrees include:

• Anatomy
• Physiology
• Nutrition
• Foundations in kinesiology
• Resistance and endurance training

Students who continue their fitness learning to earn a bachelors degree gain a more in-depth knowledge base pertaining to the human physiology, human pyschology during fitness training, and students develop their leadership skills and knowledge of sports.  Additional coursework for a fitness degree in a bachelors program includes:

• Fitness and health management
• Physical fitness for disabled students
• Biomechanics
• Recreational leadership
• Fitness lessons for students of all ages 

Similiar to most job fields, candidates with more education and experience will be highly considered. Employers in the fitness field will not train employees on the job.  For some positions, candidates aren't required to have a certification, but employers look for it and tend to hire a certified fitness worker over one who is non-certified. There is plenty of room for more advanced education and fitness that workers can spend a lifetime learning and become certified in new activities without exhausting their options.

The prospects for the future of fitness workers are good. The Bureau of Labor Services expects a 29% increase in employment by 2018. Fitness workers tend to make $31,000 a year or up to $63,000 a year and above, depending on certification, employment, and clientele.

You've been working hard to stay fit, turn that passion into a career. Apply now.