Live Life Team
In order to be a fitness instructor you will have to be physically fit and enjoy working with people. You need to be confident in being the centre of attention, as when you teach you will be watched by an individual or a group of people. You will often need to work unsociable hours, as many classes are in the evenings so people who work full time can still make them.
In terms of education, there are fitness instructor NVQ courses, so you do not need to worry too much if you struggle with academic subjects. However, it will help if your Physical Education GCSE is good, as you really need to demonstrate that you really enjoy exercise to stand a good chance of being chosen for the course.
It may be worth getting in touch with a local gym and seeing if you can work there at weekends so that you see what actually goes on. In some establishments for example they may rotate their fitness instructors through the lifeguard duties if they have a pool, so you may also need to be good at swimming. This applies more to fitness instructors who are employed by the leisure centre itself; they need to be more generally qualified and take part in all areas. However, there are some fitness instructors who are self employed and rent the room from the leisure centre to teach one type of class, for example Yoga.
