Introductory Paragraph
The topic I’m going to be looking at is fitness training. Fitness training is the general field of fitness instruction. The term ‘fitness’ is pretty broad in the sense that there are many types of fitness that can be instructed. The aspect I’d like to focus on is weightlifting and general strength. A typical job could be a 1 on 1 training session where I’d work with the client and help educate them on their form and help motivate them. I would have to provide a structured workout for each client based on their goals and do my best to help them achieve their goals. I’d like to figure out some of the following questions to get a better idea of what fitness trainers do. What kind of money do they make? What will an average day look like? What kind of environment would I be working in? Is it something that I would enjoy? What kinds of people would I be working with? How often would I have to travel? What kind of hours will I be working? What kind of opportunities lie ahead for career growth and advancement? How stable is the job industry for personal training? Will this job help me along my career path? What kind of benefits do personal trainers get? These are all questions I will be considering and finding answers for. A lot of the answers to the questions can vary based on which company I work for which is why I’m looking for overall answers.
Trade Publication
The trade publication I found is called “Personal Trainer Salary Research Shows the Highest Paying Gyms” and was put together by Daniel Lofaso who runs an organization that mentors upcoming fitness trainers. In the publication Lofaso takes a look at a bunch of different gyms and what kind of money they pay their personal trainers. Lofaso explains that “Fitness Mentors is a fitness education site that helps aspiring personal trainers research the most ideal personal training certification and study for it”. The thing to keep in mind with this field just like many others is that there are many different types of certifications available and some may suit you more than others based on what you want to do. “..we contacted some of the biggest gyms in the country—as well as surveyed former students from their network—to develop our numbers”. This company got their data from both students that they’ve had in the past and directly from some of the biggest gyms around. Many of the gyms Lofaso touches on are gyms that I have looked at so this is all very relevant information. The general trend in the article seems to be throughout the article is that your typical gym will pay minimum wage during non-training hours, then pay you more during training sessions and commission on top of that. Some gyms are more generous than others. There is a pretty wide range of how much you can make. “Planet Fitness is unique in its approach to trainers. It only pays minimum wage to full-time trainers without bonuses or commissions” (Lofaso). Planet Fitness is a huge exception to this and was the only gym that strictly paid minimum wage. However, on the opposite end of the spectrum you can make as much as $74.50 per session capping your earnings at $158,400 per year (Lofaso).
Website
The source I found is from “Thebalancecareers.com” and it is an article written by Dawn Rosenberg Mckay. This is what Mckay said when he described a career in fitness training: “A fitness trainer leads people in exercise and related activities. He or she works with individuals or groups, providing both instruction and motivation. A fitness trainer may specialize in aerobics, weight lifting, yoga or another activity” (Mckay). Basically, fitness trainers work with other people and help instruct and motivate them to engage in exercise related activites (Mckay). This is the meat and potatoes of what fitness trainers do, and although there are many other branches of fitness, most of them have the same central things in common regardless of the activity. Mckay reports that they earned a median salary of $34,980 which equates to $16.82 hourly. He also reports that there were 267,000 other individuals working in the field as of 2012. It’s important to note that some of this data has changed, and as of 2020 the field has grown even bigger since. One of the most important questions I had about the field is related to the job duties and whether or not I’d enjoy working in the field. Above the pay is whether or not I’d like working or not and we can estimate this by looking at what they are responsible for. Some of the responsibilities Mckay listed are: motivate clients, customize training programs, provide nutritional advice, demonstrate proper use of equipments and technique, and sell information about products and programs that are available. All of these things are things that I am super passionate about and extremely interested in. I love making workout routines. I love motivating others. I love working on technique and learning/teaching different types of exercises. I love nutrition. Most of the things that I would be responsible for as a personal trainer are all things that I am passionate about. Whether I’m good at these things or not is an entirely different question but there’s always room to grow and improve in that aspect.
Academic Journal
The academic journal I’ve found for my profession is called “Is What You See What You Get? Perceptions of Personal Trainers’ Competence, Knowledge, and Preferred Sex of Personal Trainer Relative to Physique” written by a host of different professors.” The main thesis of this journal is that clients of personal trainers largely mold their opinions based on their physical appearance. “Similarly, Melton et al. (18) also found that PTs believe physique plays a critical role in how clients perceive them” (Kendrick 2). This is a statement the writer makes based on previous evidence that was provided. This answers a question that I did not originally include but is important regardless.
What kind of experience/credentials are required to become a personal trainer? “Melton et al. (18) identified personal training knowledge as an important aspect of a successful PT through their construct of “credentials,” which includes a college education and proper certification” (Kendrick 1). To get hired as a personal trainer, most gyms will not directly require a college degree but having one related to the field will certainly set you apart and may enable you to earn more in the long run or move up in the field faster than someone that lacks a degree. There are also several different certifications that can be earned, but there is more than just education/certifications. Your personal fitness level/physique level is of huge importance. You must be able to walk the walk before you can talk the talk, especially in the field of personal training.
Infographic
Earlier I looked into how much personal trainers usually make but the findings were not too helpful. It showed how much many big-box gyms pay but it didn’t give a very satisfying answer. To the right is an infographic that gives a more wholesome picture of what the personal training scene actually looks like and what they make on average:
As you can see, males are more prominent in the field. A large percent of them are also self employed and this is significant as this majorly affects income and where your client comes from. If you work for a gym, you will be helping all the clients of the gym. If you’re independent, you can get contracted by gyms meaning they will direct their customers to you. You can also source your own clients by word of mouth, social media and everything else but this takes much more effort. For independent personal trainers, social media is huge. As the picture states, the average salary is $55,158. This isn’t the profession to go in if you’re looking for riches but depending on where you live it’ll pay the bills. This is all I’m looking for, so that’s great. It also looks like most of the people in the field have very little experience, so it shouldn’t be too hard to enter into the field and this can be great in the sense that with more experience down the road you will be set apart from the rest.
Works Cited
Lofaso, Daniel, and Fitness M. CMO for. “Personal Trainer Salary Research shows the Highest Paying Gyms.” Club Industry, 2019. ProQuest, https://search-proquest-com.proxy.libraries.uc.edu/docview/2231318620?accountid=2909.
McKay, Dawn Rosenberg. “What Is It Like to Be a Fitness Trainer?” The Balance Careers, The Balance Careers, 7 Dec. 2018, http://www.thebalancecareers.com/what-is-it-like-to-be-a-fitness-trainer-526019.
Melton et al. (18) identified personal training knowledge as an important aspect of a successful PT through their construct of “credentials,” which includes a college education and proper certification
Trace's English Writing Portfolio 
Name: _Paris Lee__-___Peer review ____Trace cummings_________________________ Date: 02/28/20___________________________________________
Introduction:
1. Does the author provide an interesting fact, analogy, quote, or other way to pull the reader into his/her essay? (Hook) If not, how can he/she fix this?
I think he does an overall great job of pulling in the reader by stating what his career is and just some short facts. Not too much, not too little.
2. Does the author provide a broad overview of their field? If not, how can he/she fix this?
Yes, he states what the job description is and what he would like to within this job.
3. Does the author explain what drew him/her to this field? If not, how can he/she fix this?
The introduction doesn’t give an idea about what made him want to do this field of work. One thing to. Fix this is to add what’s making him want to do this line of work? How did he stumble upon trying to study and work in this field? Does he know someone who works as a fitness trainer and this makes him want to study abroad? Things like this would be good to put in your intro to explain how and why this field drew you in. to study more about it.
4. Does the author end the introduction with a list of questions that he/she hopes to answer by the end of the essay? If not, how can he/she fix this?
Yes, the intro ends with some great detailed questions of what he wants to know.
Body:
5. Does the author split this section up by source or by content? How can you tell? Are there any times when the author breaks this organization? If not, how can he/she fix this?
The Author splits the sections up by source. I can tell because at the beginning of the body paragraphs it has a heading that shows what source the author used for that specific paragraph.
6. What are the author’s major sections – what topics does he/she cover? (Be specific).
The major sections the author covers are the questions they had in their introduction that they wanted to know. More specifically they answer the questions about Pay, what an average will be like for them in that field, The different environments you may work in, and other sorts of questions.
7. Does the author explain positive things about the career that he/she is going into? If not, how can he/she fix this?
Yes, nothing but good things about the job!
8. Does the author explain negative things about the career that he/she is going into?
It doesn’t really explain negative things about the job and doesn’t need to.
Conclusion:
9. Does the author provide advice to his/her reader? If not, how can he/she fix this?
The author doesn’t have a conclusion, so I can’t peer review what the author hasn’t done.
10. Does the author provide any extra information about his/her career? If not, how can he/she fix this?
11. Does the author explain any challenges they had when trying to find any information about his/her topic? If not, how can he/she fix this?
12. Does the author provide a closing thought to leave his/her readers with? If not, how can he/she fix this?
Content:
13. Are there any questions from the Thesis that the author does not address by the end of the essay? If so, which ones? If not, how can he/she fix this?
I didn’t see anything about the question “How often would I travel?” Maybe it’s in your paragraphs and I just didn’t see it but if it isn’t put that in there. If it makes it clear to the audience whose reading.
14. Does the author use a picture? If so, is the picture no more than 1/6 of the page? Also, does the author use no more than three pictures throughout the essay?
In the “infographic “body paragraph the authors use a picture the picture just doesn’t show up on the word press. I can’t really tell.
15. Are there any sentences that are confusing or hard to read? If so, how can he/she fix this?
In each paragraph, I can clearly read and understand what the author is saying.
16. Does the author provide a topic sentence for each paragraph in the body? If not, how can he/she fix this?
Yes
17. Does the author provide a transition between each main point? If not, how can he/she fix this?
Yes
18. Does the author use Times New Roman, 12 point font, with 1-inch margins and double-spacing? If not, how can he/she fix this?
Yes, but you can’t tell because word press changes the look of your essay when you copy it into word press.
19. Does the author provide a title? If not, how can he/she fix this?
No. If there is a title make it clear.
20. Has the author included his/her name and page number on every page after page 1? If not, how can he/she fix this?
Yes, but like I said word press changes the way the essay look when it is put into word press.
21. Does the author have a work cited page with at least 5 sources listed? If not, how can he/she fix this?
Yes, the author has a work cited page but doesn’t have at least 5 sources. Add 2 more sources.
22. Are the works cited page in alphabetical order with a hanging indent? If not, how can he/she fix this?
Yes
23. Are there any other issues that the author needs to be aware of? If so, what are they?
There are no other issues besides the ones I stated above. Make those changes and your essay s
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