Personal Trainer Certification Vs Degree

With ever rising awareness for health, fitness, sports, and nutrition there is an increased demand for qualified health, fitness, and sports coaches. Starting a career in any of these fields is rewarding. Before starting a career in any of these fields, a major question pops up“what is better?”, a degree or a certification? Should I go for a 3 to 4 years degree course or pick up a 2–3-month personal training certification for being a fitness trainer?

Both options have their own characteristics and depending upon one’s situation one can choose either of these. 

A degree in the field of exercise science or nutrition or physiotherapy takes 3-4 years or even 5 years (in some cases) to complete. This is anextremely long time and requires more money specially for people who want to start earning immediately and cannot commit their 3-4 years to a degree. In such a case going for a certification is much better option as it generallytakes 2-4 months and one can start working immediately after completing that. Many individuals want to enter the fitness industry and work as a personal trainer, strength and conditioning coach, nutritionist, or a yoga coach but they do not have 3-4 years for this.

A degree provides you with a much greater scope of practice, for example being a dietitian helps you deal with people with special conditions.On the other hand, if you choose a certification, you have certain limitations in terms of what kind of individuals you can work with. To work with special population, you would need to pursue continued learning in this specific area. For some people learning when they are earning works best but for other continued learning is not an encouraging phenomenon.

A degree in sports science will demand a lot of your resources like time, money, and effort.On the other hand, a personal trainer certification or a S&C course provides you with sufficient skills in a short span of time you need to start working as a coach. In fact, with a certification, you will mostly be focusing on the elements that are most important and needed for your job. At the same time certifications in the field of health, fitness and sports do not provide you opportunity for internship and apprenticeship programs which are often aligned with degree courses to boot the confidence for real life work.

Talking about the curriculum and on job trainings, a good personal training course with teach you about human anatomy, physiology, biomechanics, principles of nutrition, client psychology and motivation, special population, injury prevention, etc. A degree program is focused on one subject like biomechanics, physiotherapy, nutrition, kinesiology etc. Degree program will get you lot of exposure of different studies in the related field and it will also challenge you with assessment after every semester.

For general health and fitness, clients are happy if you have either of certification or a degree. In some countries having a certification in fitness field after completing a master degree is greatly appreciated.Degree will be the best option if you are looking for a bigger role with national and international teams and players. Remember that, such opportunities are less and there are more applicants when applying for such positions.

Choosing between a degree or certification depends upon you as an individual.What resources do you have? How do you want to work in future? Such questions will help you decide what is better for you. Adding a good certification after doing a degree is always a best bet. Starting with a certification program when you are low on budget and want to financially support yourself and family is another important consideration.