Health and Fitness: Careers and Certifications

Certified personal trainer: A certified personal trainer is an accredited expert in fitness training and exercise. They use their knowledge and experience to help their clients achieve their health and fitness goals. They assess their client’s current physical conditioning and develop exercise and nutrition plans according to specific goals

    Minimum Qualifications:

  • CPR/ AED Certification

  • Accredited Certification

    Preferred Qualifications

  • BS in kinesiology-related field

  • internship or other experience

  • business/ sales experience

    Optional Certifications

  • NASM Certified Personal Trainer

  • NASM Personal Trainer Certificate

  • ACE Personal Trainer Certification

Health and wellness coach: Health coaches conduct initial evaluations of an individual’s health and make recommendations that encourage the adoption of health-based behaviors and choices. Design and implement personalized health plans for clients. Conduct follow-up meetings with clients to ensure they remain on track and meet their goals.

    Minimum Qualifications:

  • CPR/AED Certification

  • High school diploma or GED

    Preferred Qualifications:

  • BS in Kinesiology-related field

  • CPT, Nutrition coaching certification

    Certification Options:

  • NASM Wellness Coach Certification

Physical Education Teacher: PE teacher works in a school setting to educate students about the importance of physical fitness and health-based lifestyle choices. Their curriculum can include team sports exercise activities and competitions. They coach sports teams at the school and develop individual exercise lessons as needed.

    Minimum qualifications:

  • Bachelor’s degree in related field

    Preferred Qualifications:

  • Experience in coaching/ education

  • OCTP Certification

    Certification Options

  • Oklahoma Educators Certified Physical Education/ Health/ Safety Exam

Fitness manager: A fitness manager handles the day- to-day operations and maintenance of a fitness facility such as a private gym, hotel or resort gym or corporate fitness center. Fitness managers hire and train staff and oversee teams of personal trainers.

    Minimum qualifications:

  • health and fitness professional experience

    Preferred Qualifications:

  • another health/fitness certification

  • already working in a fitness facility

    Certification Options:

  • Fitness business management certificate offered as CE/CEU from ACE

Group fitness instructor: A group fitness instructor usually works in a gym to instruct groups of people. They develop fitness programs for classes such as Zumba, yoga, and strength training and motivate individuals in the class. Group fitness instructors could also teach different difficulty levels of each class and adjust the programs accordingly

    Minimum qualifications:

  • health and fitness professional experience

    Preferred Qualifications:

  • high school dimploma/ GED or higher

  • accredited certification

    Certification Options:

  • NASM group fitness instructor certification

  • Zumba

  • Yoga

Fitness apparel designer: A fitness apparel designer has a wide range of daily responsibilities, such as planning and attending meetings with cross-functional teams, spying market trends, researching, sketching new designs and working out to gain first-hand experience on innovative technological trends for manufacturing fitness clothes.

    Minimum qualifications:

  • BA in related field that combines technical and design skills

    Preferred Qualifications:

  • specific fashion design courses

  • design internship(s)