Essential Equipment for Your Personal Training Business
With so many equipment options available today, deciding which equipment you need can be overwhelming. To make things easier, we’ve compiled a list of the most important pieces of equipment every certified personal trainer should have in their fitness arsenal.
Dumbbells
Dumbbells have forever been the workhorses of the fitness world, and over the years they have remained a fitness mainstay. Compared with other pieces of equipment (which can be a big investment), dumbbells are fairly inexpensive, allowing your studio to offer a large variety of weights and styles for your clients.
You will find that dumbbells are also a great way for your clients to track their growth and progress. You and your clients can use dumbells to comparing their starting dumbbell weight with their current weight and see the increase in strength.
Pull-Up Bar
Pull-ups can be one of the most convenient (and challenging!) exercises that you can have your clients practice and do. Doing pull-ups on a regular basis works out several muscle groups at once including biceps, triceps, forearms, wrists, grip strength, lats, shoulders, and core strength.
A pull-up bar is considered by many professionals as a tool to measure a clients true fitness. The pull-up bar also takes up very little space, which benefits a smaller studio or gym. With a pull-up bar, you’re able to master two of the most important patterns: pulling and rowing.
A pull-up bar makes a great anchor point for suspension systems and resistance bands.
Kettlebells
Training with kettlebells can improve your clients’ overall strength, core power, balance, flexibility, and coordination. Effective kettlebell workouts can also help melt fat and sculpt healthy and lean muscles.
The weight of a kettlebell is not distributed evenly like it is with a dumbbell. This means your clients will need to counterbalance and stabilize their bodies during a kettlebell exercise. This makes kettlebells highly effective for building core strength and improving balance, and coordination.
Training with kettlebells is a good challenge and will lead to killer results for your clients when applied with appropriate supervision. One kettlebell can cater to every aspect of fitness — they can truly do it all!
Resistance Bands and Tubing
Resistance bands are used for working out and building muscle strength and size. Resistance tubing and bands are lightweight and easy to transport which makes them great for a trainer who works in many different locations.
Because of their functionality, trainers and studio owners can include resistance tubing in their arsenal of personal training equipment as well as group exercise classes. Designed to mimic free weights and gym machinces, resistance bands can be bought in multiple resistance levels including light, medium or heavy.
Resistance bands work great on their own and they can also be combined with other exercise equipment. For example, performing bicep curls with a resistance band as well as a dumbbell will give your client the combined benefits of each type of equipment.
Battle Ropes
Long used as a training tool for football players, MMA, and other athletes, battle ropes are an incredibly effective way to get a high-intensity, whole-body workout that gets your client’s muscles moving in new and challenging ways.
While they might look intimidating, the battle ropes are a simple training tool that each of your clients can use and enjoy. With battle ropes, you can help your clients train the muscles in their upper back, arms, abs, back, and glutes. You can even incorporate jumps, lunges, and squats to challenge clients and work their lower body.
Not all battle ropes are the same. Battle ropes come in a variety of lengths and thicknesses. A longer and thicker the rope is a heavier rope. They are made up of various materials, such as manila, nylon, and polyester.
As a coach or trainer, you will find that the Battling Ropes is very safe, it produces great results, and it has an easy learning curve.
Conditioning Equipment
Cones, ladders, and hurdles — these tools might bring sports conditioning to mind, but more and more personal trainers are using them to improve their clients’ general agility, stability, power, and athleticism. Whether you are just starting your personal training business or studio, or are a veteran in the industry, incorporating sports conditioning drills can really benefit your clients and set you apart from the competition.
This unique program will teach you how to create comprehensive SAQ training programs with little or no equipment, as well as using more advanced training tools.
Squat Rack
A squat rack is weight training equipment designed to allow for a free-weight workout using a barbell with no movement restrictions. The horizontal brackets on the side can be set to a specific height so that if the weight drops, it will not come crashing down.
Squats are a great exercise for anyone looking to improve their fitness and strength. They are the best exercise because they work more muscles than any other individual exercises. Squats will engage your clients’ legs and glutes to lift the weight as well as their lower back to stabilize their body throughout the motion.
Starting Your Personal Training Career
Did you know that most fitness careers don’t require formal education or a degree? Learn more about the variety of fitness industry careers.
There is always something exciting about earning a new training or coaching certification and applying that new knowledge of how you train your clients. This also helps you hit the reset button.
NESTA and Spencer Institute coaching programs are open to anyone with a desire to learn and help others. There are no prerequisites.
That’s it for now.
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