Careers in Personal Training with Nicole Juhl

In this episode, Pierre Michiels interviews Nicole Juhl. Nicole is an Associate Professor in Physical Education who oversees the Certified Personal Trainer program at College of DuPage. They discuss career paths in personal training, essential skills like communication and professionalism, and ways students can gain experience and build networks. After listening, we hope you better understand the personal training field and its opportunities.

Full episode transcript can be found on the episode page. Below is a general timestamp summary.

00:00–02:20 | Introduction & Guest Background 
Pierre introduces the episode and welcomes Nicole Juhl, who shares her experience in the fitness and wellness industry and outlines the focus of the Certified Personal Trainer program. 

02:20–04:20 | Career Paths in Personal Training 
Nicole explains the wide range of opportunities in personal training, from one-on-one coaching to careers in gyms, wellness centers, and fields like kinesiology and physical therapy. 

04:20–10:20 | Key Skills for Success 
The conversation highlights essential skills such as communication, professionalism, passion, and authenticity, along with the importance of understanding your “why.” 

10:20–13:20 | Building Experience 
Nicole shares strategies for gaining experience, including shadowing trainers, practicing with peers, and exploring different fitness modalities to build confidence and expertise. 

13:20–17:00 | Program Opportunities & Resources 
Discussion focuses on hands-on learning, campus facilities, networking opportunities, and new resources like the upcoming kinesiology lab. 

17:00–21:20 | Networking & Personal Branding 
Nicole emphasizes the importance of networking, building professional relationships, and developing an authentic personal brand in the fitness industry. 

21:20–26:00 | Advice for Students Entering the Field 
Key takeaways include taking things one step at a time, building confidence, practicing self-care, and embracing continuous growth without needing to know everything immediately. 

26:00–30:00 | Program Details & How to Get Started 
The episode wraps with details on program structure, alternative options, and how to connect with advisors and resources to explore the personal training field further 

• Nicole Juhl (program info & questions): juhln@cod.edu 
• Bess Fuertes (department advising): fuertese245@cod.edu 
• COD Personal Trainer Certificate website: https://catalog.cod.edu/programs-study/physical-education/personal-trainer-certificate/

Listeners in the College of DuPage community can visit our website. All other listeners are encouraged to view the resources of their local community college, WIOA training programs, or other local support centers.

Send us YOUR Listener Questions at careerpodcast@cod.edu

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Transcript

Speaker: 0:01

Welcome to the Career Ready podcast. Learn about resumes, cover letters, LinkedIn, interviewing, and all things you need to be career ready with the Career Service Center at College of DuPage. I'm your host, Pierre Michiels, for today's episode. In addition to learning about resources and the job search process, important part of being career ready is understanding career path to help us explore the field of personal training. I have Nicole Juhl with me, who works as an associate professor and physical education overseeing the Certified Personal Trainer program here at College DuPage. Nicole, thanks for joining me in today's episode. Thank you so much for having me here. I'm excited. Yeah, I'm excited to hear more about the program. But before we dive deep into the program, can we just get started with a quick introduction or as we'd like to say, the elevator pitch? quick elevator pitch. For myself, I have been in the fitness and wellness industry since 1997, which kind of dates myself, but that's okay. And I have been in all different avenues of it. So personal training, health coaching, teaching different modalities, teaching high school, junior high, all different types of careers. And I'm really excited to just be bringing my experience to Cod and at Cod since 2022. And I've just really put in my efforts and passions into this personal trainer certificate. So a little bit about me. My elevator pitch for our program is if you are someone who is really passionate about health and wellness, maybe it's about more so just starting out with yourself. Maybe you find yourself reading a lot of articles online about it. Maybe you listen to a lot of podcasts. Maybe you enjoy coaching friends and family members. If you love helping people, you you have a service mindset and you're really interested in learning a little bit more about not just exercise and working out, but developing the whole person. That's what our personal trainer certificate is really all Yeah, well, thanks for those dual introductions. It's great to learn a little bit about you. And we're going to be diving deeper into the program here. And I guess just starting here with the program. Can you talk a little bit about not just the program but personal training and the different career paths that that could eventually lead towards? Sure. So I think first and foremost, when people see the word personal trainer, they think that, okay, I'm going to be working one on one and I'm going to be putting together some workouts for someone and leading them through a workout. And while that is part of this career, there are so many facets and sides of this industry that you could really go into from this program. So one of the things that you could do is obviously one on one personal training, small group and large group personal training is another option. You could work in a gym, a wellness studio. You could work in a big fitness facility, big box gym like Equinox or Lifetime Fitness. You could work in a rec center, a community center. You could have your. This builds a nice foundation for starting to work as a strength coach or in strength and conditioning. You could also have this be part of your base if you want to go into kinesiology or sports medicine, or if you're interested in athletic training or even physical therapy, this is a great foundation to have for all those types of careers. So in terms of the career paths, there really is endless possibilities. And if you are willing to to put yourself out there, willing to work hard, develop your active listening skills, your communication skills, there is going to be an avenue for you. it's great to hear that, right? There's so many entry points. That sounds like just getting the certificate could get you started in the field, but it doesn't have to be a ceiling with that, right? You could then use that as a building for many more opportunities going forward. Absolutely. Yeah. So then when we think of all those possibilities, right, those different options, if it is, you know, jumping right in and doing some one on one or, you know, some of those small groups or, you know, using this as a launching pad to go back to school and get the physical therapy degree or whatever it is. What skills or strengths do you see in students and professionals in the field that really help them succeed? I really want to start this off with the number one skill that I see, and that I hear from my industry partners, and it's communication. more so than being able to build a program or deliver a workout or coach. Cuz is this skill of communicating with others, not only communicating while you're leading a session, but also communication skills, building rapport, building connection, being able to keep your commitments in order, being able to be on time. Making sure that you're able to have a strong base of communication that leads you into whatever path you want to go to in this field. So I would say first and foremost is communication. And I think nowadays, because we have so many avenues of communication and we're stimulated all the time with our phones and social media, sometimes we really lose that face to face communication, and sometimes actually having a conversation in person is really difficult for some of us. So I think that would probably be number one. And we focus a lot on communication and different types of mock training skills in our program. I would think I'm going to say another strength would have to be just being professional. So in terms of our personal trainer certificate, one of the classes that really is our capstone is the Foundations of Personal Training course. And I really try to build around this, this course, a lot of those skills with communication and professionalism and along with that is just showing up, showing up for yourself, showing up for your classmates, being able to be available, making sure that if you are going to be a part of a lab or an activity that we're doing in class, that you're there and you're there 100%. And not only that, you're professional. So we build those skills into the lessons. As I'm thinking of some other skills, I think just having enthusiasm and energy to this career, because you don't have to be an extrovert per se. And even if you're an introvert, this is definitely a really good career for you. However, you want to have that energy and passion because this this can be a hustle. It really can take a lot of time to continue to build your foundation. Once you leave us, whether you're starting out on your own or you're working for a company or a facility. So just making sure that you know why. Why do you want to do this career? Why do you want to be in this field? Because it does take a lot of time and energy, a lot of hustling to market yourself, build your foundation and your skills. And then I think, lastly is to be yourself. Build authenticity. Not everyone is going to connect with your philosophy of training. And I think, you know, we build that into our program as well. We talk about what is your philosophy? What do you think is important in this, this job career. And so once you have that why and you understand why you're doing what you're doing, you understand your philosophy and your values and you stick with those and you be authentic. That really is going to set the stage for a successful career in this path. Yeah, I think those are all great skills. Anyone that normally talks to me about careers, you know, the whole idea of communication, professionalism makes a great deal of sense, especially when we think of the application of a personal trainer. Right. You know, if you know, if your personal trainer knows all this content but can't communicate it to you, can't, you know, get you to do what they need you to do because of their lack of communication? It does. It's not going to work out right. So to really have these skill sets through the program and then as a professional makes a lot of sense. And something that you said real quickly, I want to just say on this like the knowing your why. Right. You know, I don't think you I think you kind of threw that in as a broader skill set. But I want to emphasize that because I think that could be a really key piece to grouping all this together. Right. You know, knowing your why, why are you so interested in the health and helping other people be healthy and then being able to just be yourself as you understand that to help with the communication, demonstrating that energy and that professionalism just kind of brings it all together. Absolutely. And I think a lot of times from working with my students, a lot of their wise is, well, I had some dramatic change in myself, whether it's through my mental health or through my physical health, or I went through some traumatic experience and health and wellness, or some part of that really helped me move forward with my life or my path. And so, again, just kind of going back to finding out what that is. And sometimes we don't know exactly what it is, but we know there are certain aspects of this career that gets us really excited. And and that's okay. And we start there and then we continue to develop that and work on that over time. And the confidence piece with actually taking somebody through an exercise or workout or building a program that just takes time. And a lot of times my students at the end of our program, they feel prepared and excited, but they're really nervous because this might be the first time that they, besides working with their peers or a friend or family member, that they're going to go out in the field and get some paying clients and they're really nervous about that. And so I have to remind them that each person that you work with is a different experience. And so just take it one day at a time and you will gain that confidence. Yeah. So I want to build it off of that. Right. You kind of getting to this point. But as someone wanting to enter the field, a student going through this program, what are different experiences or opportunities that you would recommend that they seek out to help them in this development journey? So in addition to obviously, the education piece, which is your foundation, that's always going to be your your building blocks, right? But where you're going to learn is in the trenches. So whether that's either observation or shadowing, which that is part of our program, there is a ten hour field experience requirement as part of our capstone course, the Foundations of Personal Training. So they're able to kind of go and observe different trainers in different environments. So that's really important. Just seeing how different coaches Q how they interact with their clients, how they build programs. Another aspect would be practice teaching friends, family members, practicing practicing writing programs, and just getting yourself that repetition of working with Nonpaying clients. I would also say getting yourself out there and taking different classes, taking different workouts. If you're able to hire a personal trainer, work with a trainer as a client and see how that feels and get some feedback for yourself and write some reflections. It's experimented with different modalities. Taking a Pilates class, a yoga class hit TR, you know, boot camp, all those different things so that you can experience what it's like to actually be the person working out in a class and how different instructors Q and coach and what's there, how do they motivate their clients. Then you can kind of take all of that information and start to craft your own authentic self in this field. Yeah. You know, I think this field compared to some others, there's some really good opportunities to just kind of see different applications. Sometimes there's a lot more walls and barriers to being able to take in the field. But I think there's a lot of visibility here in personal training, and you may not even realize it or think of it as, you know, experience and opportunity to develop. But there's just these little things that you could be doing that you're probably already doing. If you're interested in this field pursuing it, you're probably already doing some of these things, but really taking them in as a learning opportunity and experience to shape how you want to move forward professionally through this work. Yes, and we offer a lot of opportunities throughout this program. So not only do we also offer fitness activity courses that are built in as electives for this personal trainer track where you can take bootcamp, body, a body sculpt class, Pilates, yoga, fitness, conditioning, all those kinds of things. We also have a fitness center on campus where you can go and exercise, and we have personal trainers up there. We also have strength and conditioning staff where that they're part actually of our partnerships. For the observation and field experience requirements, you're able to kind of branch out. I also have tons of connections that I build in for my students from all of my years in this field that I am able to kind of offer my students so they can go and observe outside of this ten hour requirement and network. Yeah, a lot of great things that you're just building right into the program. And I know you mentioned the professional class, right. So a lot of things that you're doing right here in the program, you know, some of it may be outside of the program. Everything we're doing professionally shouldn't just be within the classroom. Right. But sounds like you're giving them lots of opportunities here. Are there? Yeah. Are there any other specific things within the program that you would want to emphasize? Yes, actually, I just came to me. We have a new kinesiology lab that is going to be opening up fall of 26. And this is our old spin lab. It is in the PSC upstairs right next to the fitness center, actually. And we have a bunch of state of the art equipment that we'll be having in there. And so students will have the opportunity to not only within some of the classes in this, this certificate program, but in some of the other classes that we offer in our department. They'll be able to have some experiences with hands on learning and assessments and biomechanics in other different types of sports and conditioning tests and things like that. So we've built that into to our curriculum, which we're really excited about. And then we also offer some additional events, things that are through our physical education, fitness and sports studies department. But we also have a big annual wellness event, usually around April beginning of May, where we have tons of health and wellness vendors who come and they set up a table and then they offer their services. And so it's a time for our students to network and again build their portfolio, build their capacity to communicate and just see what other services are already out there in our area. So it came up a few times. So I just want to spend a little bit of time on this idea of networking and the importance of it for personal training, because earlier you were talking about the infant career paths, right? Some of them are through bigger gyms and where maybe you can easily get clients. But a lot of you also mentioned is like finding your own clients, but then also talking about networking and finding professional relationships. So can you just take a moment to expand on the importance of networking as someone's going down this career path? Yes. So this really kind of piggies off. Piggy's off piggybacks off the skill of communication. You have to. Definitely. And this is going to be harder for those of you who are introverts, is to put yourself out there into finding things maybe that are outside of code, as well as at code events and meetups where you're meeting physical therapists, massage therapists, dietitians, primary care physicians. You're meeting all of these other professionals to kind of build this continuum, this health care continuum where you can refer people to each other. And that just builds your, your, your portfolio base and your client base. But not only that, it just it really strengthens this whole field of health and wellness where we can all work together. We each have our own strengths and weaknesses. And when we can build this, this book of business per se, we really have a better chance of being successful in this industry. And part of that also comes with learning how to network yourself, learning how to put yourself out there. And we do some of those foundational skills in specifically in our Foundations of Personal Training class. So again, it's one of those things where it takes practice. It takes putting yourself out there even in other classes. I tell my students, you know, if you have a project where you have to give a speech or you have to put together a video, this is just another opportunity for you to get comfortable with yourself speaking to an audience. And the more that you can do that, and the more that you can talk to people. And maybe it's even in formal setting, you know, you're at the grocery store, you're at the you're buying something, people are in line, and maybe you just strike up a conversation and you can meet people that way and network that way. I you know, I remember back when I was in school, I had a professor that was one of her big things where we had a really key battalion. On how many times we struck up random conversations with people just to build that, that skill of communication and networking. And it was really scary at first. But the more practice, just like anything, you just get stronger and better at it. Yeah. And I think going back to some of what you said earlier, as far as like just generally being yourself, it helped with this. Right? Because if you're very authentic in that approach, it doesn't really become networking. Right? It's just educating and helping people. So being able to, you know, build off just helps move forward. And I think that can be difficult nowadays. And we have so many influencers online where you see, you know, how they present maybe their social media network or how they present their business model. And, you know, you definitely can adapt certain things and, and be like, oh, you know what? I do like how they do this. I like how they do that. But ultimately it's you and it's your experiences. It's your uniqueness. Building your own brand, I guess you could call it, right. And ultimately, if you're not your authentic self, your clients can tell that. So I think that's probably another aspect of what my students say at the end of my class, where they're still a little nervous as they feel like they don't want to be. They have this imposter syndrome almost, because they don't have tons of experience. Now, I have some students who come in with a little bit more experience training and coaching than others, but if you just go back to your why, I think that helps you be more authentic. And as we're going to wrap up here, I just want to see if you had any other recommendations for students, young professionals wanting to enter the field. Probably I would say just to and this is going to sound kind of broad, but to really take it one day at a time, one day at a time. I'm a huge proponent of self-regulation and keeping ourselves in a place where we feel good in our health and wellness journey. So if we can really put ourselves in a place where we're taking time out for ourselves, we're doing some self-care. We are working on keeping our self-regulated. That that really is, is is going to be significant for your journey in this field. Because if we're able to kind of walk the walk and talk the talk, right, we can then help our clients do that. I think another aspect would be to just be okay with being okay. And what I mean by that is know that you when you complete our program at the College of DuPage. Yes, it is a foundational program, but you can do a lot with that. You can go out and work with others with this foundation that you're given. And it's okay to not feel like you know everything. You don't have to know everything in order to put yourself out there and to start training. You just need to follow those foundational principles that you learn in our program and make sure that obviously, you keep people safe and you are, you know, doing things to the level of your training. I think just going back to the strong people skills, just continue to put yourself out there in different experiences and make sure that you don't take yourself too seriously, you know, have some fun with it. And I think this is a field where it it can become very stressful, especially if you are going out and working on your own and you have your own business. You definitely want to make sure that you know your things. Don't let things you know ride on yourself too long, right? Just take take it one day at a time. And I know I keep saying that, but I feel like if we look too far ahead and we plan to much in the future, I think that kind of can. Just really do a disservice to us in terms of like, we can have our long term goals, but take it one day at a time. Yeah, well, I think that one day at a time that probably just comes so natural with the physical personal trainer or background. Right? Because you can't be taking giant steps. You got to take it one step at a time. You got to be building up to that. And the imposter syndrome, right. You mentioned that. And I like to of it's okay to be okay, right? We don't have to enter the field being like top of the game and. Right, right. But you know, this program we're talking about, right. You're becoming a certified personal trainer through that, right. You're certified in it. That means you've got the credentials. You may not feel confident in yourself, but I'm confident that you're not passing the program if you don't know what you're doing. Exactly. And you know, I will mention that, you know, this program that we have, it's it's updated. We it used to be called the Fitness Instructor program. And now we've updated not only the name but some of the courses. This is a 21 credit our program. It's very robust. But I also don't want to scare anyone away. It's definitely doable and it's flexible. And most of the classes that we offer can be taken online. So that can suit anyone's type of lifestyle. And those who are not local to to code. But this, this definitely is your your stepping stone to something better. And maybe you're not sure 100% that you want to actually personal train someone, but the knowledge that you gain maybe for yourself or your family members, or for another career that's similar to personal training, this is just that going to make you that much more marketable and have a lot more skills to to exhibit. So I do want to mention that we do also at Cod, have a five week personal training course through the Continuing Education department. And sometimes that can be confusing with our department. So if I could just touch base on that really quick. So our continuing ed also runs a personal trainer certificate program. It's a five week course and it's actually through a company called Wits, the World Instructor Training School. And it's really suited for those professionals who maybe want to kind of get in, get out, and maybe learn more for themselves. And not so much work at a big box gym or a big fitness facility. There's no credit tied to it. There's no transferable credit. There is. There's nothing that ties it with our department, but it might be something that's suitable for someone who likes to kind of get in and out. Definitely not as marketable as our program. A lot of times, if you're going to apply to a big fitness facility or a bigger wellness studio, they do like to see certification through either Nasm, Ace, which is through what we use NCA. Those are Acsm, those are some of the top organizations, but that is also there and available. It's just it's not through our department. Yeah. Well it's good to know that there's some different entry points, right. Not just as the career but academically different ways to be approaching. You just have to decide what is right for your goals. Yes. So then as we wrap up here, if people are interested in this field and they want to learn more, how can they go about that? So the easiest way is just to send me an email. I am the advisor for our department for this certificate. And my email, which I think you'll put in the show notes, is Jewel N for Nicole at Edu so they can send me an email. We do actually have an advisor for our whole entire department. Her name is Best Warrick and I can leave that in the show notes as well. She oversees the entire program. I definitely reach out to me first, and then I can also send you to her if that's something that we need to do. And then another option is to look at our updated website. We have a personal trainer certificate, newly designed website that gives you all of the classes and a little bit of a background on the certificate and kind of what is expected. So that's another way to kind of learn more information. Yeah, and definitely all three of those will be there in the show notes. So check those out to take those next steps and reaching out and learning more. Great awesome. Yeah. So if you're if you're really interested in looking for this well-rounded experience and want to come away with not only college credit, but also some classes that transfer to a four year university, you're thinking about a kinesiology degree, but you also want to have a foundation of personal training. And you may or you may not want a personal trainer, but you'd like that foundation. I'd love to see you in our newly personal training certificate program. All right. Well, Nicole, thank you so much for helping us just understand the field better, the possibilities, if that's we're using this to enter the field or using it as a foundation to advance in other areas of kinesiology and that health development aspect. Absolutely. Yes. Okay. Well, with today's episode, there was no listener question. However, if you have a question, you can submit it to Career Podcast at all or on social media at Career Center and you may hear answered in a future episode. Thank you to all our listeners, and special thanks to Nicole Juhl for joining the Career Ready podcast. We hope you now have a better understanding of the personal trainer field.