Exercise Specialists create exercise plans for clients to help improve their health, especially those dealing with specific health conditions. They are fitness instructors who also help clients perform fitness techniques to keep fit. They mostly work in healthcare settings analyzing patient's fitness to assist them in achieving their health goals. They assess their lifestyle, physical activity patterns, and eating habits to come up with the best exercise plans.
Exercise specialists also work with amateur and professional athletes who want to boost their performance. Here, they perform cardiorespiratory and metabolic function tests to evaluate their physical fitness and capabilities. In order to succeed in their role, exercise specialists should have experience in patient care, teaching ability, listening skills, attention to detail, and communication skills.
Exercise Specialists work 40 hours a week. Their working hours largely depend on their clients' schedules. They may be required to work additional hours in the evenings past working hours, over the weekends, and on public holidays when they have many clients.
How to Become an Exercise Specialist
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being an exercise specialist. For example, did you know that they make an average of $19.49 an hour? That's $40,538 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 10% and produce 1,500 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does an Exercise Specialist Do
There are certain skills that many exercise specialists have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed detail oriented, interpersonal skills and customer-service skills.
How To Become an Exercise Specialist
If you're interested in becoming an exercise specialist, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 78.6% of exercise specialists have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 12.6% of exercise specialists have master's degrees. Even though most exercise specialists have a college degree, it's impossible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become an exercise specialist. When we researched the most common majors for an exercise specialist, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or master's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on exercise specialist resumes include associate degree degrees or high school diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become an exercise specialist. In fact, many exercise specialist jobs require experience in a role such as internship. Meanwhile, many exercise specialists also have previous career experience in roles such as personal trainer or volunteer.
Exercise Specialist Career Paths
In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of physical therapy aide you might progress to a role such as physical therapist eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title clinical manager.
Average Salary for an Exercise Specialist
What Am I Worth?
Top Colleges for Exercise Specialists
1. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC • Private
2. Columbia University in the City of New York
New York, NY • Private
3. University of Florida
Gainesville, FL • Private
4. University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA • Private
5. San Diego State University
San Diego, CA • Private
6. Florida State University
Tallahassee, FL • Private
7. University of Wisconsin - Madison
Madison, WI • Private
8. University of Connecticut
Storrs, CT • Private
9. University of Washington
Seattle, WA • Private
10. University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
Minneapolis, MN • Private
Top Skills For an Exercise Specialist
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 16.2% of exercise specialists listed patient care on their resume, but soft skills such as detail oriented and interpersonal skills are important as well.
Choose From 10+ Customizable Exercise Specialist Resume templates
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Exercise Specialist templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Exercise Specialist resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
Exercise Specialist Demographics
Exercise Specialist Gender Distribution
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
- Among exercise specialists, 56.2% of them are women, while 43.8% are men.
- The most common race/ethnicity among exercise specialists is White, which makes up 65.5% of all exercise specialists.
- The most common foreign language among exercise specialists is Spanish at 59.3%.
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Best States For an Exercise Specialist
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as an exercise specialist. The best states for people in this position are Alaska, California, Hawaii, and Mississippi. Exercise specialists make the most in Alaska with an average salary of $54,961. Whereas in California and Hawaii, they would average $52,430 and $49,480, respectively. While exercise specialists would only make an average of $47,065 in Mississippi, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Alaska
$54,961
Avg. Salary
2. West Virginia
$43,651
Avg. Salary
3. Mississippi
$47,065
Avg. Salary
How Do Exercise Specialist Rate Their Jobs?
Top Exercise Specialist Employers
Most Common Employers For Exercise Specialist
| Rank  | Company  | Average Salary  | Hourly Rate  | Job Openings  |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wellstar Health System | $42,338 | $20.35 | 8 |
| 2 | Sanford Health | $42,063 | $20.22 | 12 |
| 3 | PeaceHealth | $41,524 | $19.96 | 17 |
| 4 | Water and Sports Physical Therapy | $40,538 | $19.49 | 13 |
| 5 | Orlando Health | $40,538 | $19.49 | 10 |
| 6 | Optum | $40,538 | $19.49 | 7 |
| 7 | Coury & Buehler Physical Therapy | $40,538 | $19.49 | 7 |
| 8 | Fit For Life Centers | $40,146 | $19.30 | 11 |
| 9 | Oregon Health & Science University | $39,624 | $19.05 | 9 |
| 10 | Encompass Health | $39,156 | $18.82 | 12 |
Exercise Specialist Videos
