How To Become A Fitness Teacher: What It Is and Career Path

What is a fitness teacher and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

2 min read

Quoted expert

John John Petrizzo PT, DPT, CSCS

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a fitness teacher. For example, did you know that they make an average of $22.51 an hour? That's $46,817 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 19% and produce 57,800 job opportunities across the U.S.

What general advice would you give to a fitness teacher?

John John Petrizzo PT, DPT, CSCS

Associate Professor, Website

I think that having good people skills will become increasingly important in our field in the next few years. You can be knowledgeable, but if you can't communicate what you know well to others, it is going to hurt your chances of being successful.

ScoreFitness TeacherUS Average

Salary

3.7

Avg. Salary $46,817

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

4.4

Growth rate 19%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

4.8

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.49%

Asian 5.11%

Black or African American 7.05%

Hispanic or Latino 10.64%

Unknown 5.40%

White 71.31%

Gender

female 57.14%

male 42.86%

Age - 36

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 36

Stress level

4.4

Stress level is moderate

7.1 - high

Complexity level

5.5

Complexity level is intermediate

7 - challenging

Work life balance

10.0

Work life balance is excellent

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a fitness teacher

Explore fitness teacher education requirements

Most common fitness teacher degrees

Bachelor's

64.3 %

Master's

18.3 %

Associate

8.7 %

Start to develop specific fitness teacher skills

Skills	Percentages
Kids	30.86%
Physical Education	20.47%
Classroom Discipline	19.07%
Healthy Lifestyle	15.81%
Yoga	13.79%

Complete relevant fitness teacher training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New fitness teachers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a fitness teacher based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real fitness teacher resumes.

Research fitness teacher duties and responsibilities

Lead debates with advance students on topics including globalization, economics, and political history.
Develop innovative PowerPoint presentations used to incorporate creative lessons for daily teaching consistent with teaching multiple grade levels at once.
Answer phones, handle any complaints and make sure everything run smoothly in the gym.

Prepare your fitness teacher resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your fitness teacher resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a fitness teacher resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable fitness teacher resume templates

Build a professional fitness teacher resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your fitness teacher resume.