Ava Petersen

Responsibilities

- Shadowed certified personal trainers in both one-on-one, partner training, and group training sessions. - Learned scheduling and client managements systems. - Attended weekly staff meetings. The first of every month was a mandatory team meeting discussing numbers and important information for the month. The other three weeks were education sessions over personal development topics (sales, continuing education, complimentary sessions, marketing, etc.) - Hands-on practice with movement, balance, and posture assessments. - Helped with marketing and promotional videos and advertisements.

Accomplishments

My greatest accomplishment and most valuable takeaway during my internship experience were the relationships that I built, both with the staff and the clients/members. Being able to step outside of my comfort zone and build rapport with people opened a lot of doors for my future, post-graduation. I was offered a job to stay on as a personal trainer at Ames Fitness Center, and I have so many new contacts and networks that I am sure will be helpful in both my fitness career and in life.

Learning experience

The greatest lessons I learned were about development and growth, professionally and personally. I was around a lot of older people who had lived a lot more life than I have, and was given great insight on a lot of topics that troubled me. I learned what it looks like to be successful in this industry, and how to get there. And I learned how to show up as the best version of myself, wherever I go.

What advice would you give?

My advice for future students in Exercise Science is to get out there and get hands-on experience. What we learn in class is helpful and important in providing us a solid foundation of knowledge and expertise to use in our career. But the biggest growth is going to come from real-world experience - job shadowing, running through assessments and tests with friends (or even real clients), getting comfortable with sales, etc. Every client is going to come to you with a different history, discomfort, pain, movement patterns, and goals, and the best way to get more comfortable with adversity is to get in many repetitions of hands-on practice with different situations.