Professions in fitness and health sports

Fitness professions

The objective of fitness is to practice physical activities using equipment and/or accessories to maintain one's body and health. The professions related to this practice can be separated into two categories.

In the first, we find the professions that serve to help practitioners during their efforts. We give them technical advice on their movements, their breathing or their positions. This is the case for the profession of sports coach and physical trainer, often confused, however very different.

The profession of sports coach generally consists of helping beginners (there may be exceptions), people who are presumably not very athletic who would like to start for various reasons. This coach accompanies them in their progression by setting goals for them and while ensuring that they do things correctly, step by step. They can intervene for one person or for a group in a gym, at home, in schools, or even in companies for workplace wellness issues. To access this title, one can go through a bachelor's or master's STAPS, professional degrees, a professional certificate (BPJEPS) or a state diploma (DEJEPS).

The activity of a physical trainer differs by the clientele targeted. Indeed, a physical trainer will target people who are already very athletic or even professional in sports other than fitness, and will through this practice help them stay at the top of their physical form to improve their performance before a competition or to maintain their level over time. This profession can be practiced within a gym, a sports federation, a club or individually. One can do this job thanks to the same training as the sports coach profession, but others are added such as the Master in Training and Optimization of Sports Performance. In prestigious football clubs, a physical trainer can earn up to more than 10,000 euros per month.

The second category groups together professions that do not directly help the client progress in the sports field, but that come as a complement to the professions in the first category. The representatives of these professions can provide advice on the nutritional or physical level, which is almost essential when you want to transform yourself physically. Poor nutrition will make physical transformation very complicated even when doing a lot of sports. There are therefore many professions that can help people in these areas. This is the case for the professions of dietitian-nutritionist, doctor-nutritionist or even osteopath. 

We often hear the term nutritionist to refer to the profession of dietitian-nutritionist or doctor-nutritionist. In reality the title of nutritionist alone does not exist, it is always associated either with the profession of dietitian, or with the profession of doctor. Many unrecognized diplomas are issued, and giving paid nutrition advice without being qualified is punishable by fines and prison sentences.

The profession of dietitian nutritionist consists of advising people who want to lose weight or gain weight. For example, we seek to identify the bad eating habits responsible for an imbalance in the client in order to tell them what they eat too much or not enough of. This profession is practiced in school settings in a preventive context, in hospital settings or in private practice. It is accessible through a BTS specialty in dietetics or through a DUT Biological Engineering option dietetics.

However, if the imbalance is not simply due to bad habits, but is created by a health problem or conversely the imbalance creates the health problem, it is advisable to rather consult a doctor nutritionist. This doctor specializes in this type of disease which includes obesity, diabetes or even anorexia and is able to prescribe examinations or treatment. To access this title, it is necessary to complete a bachelor's + 6 in medicine then four additional years of specialization in nutrition.

This profession has had derivatives such as the professions of micro-nutritionist doctor or chrono-nutritionist doctor. The micro-nutritionist doctor studies our micronutrient deficiencies, that is, the nutrients that we do not synthesize and that we find only in our diet. The chrono-nutritionist doctor is interested in our metabolic cycle, in short, they advise you on the times at which to eat. Depending on the moment, our food is not consumed in the same way by the body, it will sometimes be directly used and other times stored.

The profession of osteopath can also be very useful in fitness. Indeed, according to the particularities of your skeleton, certain exercises may be discouraged. Moreover, the manipulation of bones can relieve pain due to fitness and allow an improvement in performance. To practice this profession, one must hold the DO (osteopath diploma) obtainable exclusively in private establishments approved by the Ministry of Health.