What does an Exercise Specialist do?
An Exercise Specialist creates exercise plans designed to improve health for clients, such as those at high risk for heart, metabolic, or lung disease. They work at health clubs, hotels, gyms, and hospitals.
Exercise specialist responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real exercise specialist resumes:
- Case manage cardiac rehabilitation participants providing educational support and counseling, smoking cessation, stress management, and exercise safety.
- Conduct fitness assessments base on ACSM guidelines and educate clients on results.
- Develop and plan individualized exercise programs for fitness members, personal training clients, senior citizens and post-rehab physical therapy patients.
- Educate patients on therapeutic exercises prescribe by physical therapists, maintain orderliness of clinic and aid in administrative tasks and documentation.
- Conduct new member orientations and fitness test using ACSM guidelines.
- Instruct group exercise classes such as: yoga, cycling, and weight training.
- Conduct health assessments and a variety of fitness classes to the general public, CPR instruction and product demonstration.
- Provide employees with weekly fitness classes that include weight lifting, cardiovascular training, core strengthening, and yoga.
- Market inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation programs to hospitals, physicians, case managers, rehabilitation facilities, insurance companies and employers.
- Evaluate, track and report program outcomes data for AACVPR certification.
- Work with program director for accreditation of cardiac rehab by the AACVPR.
- Collect BMI & body measurements to track progress of clients.
Exercise specialist skills and personality traits
We calculated that 21% of Exercise Specialists are proficient in Patients, Rehabilitation, and Patient Care. They’re also known for soft skills such as Compassion, Detail oriented, and Interpersonal skills.
We break down the percentage of Exercise Specialists that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Patients, 21%
Developed and planned individualized exercise programs for fitness members, personal training clients, senior citizens and post-rehab physical therapy patients.
- Rehabilitation, 10%
Developed accurate individualized exercise prescriptions for participants of Cardiac/Pulmonary Rehabilitation.
- Patient Care, 9%
Accumulated 60 hours of in-patient care at Sunshine Terrace assisted living center.
- Customer Service, 7%
Provided assistance to members as part of delivering exemplary customer service.
- Physical Therapy, 6%
Scheduled appointments with clients at area health clubs and provided a transition from a physical therapy setting to a gym setting.
- Blood Pressure, 4%
Educate clients on health concerns they may have (i.e., diabetes, smoking cessation, blood pressure, nutrition).
Most exercise specialists use their skills in "patients," "rehabilitation," and "patient care" to do their jobs. You can find more detail on essential exercise specialist responsibilities here:
Compassion. To carry out their duties, the most important skill for an exercise specialist to have is compassion. Their role and responsibilities require that "because exercise physiologists work with patients who may be in considerable pain or discomfort, they must be sympathetic while working with patients." Exercise specialists often use compassion in their day-to-day job, as shown by this real resume: "delivered safe, effective, and compassionate care to a diverse population of patients during cardiac testing and rehabilitation procedures. "
Detail oriented. Another essential skill to perform exercise specialist duties is detail oriented. Exercise specialists responsibilities require that "exercise physiologists must record detailed, accurate information about their patients’ conditions and about any progress the patients make." Exercise specialists also use detail oriented in their role according to a real resume snippet: "instructed, demonstrated, educated patients through their detailed rehabilitation program"
Interpersonal skills. Another skill that relates to the job responsibilities of exercise specialists is interpersonal skills. This skill is critical to many everyday exercise specialist duties, as "exercise physiologists must have strong interpersonal skills and manage difficult situations." This example from a resume shows how this skill is used: "assist client's using exceptional interpersonal and customer service skills. "
The three companies that hire the most exercise specialists are:
- WakeMed11 exercise specialists jobs
- Therapeutic Associates Physical Therapy6 exercise specialists jobs
- Ardent Health Services5 exercise specialists jobs
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Compare different exercise specialists
Exercise specialist vs. Athletic trainer
An athletic trainer is a healthcare professional who works with physicians to improve a patient's quality of life. Their profession encompasses the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of chronic medical conditions involving disabilities, functional limitations, and impairments. As an athletic trainer, you will typically do various tasks, including recognizing and evaluating injuries, providing emergency care or first aid, and developing and implementing rehabilitation programs. You are also responsible for planning and implementing programs to help prevent sports injuries among athletes.
These skill sets are where the common ground ends though. The responsibilities of an exercise specialist are more likely to require skills like "customer service," "physical therapy," "blood pressure," and "acsm." On the other hand, a job as an athletic trainer requires skills like "student athletes," "athletic injuries," "athletic events," and "osha." As you can see, what employees do in each career varies considerably.
On average, athletic trainers reach similar levels of education than exercise specialists. Athletic trainers are 4.2% more likely to earn a Master's Degree and 0.1% more likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Exercise specialist vs. Coordinator cardiopulmonary services
A certified athletic trainer is a health and medical expert who specializes in providing health care assistance to athletes. They typically devise strategies to prevent injuries during training sessions and other activities, develop health care plans, and provide immediate care or first aid when injuries occur. There are also instances where they work together with physicians and other health care professionals, such as when diagnosing and treating injuries, developing rehabilitation structures, and administrating other health care services.
In addition to the difference in salary, there are some other key differences worth noting. For example, exercise specialist responsibilities are more likely to require skills like "patients," "rehabilitation," "patient care," and "customer service." Meanwhile, a coordinator cardiopulmonary services has duties that require skills in areas such as "bls," "respiratory care," "acls," and "critical care." These differences highlight just how different the day-to-day in each role looks.
Average education levels between the two professions vary. Coordinators cardiopulmonary services tend to reach lower levels of education than exercise specialists. In fact, they're 7.1% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 0.1% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.What technology do you think will become more important and prevalent for Exercise Specialists in the next 3-5 years?
Tyler Standifird Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Utah Valley University
Exercise specialist vs. Cardiac rehabilitation program director
There are many key differences between these two careers, including some of the skills required to perform responsibilities within each role. For example, an exercise specialist is likely to be skilled in "patients," "customer service," "physical therapy," and "cpr," while a typical cardiac rehabilitation program director is skilled in "clinical assessments," "iii," "physiology," and "discharge planning."
Cardiac rehabilitation program directors typically earn higher educational levels compared to exercise specialists. Specifically, they're 28.3% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree, and 1.0% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Exercise specialist vs. Certified athletic trainer
Even though a few skill sets overlap between exercise specialists and certified athletic trainers, there are some differences that are important to note. For one, an exercise specialist might have more use for skills like "customer service," "physical therapy," "blood pressure," and "cardiac rehabilitation." Meanwhile, some responsibilities of certified athletic trainers require skills like "athletic events," "resuscitation," "osha," and "athletic training room. "
In general, certified athletic trainers hold higher degree levels compared to exercise specialists. Certified athletic trainers are 5.4% more likely to earn their Master's Degree and 0.4% more likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Types of exercise specialist
Updated January 8, 2025
