Bodybuilding is one of the more expensive sports. The cost of supplements, nutrition and food needed to grow your body is no joke. Once you start getting serious, just going to the gym and eating whatever, whenever you want is not going to cut it. A proper diet that ensures the best growth is costly. Unfortunately we live in a world where the healthiest and most nutritious food is expensive. People in this sport can generally spend up to a THIRD of their salary on gym memberships, supplements, food etc.
Even with paying the high price for your passion, can you make enough money in bodybuilding to support your aspirations AND make a living out of it?
Short answer: No. You need to get a job to support your dreams. You need some sort of income to buy and use the supplements and food you need to get you to your desired physique.
Long answer: Yes. There are many bodybuilders who make enough to live off and some even score good coin from it as well, working in the industry as a career. They earn in a combination of ways listed below.
How can Bodybuilding Make Me Rich?
Winning Cash Prizes at Bodybuilding Competitions
This is not how bodybuilders make a living. This is the first thing that comes to mind when people consider the income of body builders. This is like an occasional bonus to the best of the best in the sport. The competitors at the top of their category do not count on getting this money and you cannot either. Planning to live off prize money solely is going to get you in a financial mess mixed with disappointment. Congratulations to those who win money at shows, but dont count on it.
Being Sponsored by Companies
If you perform well enough at bodybuilding shows, there will be companies who would be interested in sponsoring you. These companies are most often supplement companies who want to use your image to sell their products to their target market: other people who want to look like and be like you. These companies are not limited to just supplement companies, and can be an energy drink, gym or other corporate companies as well. As stated in our Make a Career out of Bodybuilding article, getting a sponsorship is not as easy as stepping on stage and hoping companies are going to chase you down with cash in their hands. 90% of the time you are going to have to work for it. The competition for sponsorships is quite tight. Therefore, building a great relationship with your sponsor/s is essential.
Some bodybuilders make a living with this kind of money. However, the amounts of bodybuilders who can live off a sponsorship are below 5% among the pros. A sponsorship could be as small as a years supply of their brand of supplements, or wont be enough to cover your nutrition costs, never mind your living costs as well.
Modelling
Modelling and guest posing gigs can provide for additional income. This is also usually not a lot of money until you become well known and have established a strong brand that people recognize and want to pay for. This is also very competitive so it will be hard work for you to establish yourself from the crowd to get noticed by those who pay for models. The amount of bodybuilders who make a living from modelling is extremely low. It is a little more than the amount of people who live off sponsorships.
Personal Training
Many bodybuilders become personal trainers as a way of doing what they love and working in the same industry to pay the bills. The two are linked: the better they perform in bodybuilding competitions, the more clients with the same goals will want to be trained by them and therefore the more they can make from training others, by charging more per session. Working at a gym always has its benefits to the bodybuilder. He gets to network and has a bigger chance of possibly meeting someone who could help him get further in his career. Although you need to get qualified first, you can make a living from personal training, although its not going to make you rich. A large portion of people who compete in bodybuilding shows are personal trainers.
Being a Contest Coach
Being a contest coach, similar to personal training, can also provide a steady stream of income that you can depend on, but wont make you rich. In order to become a contest coach, you need to know how the contests work. You need to have the skills to transform a newbie into the best performer he or she can be onstage. You need a reason for people to believe that you can really help them to do the best they can at these shows. The better you do at your own shows, the more sought after you will to others wanting to be as successful as you.
Monetizing and Expanding on Your Personal Brand
If you want to make money out of bodybuilding, you need to develop your personal brand. You should become a brand that people admire. You can grow your brand by competing and placing in shows, gaining a big following on social media like Facebook and Twitter, trying to get as much publicity in the media as possible, and even offering to write guest posts for websites like SA Spotters. You should aim to reach as many people as possible. They should see your name repeatedly and start respecting your authority in the sport. Once you have developed a brand within the industry, you can start capitalizing on it by selling you own merchandise, partnering with another company to use your brand to reach a target market, or becoming a product ambassador for larger companies. The bigger your personal brand gets, the better the opportunities are. Once you are well known, magazines and other media might offer you good cash for interviews, appearances, etc.
Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is an often over-looked, and possibly lucrative, way to make money out of bodybuilding. If there is a product or service that you can provide that people are willing to pay for within the industry, you have a business opportunity. Starting a business in bodybuilding has many possibilities and ways of going about it. Although you can make endless amounts of money this way, it will require sharp business skills and the chances are also very high that you will make nothing (or even lose money) trying to start a business.
Tips and Advice
Decide: For Cash or For Fun?
Unfortunately bodybuilding is not like other sports because you cant try to qualify for a team and then get a salary depending on the club you belong to. If you want to make a living from it, you need to be clever about it. If you want to take up bodybuilding seriously, you need to decide whether you are going to do it for the sport of it or if you are going to need to make an income from it as well. If you dont need an income from it and have another way of making a living for yourself and can afford expenses like nutrition, then feel free to pursue it the best way you choose, like through hard training and entering competitions. Many of the greats have other forms of income and do bodybuilding professionally, even though they dont earn much from it. On the other hand, if you want to make your earnings from bodybuilding alone, you will need to be smart about it and plan well. You cannot plan on cash prizes for contests, so you will need to decide what other areas listed above you are going to do to make a steady income.
Think Long Term
If you are planning to live off bodybuilding, you will need to make a short-term, mid-term and long-term plan regarding finances. Perhaps get a normal job while you study to become a personal trainer, and once you are a personal trainer, work on starting a business that works well with your passion for bodybuilding.
Multiple Revenue Streams
The key to making a lot of money is through multiple revenue streams, instead of relying on only one way of making money. You first goal should be to establish a steady income, then your second should be to somehow get a secondary income, and with the extra money from the secondary income you can figure out the best way to turn the additional income into more money.
Think Apart From the Rest
As with any industry, the better you can differentiate yourself from the rest of the crowd as being superior from the rest, the more successful you will be. If you stand ahead of the rest on stage, as a personal trainer or business you can make a lot of good money. Originality Wins.
Be Money Smart
Save and use your money wisely. Make sure you always have enough for rainy days and keep your expenses as low as possible. The worst thing you want is to cut supplements in the middle of the month because you thought you would get more money and didnt!
We hope this info was useful. Please let us know in the comments below. Stay Strong!
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