Greetings from a nerwbie and a Q. - Personal Trainer Community - Forum

[23]

Wow! What an incredibly informative message board you guys have here. I'm blown away by the information and insights that can be found here. And I look forward to sipping every drop from your fountain of valuable info.

After carefully reading your section on certifications, however, I am still left with a question of mine unanswered.

Mind if this newbie puts in on your plate for your comment(s)?

I am a retiree who has always been a physical exertion (read exercise) nut. And now I want to volunteer my time to work with two specific segments of the population to make them physical exertion nuts too: 1) seniors; and, 2) kids.

If that is my specific intent, which certification(s) will specifically equip me to work just with those two populations?

I won't be seeking employment as a personal trainer, but I will be volunteering my time to work with seniors at the local Y and children at my daughter's school.

And I want to be equipped/certified just to be better able to help them as a volunteer physical exertion nut.



Thanks for your advice in advance. And kudos for the great info that can be found here.

23

[Christina]

Hi 23, thank you for your kind words. I saw your post several days ago and was not able to find it again until now. Welcome to our forum. The only certification that I know of that prepares people to work with children is IYCA: http://www.iyca.org . Both of my certifications (NSCA and ACSM) have touched on training seniors but they did not specialize in it. I know that a lot of the trainers at my YMCA have an ACE certification so you may want to look into that as well. http://www.acefitness.org

Good luck!

Christina

[akyoda32]

ISSA has specializations in both senior fitness and youth fitness, but I haven't taken either. I do have the Fitness Trainer Cert from them and it was better than ACE's personal training cert(ACE also has a senior fitness course). As far as a cert for just kids go I have taken the IYCA youth fitness course lv1 and it is good for younger kids 5-10yr olds I haven't taken the other levels yet so I can not say what they will be like but you can get pretty much all the information from all the levels by getting the developing athletics collection from Brian Grasso. http://www.developingathletics.com/

[23]

the feedback. I have something to work with now.

I LOVE what IYCA is trying to do. It aligns exactly with my personal interest and goals.

Our children are our greatest hope for an enlightened future, I've always believed. And the seeds, for physical and mental well-being, need to be planted in their fertile soil NOW.

Again, you have a great site here. I hope that you know that. My compliments.

Thanks again.

23

[megfit]

Hi 23,

I'm going to make a couple comments to tap onto what's already been said. I believe that having a good BASE from which to specialize is a benefit to any of the kids or seniors you end up working with. The kids are comparatively easy, but seniors are not as 'pliable' and their bodies don't forgive goofs as easily.

So, with that said, I'd suggest considering either ACSM or NSCA (my preference for what you want to do would be NSCA for the strength training aspect), then specialize. ACE is an excellent entry-level certification, but either of the other two will best prepare you for the next step, which would then be some of the specialty certs for working with these populations.

Good luck to you!

Margie
(January book special: Buy JUST JUMP and get companion ebook for free)