Advice please! Am I doing the smart thing? - Personal Trainer Community - Forum

[Knruiz]

Hi all, I am currently a third year college student, studying to get my B.S. in kinesiology emphasizing in fitness, health, and nutrition. Due to recent budget cuts in California, I honestly have NO idea of when I am graduating For the past couple of years I have been going through a lifestyle change, and experienced the benefits of living a healthy, active, and most importantly a happy life. I have always had a passion for helping people reach their goals and surpass their potential, and decided the fitness industry would be great for me to hopefully get in to!

Basically, my plan right now is to get certified as a personal trainer to gain experience while in school, so maybe it'll be easier to get a higher end job whenever I get my degree. But I'm torn between which certifications I should actually go for. Right now I'm either thinking of going for the NASM - CPT and then going for ACSM - HFS after I graduate...or going for ACSM - CPT and then the higher certification after I graduate. I do like the approach of both organizations, but would it be smarter to stick with just ACSM? Or are there higher certs offered by NASM as well?

If anyone would like to give me their opinion to help me with my decision/future planning, that would be fantastic. Thanks!

- Kristen

[kelli m]

I am surprised that your degree program is more closely with one certification body than the other.

Ultimately your degree is the most important thing. Either certification route is fine. The only advantage may be to gain exposure to differing viewpoints.Of couse, my personal belief is that universities should be providing differing exposure to various schools of thought

You also must consider than obtaining and keeping multiple certs gets expensive. I don't know if you are inclined or if you have the means to take an additional class every semester after graduating, but you may be better served to use that money and take REAL classes to further your education. Take a business class here, a biochemistry or psychology class there and learn things that ae important to what we do but are not taught by the certyifying bodies or even an exercise science major.

[kelli m]

Posted: Wed Oct 14, 2009 9:42 pm Post subject:

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"I am surprised that your degree program is more closely with one certification body than the other. "

Should have read '.....program is NOT more closely aligned......'

Sorry.

[kaiserS]

Hi all, I am currently a third year college student, studying to get my B.S. in kinesiology emphasizing in fitness, health, and nutrition. Due to recent budget cuts in California, I honestly have NO idea of when I am graduating For the past couple of years I have been going through a lifestyle change, and experienced the benefits of living a healthy, active, and most importantly a happy life. I have always had a passion for helping people reach their goals and surpass their potential, and decided the fitness industry would be great for me to hopefully get in to!

Basically, my plan right now is to get certified as a personal trainer to gain experience while in school, so maybe it'll be easier to get a higher end job whenever I get my degree. But I'm torn between which certifications I should actually go for. Right now I'm either thinking of going for the NASM - CPT and then going for ACSM - HFS after I graduate...or going for ACSM - CPT and then the higher certification after I graduate. I do like the approach of both organizations, but would it be smarter to stick with just ACSM? Or are there higher certs offered by NASM as well?

If anyone would like to give me their opinion to help me with my decision/future planning, that would be fantastic. Thanks!

- Kristen

I like your plan of getting experience while you're still in school - as for whether which cert to go for, I think either/or is fine -

[Joe Cannon MS CSCS]

This is just my two cents. I would opt for an NSCA cert. ACSM is a good organization and well respected however I wonder how much of what they teach is "real life". I hear they still make you learn skin fold calipers. I know if your in school you probably learned this also. however very few health clubs do this anymore (its mostly a liability issue -men touching women etc - and it takes time to teach it to people so clubs mostly dont bother with it )
ACSM may also have you learning a lot of metabolic calculations which again you are unlikely to do as a trainer. I could be wrong on this because I have not taken the ACSM cert and only am going by what Ive been told.

I found the NSCA-CPT exam to be very real life as to what was needed to be a trainer -whether it was working in a gym (which I suggest you do at first) or self employed.
hope this helps
Joe