Need Studying methods for NASM certification - Personal Trainer Community - Forum

[davidpdorsey]

Hello, my name is David and I purchased the NASM certification around late July. I am having trouble studying though. It may be that I'm also at a community college and that I work, but either way, I am not studying the NASM material like I should be. My whole family is waiting for me to become a certified trainer, and keep asking me "when are you going to be done' and truth is, I have no clue. I have barely gotten out of the 3rd chapter because I have a really really hard time memorizing vocab. And it seems like the first 4 chapter are heavily weighted with vocab. So anyone that has taken the NASM PT test can you please tell me if I need to know every single detail and every single vocab word, and how did you do your studying. Right now, I had my gf make flash cards, and lets just say.....they havent moved. I am more of a visual learner, and the dvds help, but I havent watched a lot of them because it says to read the book first. So again, any help, studying methods/routines that you think could help me will be HIGHLY appreciated seeing as I don't want to work at the movies for the rest of my life. I want to help others achieve their desired level of fitness.

Also, if I bought the material late July I have until early November to take the test right? And do you think there is a way I can learn the material by early November? Or should I not rush it?

Thank you for reading this, and any help will be greatly appreciated.

[kirts]

I did my NASM CPT course around 18 months ago and found it easy

You don't need to know everything in the book, just skim through it and do the pratice exams and questions as a lot of them are repeated in the actual exam and it's multiple choice

Don't be intimidated by all the text, just go for it !

[Pat..]

While there is a lot of memorization involved, the way I approached it was to grasp the concepts first, then work on some of the memorization. In other words, I read the chapter, did the questions in the workbook, and watched the video. I jotted some notes as I went along. Another tool that kept me on track was setting weekly goals for completing chapters. Knowing the concepts is what is important, and helps with grasping and understanding the things needing memorizing.

I did have the added benefit of taking a NASM prep course that helped with hands on practice and keeping on track with timeline goals.