For
those wanting to become a personal trainer, a high school diploma or a college
degree is not enough. Yet sadly the only requirement to become a personal
trainer is to be 18 years old, have a high school diploma or equivalent, and be
First Aid & CPR with AED certified.
Over
16 years ago, I began a career in the fitness industry with a high school
diploma and First Aid/CPR certifications.
As with many personal trainers just starting out of high school or even
college, I was clueless about what I was doing. Sure, I knew how to add muscle
to someone – I would simply recommend that they double their protein
intake. Making someone loss weight was
easier. They just needed to reduce their calorie count to 1000-1200 kcal a
day. ‘No sweat, I got this!’ I was
wrong, all wrong!
I
trained blind for two years before I realized that I needed to learn so much
more about my scope of practice. So, I enrolled as a Kinesiology major at
Tarleton State University and minored in Communication. Both fields helped me
immensely as a personal trainer. During my undergraduate days, I was asked by a
former instructor to teach step aerobics, but it was under the condition that I
get certified.
Undergraduates
and graduate students should know that most gyms, private and cooperate,
require employees to get certified as a Personal Trainer, Group Exercise
Instructor, or Specialty Instructor. In
my upcoming posts I will discuss the differences in fitness and personal
training certifications and the companies that provide them. I also will
discuss some of the common misconception personal trainers deal with.
In all honesty, I thought it was a requirement everywhere to have a personal training certification. I did not know that it was not enforced everywhere and just a requirement if a gym or facility chose to. However, I do feel it should be required everywhere because an average Joe does not understand how the body works, they just know how to move weight around. Being a certified personal trainer, I get frustrated when I see people telling others how to perform certain movements in a weight room that are incorrect or unsafe for the body. Like any other job, there should be specific requirements and knowledge to train.
ReplyDeleteI have spoken to several people who have received certification to be a person trainer. One person told me that they went to a library to take their test and was handed the test and was told to go sit down and take it, nobody watched them they could have cheated on the entire thing. It honestly seemed like a joke and kinda scared me because i was looking into getting a personal trainer to pursue a dream of competing. I didn't want to hand my money over to someone who i had no idea how they got certified or had no other credentials. so it is VERY important to make sure that your trainer knows or has some kinda background in the field of personal training, do your research! There is definitely a need to have stricter requirements to acquire a CPT certificate.
ReplyDeleteIf one wants to pursue personal training than their should be a way to MAKE SURE that they know what they need to know. I know that I would not want someone telling me or anyone that I care for getting told incorrect information and them not see the results they want after working hard. Also since I am studying fitness management I want to make sure that I am giving the correct information cause I want to see people I work with be successful and healthy.
ReplyDeleteA trainer must know about how the body works and know how to work it correctly. I know I would be angry if I hired a personal trainer that didn't know what they were doing and I either wasn't seeing results or I hurt myself. There needs to be stricter requirements on certifications to ensure that no one will slip through that doesn't know what their talking about.
ReplyDeleteAs with anything else you need further education to really understand how something works. With a lot of jobs sure you can go in right out of high school and be taught how a certain job works but in order to fully understand what it is you are doing you need that further training and education. Without it you are only doing what you were taught and you have no true experience. If you aren't completely sure what you're doing and how what you are doing helps the body, the person that you are training isn't going to know what they are doing or why either.
ReplyDeletePersonal training is a serious profession. I feel like if you are uneducated and are personal training then you could be doing more harm than good. Also I feel like if you are educated than more people will come to you for advice.
ReplyDeleteWhat made you want to become a personal trainer and when did you know you wanted to become a personal trainer? Did you attend college for all four years at Tarleton or just two? Are you graduated or are you still a student?
ReplyDelete