Personal Training Certifications

I just saw something horrible, and it made me upset enough to write this post.

I'm going to go a bit more in depth with personal training certificates.

The only ones "safe" from this post are PFT (personal Fitness Trainer) and some Kinesiology programs.

BUT

Let's start with my own experience.

I first off took the AFLCA (Alberta Fitness & Leadership Certification Association) at Red Deer College.

In order to become a Certified Fitness Trainer or whatever they called it, I don't quite remember, you had to take "fitness theory" and then a specialty, aka resistance training, aquatic training, elderly training etc.

So, in walks someone whom I couldn't help but raise one eyebrow. I'm going to keep this brief, but it could be expanded, and I'll go with this: She didn't look anything liked she belonged, and looked at if she were to pass out any moment from being malnourished.

I will say this, that fitness theory went decent. It was a 2 day course that basically rambled off mostly useless knowledge about levers, the names of the bones, along with some fun-filled word searches and the like to make sure you memorized these things to be able to impress your clients with your knowledge of the 2nd class lever.

The garbage part was the nutrition section. We were given Canada's food guide. The old one, not the new one. And a sheet from 1997 talking about how bad creatine is for you.

I don't need to say anymore than that.

Resistance training was where I got very upset.

I will pre-face with the following:

My working knowledge of the Human body was not as great as it is today, seeing as my course was 3 years ago.
The class I attending was comprised of mainly elderly women for whatever reason.
This was my first encounter with a "pro-trainer", which is the title for someone whom has been given the go ahead to certify/teach new trainers.

Every question I had was either answered incorrectly, or I was told "We'll come back to that."
To me it was simple things such as
"What about MCT's?"
"What is your opinion on the glycemic index?"
and I forget the others at the moment.

The practical part was even worse. We paired up, and had to demonstrate an exercise.
I remember that I picked the Deadlift.

Here's the funny thing: no one was corrected with what they did wrong. Some of the these people had never been inside a gym setting in their life, and were given zero correction.

Other than the following:

The instructor demonstrated her version of the squat.
Now, I do not expect a lot from a Personal Trainer, I have learned this.
But, from someone whom is a "pro-trainer" i expected a LOT.

This was horrible, inaccurate and flat out wrong and unsafe. I won't get into specifics, but let me tell you that squatting this was would eventually lead to injury and out of line posture.

We then were broken into teams of around 5, and each given a scenario to deal with.
We got a super easy one, a 20 year old male looking to build muscle.

I sat back and asked what the team thought. I could see the complete dismay across their faces. In other words, they were taught nothing so far. We hadn't even TOUCHED on program design, yet here we are, supposed to design a program.

I took the sheet, and set up Mark Rippetoe's Starting Strength beginner routine for them. It was very humbling to see them whip out their notebooks and start copying down the routine I was writing and also taking down the words I was saying as to why and when to implement the program.

I got up to present our case to the class, and did so very well in my opinion.

Now, let me shoot one further thing your way. I have no problem with people giving me their opinion, or trying to sway my opinion. I love a debate more than anybody and everybody...

BUT

When it turns into a "you're a jerk" and other name calling events, thats when I either leave or become very, very upset and crush the other person with evidence, unless of course they are that stubborn then of course I leave.

So, of course I had someone say that I was wrong. I politely asked why. I was given his suggestion. I explained why the suggestion the other class member had given was wrong, and that was the end of it.

And sadly, I asked for feedback from the instructor, whom said nothing other than "This probably wouldn't work for very long."

Side note, it worked for me for roughly a year. I guess we have different opinions of "not very long."

Ahhh yes. my favorite and the moment I left the class.
We were asked to name compound exercises.
People said bench press, squat.
I said Deadlift.
she said, and I quote "No, that's an isolation of the lower back."

Wow.

Wow.

I got up, got my things, and that was it. I had enough of this buffoonery and was done.

My second example is with a Local Registered Dietitian.

For those of you who don't know what a RD is, they are someone whom I believe goes through 6 years of schooling, and is allowed to give nutritional advice to bring people back to health from sickness. Correct me I definitely could be wrong.

This is not to be confused with nutritionist, whom doesn't have the same schooling as a RD.

I attending a Personal Training seminar about injuries, which I actually really enjoyed and took a lot away from. And at the end we had a guest speaker, a RD.

She prefaced her talk with a brief bio. All fine. Until she said the following:
"...once we get the person's carbohydrate requirement out of the way..."

I shot my hand up, as always, with my dumb grin.

I said "Hi! Have you heard of an essential amino acid?"
Confused, she said "....yes"
"Have you heard of an essential fatty acid?"
"...yes"
"Have you heard of an essential sugar?"
"...no ?"
"Then why did you just tell me I have a carbohydrate/sugar/glucose requirement?"

She stammered for a bit, and I got up and left.

AS ALWAYS MEGA MARTY GET TO THE POINT!!!!

These certifications really don't mean much. Yes this is my own personal experience, but I can't see them getting any better anytime soon.

They're profit driven. The amount of people in my class was probably equivalent to the amount of personal trainers currently in Red Deer. And that was one organization, and one class. So there has to be unprepared people failing in this industry all over the place.

Here's the really scary part:

The misguided trainers believe what they're being shown, and what they're practicing, is correct.
Parallel this to thinking we're doing things to save the planet when in fact we've been killing it (not true, just an example).

And no, I do NOT need to hear people tell me "But Mega Marty, they're just getting people started." or "Not everyone needs to do things perfect etc."

Because its YOUR BODY. These people can/will potentially mess up YOUR BODY due to improper instruction.

Bottom line is that there is yet to be a perfect personal training certification put out there, and none of them are perfect. All have some decent merit, but don't base your judgement of the trainer solely on the certification.