Choosing High-Quality Personal Trainer Certification Programs
by Samuel Hirschberg
Personal Trainer Certification Programs
Effective personal trainer certification programs properly prepare you for a successful career as a fitness trainer. This is why you'll need to look at personal trainer certification programs that provide practical applications in addition to theory-based applications. Of course classroom education is critical to your understanding of the basic principles, but it is equally important that you have a thorough hands-on knowledge. You’ll not only need to understand what effect each exercise has on the body, but you’ll need to be able to properly perform and teach each exercise.
The Best Personal Trainer Certification Programs – Theory vs. Practical
I personally believe the ISSA offers the best personal trainer certification programs as they offer a take home exam, a practical in-the-classroom option, and they even offer a course online. In addition to several options to fit your schedule, they have a toll-free hotline to an in-house staff of highly educated fitness trainers to help you with any questions, free to members. If you are not involved with ISSA, be sure to contact the organization where you got your personal trainer certification and ask them about other hands-on personal trainer certification programs , as well as their exam options and long-term support. The program and instructors should be able to help you properly perform and teach certain basic movements (at a bare minimum) that effectively target the muscles that will help your clients best. After all, if you don't learn how to perform the exercises yourself, how do you expect to teach your paying clients how to do them?
In addition to mastery of the basic hands-on personal training principles and exercises, you’ll need to show competence on other basic areas of fitness. You’ll need to take a client's heart rate, measure body fat, and perform simple strength tests. These are basic measurements that you must perform in order to excel in your personal trainer career, and tasks you will learn in most highly-respected personal trainer certification programs .
The best personal trainer certification programs are those that intelligently combine a theory-based approach with a practical applications based approach. Be sure to do your research and ask the personal trainer organization of your choice their study options, and flexibility in education, to best fit your needs. Good luck with your personal trainer certification programs !
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