Most respected Personal Trainer Cert?

[atavist Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close atavist]

I've always been interested in being a personal trainer... but have never felt like I was in good enough shape to be a self advertisement... I know I'd only listen to a trainer who was in great shape... if they can't train themselves afterall how can they expect to train someone else...
But I think the time has come... I'm now at 250lbs, at 6'2 and the calipers just put me at 12%bf... and I'm not done cutting...
... I'm no Safelife by any means and will never be a pro but I'm finally getting a lot of walk-up questions at the gym from strangers and having people stop to watch me... time to get paid

Looking online ISSA comes up on the top of most searches... but that might just be becuase they pay more to the search engines... any recommendations on the "best" dept of education approved personal trainer cert? I've still got some GI Bill left so plan on having uncle sam foot the bill.

Obviously I'm looking for a distance ed course as I can't relocate just for this.
thanks.

[LittleNicky Member Find all posts View Profile Close LittleNicky]

It all depends on what demographic youre wanting to train. CSCS is a good vert to have if youre wanting to work with athletes and more able bodied people. ACSM is considered the "GOLD STANDARD" across the board. Theres different levels of the ACSM. The HFS or Health Fitness Specialist cert requires you to have a 4 year degree in Exercise Science or something relevant to health. However, the PT (Personal trainer) cert only requires you to have a HS diploma and be 18 years of age. I have the ACE cert. Its very similar to ACSM PT cert. You can work with a lot of special populations people, overweight, as well as just healthy individuals looking to improve their quality of life. But to say which cert is better than the other...it just depends what demographic youre trying to tap into.

[atavist Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close atavist]

makes sense... this area doesn't have a college nearby so there aren't many athletes other than HS level who aren't going to pay for training. Probably mostly middle aged overweight suburbanites who want to make a lifestyle change and get in better shape.

ACSM sounds like a good way to go...
... what's your opinion on ISSA Certs?

[LittleNicky Member Find all posts View Profile Close LittleNicky]

To be completely honest ive never really looked in to ISSA. I will tell you this though, ACSM refers back to ACE in their study books on some subject matters and ACE also refers back to ACSM in the study books. In my opinion, you cant go wrong with ACE or ACSM for the demographics that you'll most likely be working with that you described above. After all, If you have an athletic background, understand the different types of training and different guidelines to stay within for special populations, have a creative mind, and youre personally willing to try new things for the sake of keeping your mind open to different types of exercises and modalities to see how they could correlate to different clients goals, then you can train anyone and give them an effective program to help them achieve the results that they want.