An enlightening weekend
acsm, personal training, certification, workouts
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For the past three days I have been attending an American College of Sports Medicine Certified Personal Trainer workshop at Manhattan College in The Bronx.
The workshop is intended to help aspiring trainers prepare for the ACSM's certification exam. It's essentially a cram course that extracts the key concepts from the voluminous study materials published by ACSM for those planning to take the exam.
After trying to read and absorb the overwhelming amount of information in the recommended texts over the past few weeks, I was somewhat relieved to find that much of the workshop reinforced material that was covered in my WITS course last fall, in some cases going into greater depth on the science behind the material.
The instructor, Tedd Keating, is a professor of physical education and human performance at Manhattan. He presented the material in a lively and interesting fashion.
There were 12 people participating in the workshop for all three days, with two more joining us for the one-day session Sunday. It was a diverse group, including several people already working as personal trainers, as well as a couple of firefighters, an actor, a Jehovah's Witnesses volunteer, and, of course, one middle-aged journalist. I learned as much from my fellow students as I did from the workshop presentations.
For me, the most valuable part of the workshop came in Sunday morning's session, at which we were presented with several hypothetical case studies of people embarking on an exercise program. Using the information provided, we got together in small groups to determine each person's risk factors and individual needs, and then to design a workout program involving cardio, flexibility and resistance training. This is exactly the sort of exercise I'd been looking for.
Curiously, a case study we dealt with involved a client named "Homer," an overweight, 37-... read entire entry
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on 5/12/2008
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24.5
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A bump in the road to becoming a trainer
personal trainer, wits, internship, certification, acsm
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My efforts to become a personal trainer have hit a major snag, and I wonder if any of you trainers out there have any advice for me.
I'm very frustrated over the internship I'm doing to obtain my WITS certfication, and I'm even wondering if I fell for a scam by taking the WITS course in the first place.
Let me back up...I took the WITS (World Instructor Training School) course at the local community college last fall and passed the written and practical exams. However, in order to be certified, I had to complete a 20-hour internship at a fitness facility under the supervision of a senior trainer. The internship is supposed to consist of 10 hours of observation of the trainer with clients, 5 hours alternating training and observing, and 5 of doing all the training with the senior trainer supervising.
WITS tells you that they "help" to arrange the internship. What that "help" consists of is giving you a list of health clubs in your state. They lead you to believe that these clubs have an internship program. Not so. I must have called half a dozen clubs on the list, and all of them told me flat out they don't offer internships. And at least one of the clubs on the list had been out of business for a couple of years.
The training director of my own gym, World Gym, rather hesitantly agreed to let me do the internship there, only because I was a member. He assigned me to a senior trainer who's a really nice guy, and I completed the observation part with no problem.
However, the actual training has proved problematic. The clients are paying for the services of a certified trainer, and don't want to be trained by an intern. My supervisor insists its nothing to do with me personally, but that doesn't help.
In addition, some of the gyms I've spoken to say they don't even recognize WITS certif... read entire entry
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on 4/17/2008
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9.1
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