How Important Are Personal Training Credentials?

For quite a while, now, there's been a pretty heated debate going on in the personal training community about credentials. People are expressing concern and interest but there's also a fair amount of mud-slinging about what qualifications trainers need and what characterizes a good trainer. These characteristics are actually pretty easy to list: A good trainer must provide value, exhibit integrity, quality, knowledge and experience and be committed to service.

The really great trainers are not only committed to their clients but to the industry, too. They step up their game and seek to reach the higher ranks. This allows serve as role models for and mentor those who are on the lower rungs and discourage mediocre or poor trainers from poisoning the well. They also show their clients the level of expertise and professionalism to expect from a good trainer, which challenges the profession and will ultimately weed out the inferior training you see in many gyms today.


Here are the players:

Over-qualified trainers: these are the ones who want to be put on a pedestal because they've piled up the credentials and are frustrated that their income and prestige doesn't reflect what the time and money they've expended to accrue them.

A wary public: these are the folks who want personal training but have become hesitant after they've heard negative stories about trainers in the media. They're now either leery of or uncertain about hiring a trainer or coach (this group includes those that have been burned by a trainer).

Exploited trainers: these are primarily health-club or independent trainers. Many of them are qualified and committed, and have their hearts in the right place. But, they're frustrated because they know how unqualified many of their fellow trainers are and that, despite their hard work and superior skills, they're grossly underpaid.


Top-tier trainers: these trainers who are very confidant about their success and abilities; they're sitting back and watching this all unfold. You'll notice them delivering a lot of the relevant info on this subject. Their input often reflects consensus ideas on the whole certification issue.

I join a lot of other highly-qualified trainers tend to dismiss the importance of certifications for the most part. We see them for what they are, the most basic requirement allowing anyone to get into the business. We're kind of like a group of Navy Seals laughing at the petty physical requirements in Jump School. Yeah, sure you need a certification... But it's such a small, and undistinguishing part of what goes into being a savvy, successful trainer that we don't pay much attention to it. And, fortunately, it's easy to cheaply and effectively rack up major personal training certifications.

In almost every thread, here's what it eventually boils down to:

The debate begins focused on credentials and qualifications - this is how every major profession is judged so it naturally extends to personal training. For example everyone wants to know where their doctors or lawyers graduated from, so their first impulse is to judge trainers the same way too.

But personal training is different from every other profession, so criteria applied to others doesn't for this vocation. Because even the top qualifications in the industry such as a degree in Sports Science or Exercise Science doesn't guarantee you're qualified to be a mentor and leaders in the area of fitness, health, and exercise.

Some of these trainers will tell you about their frustration when they discover that their degrees didn't help them win the job or pay they're after. What started as their passion and a genuinely appealing career track turns out to entail working long hours, performing menial tasks, and unrewarding work. Then you'll see trainers who didn't go to this kind of trouble and are earning high incomes, doing great work and delivering a lot of the relevant information on the subject. So where the debate ends up is treating Personal Training as an art. The relevant criteria have little to nothing to do with certification. To understand what is, examine your peers' performance.

Look at their training practices - Are they professional in their appearance and behavior? How do they train their clients? What's their specialty? Are multiple clients being given the same workouts?

Listen to their referrals- how do their clients speak about them? Do they have experience dealing with clients in your types of settings? Are they delivering results to their clients? (In my opinion, anything short of blindingly positive referrals is a red flag.)

Look at their physiques - do they look as though their training is working for them? Forget about the argument that you don't need to master an area to teach it to others. If you're selling services and techniques that you claim are an effective way to achieve outstanding fitness, you'd better be a good example of it.

Talk to your peers - ask them about how they do what they do. Test their basic knowledge. Find out about their certifications, which should, at the very least indicate some basic professionalism and competence. Look at their Web sites which, show they care about how their services are portrayed and perceived.

If you do this widely, you will quickly learn to steer clear of health club trainers. It's been said--and it's often true, that a lot of them are pimple-faced 19 year olds who just got their GEDs. And, people who find my Web site through Google searches say they like my approach. are impressed by my track-record, and like that I'm a real professional, because they're looking to avoid health-club-based mass-marketed trainers.

And, as for the public's anxiety over whether and where to get personal training, it's a boon for us top-level trainers; it's driving all the business in our direction. Your solution: join our ranks. Get serious, get committed, build your knowledge-base practice what your preach, and be a pro.

Kaiser Serajuddin is working for super trainer.Visit our website to know how to get started in personal training, how to become a personal trainer, and learn how to earn a high income, and market your fitness business.