The personal trainer, strength and conditioning coach, sports performance coach, physical preparation coach or whatever tag line you want to put as your title, it’s still all about fitness. The problem with fitness is that it’s unregulated, there is no state licensure to show that you have a standardized foundation. While many personal trainers, especially in New York City, like to say that they are “certified”, what does this actually mean?
Certifications
While certifications are some what important, there are MANY certifications out there with varying levels of difficulty- from taking it online, to a proctored center. But even the “higher” level certifications such as the CSCS (Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist) does not mean you’re qualified. It means you know THEIR (the founding body) base fundamental knowledge, does this mean you can implement it too? By the way, the CSCS is a written test with no practical testing, so they have half of the whole…
I’m not trying to knock on the CSCS, as I have it myself, and it does show you have the knowledge but the issue is how well you can apply that knowledge. I don’t even want to touch on if that “knowledge” is actually correct, this will rapidly turn into a 20 page rant…ok going back to practical knowledge, this is learned through working under a great Coach.
If I were to talk to a trainer/coach who has only passed the CSCS and has not been mentored by an experienced coach about running mechanics, they may very well SOUND like they know what they are talking about using run specific terminology. BUT what happens if I put them in a group with 10 athletes doing 20m sprints, would they be able to quickly troubleshoot the error? Can they spot mechanical deficiencies at full speed in real time with NO replay? AND communicate back to the athlete in a way that they will understand and implement? Probably not, because they lack practical experience… This is one of many reasons why I weigh practical experience (with a QUALIFIED Trainer/Coach) over certifications or “book smarts”.
These trickeries are common amongst a lot of the young personal trainers. Partly due to how easily information is accessible now through YouTube, websites, journals etc… and because of this these personal trainer are just regurgitating what they’ve heard but MANY do not know how to apply the knowledge and develop results!
So if you’re getting into fitness make sure that you don’t fall into the trap that “Certifications = Qualified”, it’s clearly not as there are many unqualified personal trainers running around touting about their certifications.
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