SuperFitness

Making Exercise a Profession

Exercise has become the single most important part of a long-term healthy lifestyle program. Professional athletes, hardworking amateur athletes, and bodybuilders find exercise an enjoyable and important part of their lives. Some readers may want to make it their profession as well. Not everyone majored in exercise physiology in college, but there is still a need for special training before you can become a professional trainer.

SuperFitness has investigated more than a dozen programs offering training toward a goal of certification as a Personal Trainer. Many can be discarded as scams on the surface. Others are truly valuable training programs from organizations with noble goals. To do this story, we have actually taken a number of the training courses. This column is on the training program offered by the National Federation of Professional Trainers.

The program is available as a printed binder program, or as an audio CD. Both options include a VHS format video tape of the 'core' exercises the NFPT program uses. The costs are $350 to $375 plus a retesting charge of $50 for tests taken after the first 30-days of study or any retests. The testing program includes one or more sites in each state where you can go to take three 100 question multiple choice and true-false question tests.

We reviewed the book and VHS tape version of the program. The "Study & Reference Manual" has 15 chapters of text (14 of which are on the tests), a bibliography, a glossary, an index, the NFPT consultation guidelines, NFPT charts & tables, and a master food list. The course transmittal letter warns that the exam will be broken down into three "different" sections. There is no indication in the book as to parts that might be classified as a section test. The tests are, in fact, documents that cover the whole book and tape.

Unless you have had a good deal of exercise physiology, muscle biology, and nutrition theory, you will find the material heavy reading. The 146 pages of the manual will not be a quick read. The text goes to some length to explain the underlying science behind exercise and nutrition theory. The NFPT has a set of suggested movements (exercises) and alternate movements you can view on the video tape.

The tests are heavily loaded with questions that turn on your knowledge of specific terms explained in the manual. Knowing the theory without the terms may prevent you from getting the required 75 percent needed to pass any one of the "section" exams. Some parts of the terminology are considered so important that questions about them appear on all three sections. Very few questions come from the exercises shown on the video.

The NFPT offers three levels of certification (Personal Trainer 1st Class, Personal Trainer 2nd Class, and Personal Trainer 3rd Class). Passing one "section" exam qualifies you for the Personal Trainer 3rd Class certificate, passing two qualifies you for the Personal Trainer 2nd Class certificate, etc. Retesting requires the retesting fee of $50, although there is no limit to the number of chances you have to pass all three sections.

The NFPT has a continuing education program through their monthly magazine. The first year's subscription is included in the initial fee. The $75 annual continuation fee includes the magazine, a mail out open book recertification test, use of the on line computer bulletin board system, and the availability of professional liability insurance. Always check with your doctor before starting or changing an exercise program. Contributed by C. W. Mann, who also writes the syndicated newspaper column, SuperFitness. His latest book BUILD HARD will be published by Human Kinetics Inc. in November of 1997. Please direct your personal fitness questions to cybercast@bigfoot.com.

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