I just paid ACE six hundred bucks for their deluxe certification course, why? A number of reasons, the biggest is curiosity. Many people seem to put certified personal trainers on a pedestal and I’m about to find out if its justified or not by doing it myself.
The cynical part of me thinks its just a bunch of useless memorization of muscle names and bone names. My cynicism has probably been caused by a few bad apples who hold up their certification card like a police department badge every time they get in an argument and cant think of any reasonable way of defending their position – “well I’m a CERTIFIED personal trainer and you aren’t – neener, neener, neener”.
The optimistic part of me hopes that its an in depth course covering strength training theory, advanced powerlifting techniques, advanced nutritional concepts, plyometrics, sport specific training for soccer, basketball, football, and volleyball as well other advanced training techniques. I truly hope that I will learn some cool stuff.
So thats the main reason, to satisfy my curiosity and so that I can report to you how much you should respect a trainer with an ACE certification. I’m pretty experienced, will I learn anything? Will they cover the things that I already know and think are important? We will see. If it turns out that the certification is rigorous, then it would be worth choosing a personal trainer based upon their certification. If it turns out that the certification is light weight and basically useless, then you would be better off choosing a personal trainer based on how THEY have been able to develop their own physique, basically, hire someone who has built the physique that YOU want.
OK, the other reason is pretty lame, its for insurance. Technically, nobody could sue me and win since everything I put out there is free of charge (no warranty expressed or implied) and is protected under free speech. Since I’m a conservative kind of guy, I carry a big insurance policy anyway because just because people cant win a law suit is no guarantee that that wont sue anyway. If they make a frivolous lawsuit, it forces me to hire an expensive attorney to defend myself. Being a certified personal trainer gives me access to much less expensive insurance :) See what happens? I turn 50 and all I can think about is discounts and coupons :) AARP discounts, insurance discounts. :) FYI, big discount on ACE Certification if you are a senior like ME :)