your fitness boot camp management expert. And in this video, I m going to cover what

kind of certifications you may want to get if you are not currently in the fitness industry.

ve actually come across a fair number of people who just happens to stumble upon these videos

and are inspired not just to leave personal training, but to make a jump from whatever

industry they re in over to become a personal trainer and I want to encourage that, I just

want to make sure that you take the route that is best for you. And I ll give you my

personal opinion on different routes you can take and why I would deter you from some,

encourage you to others. So, there are couples of routes you can take. You could always go

the bachelor or associate route going to an accredited -- an accredited university and

getting your Bachelors in Exercise Science. Now, for those of you that are already out

of school, I would say -- I don t think it s necessarily worth it right now for you re-enroll

and pay for all the classes to get your Exercise Science Major, as there are in lot of other

sources out there. But, if you are currently in college and you re looking -- and you have

a say a Science-based major or if you just have extra electives that you can take, you

know, if you can finish up your Exercise Science and double major or I feel also minor that

would be great. If you re, you know, getting a bache -- if you re looking to get an Associate

s and you have a lot of Science-based courses already and it s not going to take more than,

you know, a few semesters for you to finish off an Associate s in Fitness or Personal

Training whatever the school terms it, you can definitely go that route. I was actually

at a Perform Better Seminar, one of those one by doing one day seminars and there was

a presenter named Michael Boyle, bald guy, you know, kind of like one of those tough

guys. But he said that really, you know, all you need is if you took an anatomy course

and a Physics course in college, you basically have all the -- everything you re going to

need to be an effective personal trainer. And, in terms of understanding how the body

works, that s not too far off. So if you re in school and you have the time and the credits

to take extra courses, you could go out -- you could go that route. But I understand that

a lot of you that are watching this video are not in school, out of school, never went,

whatever the case maybe and there are a lot of other sources out there and I just want

to make sure that you don t over spend. I m actually making this video cause I got an

e-mail from somebody that was looking to leave their industry and they were looking to get

an Associate s Degree. All they were told about an Associate s Degree and it cost like

$30,000 to get and I promtply responded and said absolutely you should not, I think $30,000

is too much to invest in the Associate s Degree and think the amount of time that you ll be

spending is just not going to be worth it. I also think that an Associate s Degree is

not much better, if at all better than any national accredited certification out there.

So I went over some national accredited certifications and I will do so with you guys later on in

this video. Before I do, there are also schools out there like the Personal Training Institute,

NPTI. Now, I don t think that it s bad, but I will say that everybody that goes to -- through

the national -- that goes through the Personal Training Institute gets a cert. So whether

you re great or whether you re just kind of just eek by, you re going to become a personal

trainer. And I m not sure if that environment will always produces the best quality of training.

From there you re going to have to go a lot further. There s one person in particular

that went through the National Personal Training Institute and then proceeded to get her NSCA

certification. And, that s something that I would take a little bit more seriously because

it really just depends on the teacher. I don t want to throw any rocks at the Personal

Training Institute. I've never taken classes there. I m just saying that if you go through

it, it s like you put your money down and you re automatically going to get your, you

know, your certificate regardless of the work that you put in. So I think it s easier to

skate by by if you take that route. And also think it s more expensive and more time consuming

than going the personal training certification route and that s where I m going to lead you

toward if you re out of school. There are a lot of $25, $50 online certifications out

there. You could essentially fill out the five -- ten question multiple choice examine

then bam, you re automatically a personal trainer. And although clients don t care really

what certification you have which is why these companies can get away with offering such

certifications, you do want to equip yourself, to the best of your ability to become an effective

trainer. So, I think the better route to take if you re out of school, is to get a personal

training certification. I think I mentioned in one of my previous videos that you probably

going to be best off having a, you know, doing your personal training certification working

in the gyms for a year because although you re going to learn a lot from -- from the cert

because it s really self-directed, you have to study, you have to apply yourself and then

you have to take the exam. It s not going to cover the interaction between clients.

It s not going to cover, you know, the sales process. And I think just working in the gym,

if you can get around a good group of trainers, you ll be better equipped to eventually start

your own business. I think it would be very difficult if you just got certification and

jump right into boot camp because there s a lot of personal interaction that you need

to get used to, different types of clients, understanding how different people like to

work out, just dealing with conflict, and when the buck stops with you, it can be a

little bit overwhelming. So I would suggest training for a year in a gym, you know, getting

advice from the head trainer and seeking out good personal trainers in the gym. Now, what

do I classify a good personal trainer; number one, somebody that gets results for their

clients. Number two, somebody that is accessible in the sales process without the use of guilt

trips or bullying because essentially, you know, you ll see a trainer can get a lot of

sales, but it s really they just forced a client s hand into training or they ll play

the guilt game, you know, Why are you re leaving me? or I was just about to do this. s one

of the reasons why I left personal training myself, there are a lot of what I felt underhanded

tactics that they use to get people to re-sign and I understand that s sales, but your work

should speak for itself. So a trainer to get sales on their own just through their own

professionalism, being able to talk to clients and creating and fostering a good relationship.

That s the kind of training that you want to be around. Third, you want to associate

yourself with the trainer that understands all areas of fitness. There are a lot of trainers

that know a lot about lifting, a lot of weights, but it s more than strength, it s also a cardio

vascular conditioning, it s coordination, it s flexibility, and there was one more,

it s nutrition and it s balance. So you want a trainer that s well-versed in all these

areas and add to your toolbox of knowledge with their experience. And I got to tell you

that one of the best things for me is being around a lot of trainers who were better than

I was that kind of just help to take my knowledge to another level and then I was able to add

to that and from there, I had no problem starting my own boot camp. So, in terms of certifications,

when I first got into personal training, I asked my head trainer you know what should

I do and he said, Well, you know, if you re looking for a good start certification, you

basically want to go with AFAA or ACE. AFAA is the Aerobics and Fitness Association of

America, ACE is the American Council on Exercise. I really didn t know which one to choose,

so I worked with ACE -- where are my books? I worked with ACE on because they have a cool

name, so I bought all the material with any certification. It cost me about $200, $300,

$400 for the study material. Hint hint nudge nudge, go to Amazon, there are a lot of trainers

out there who feel they don t need the starting information anymore and most out there studying

their studying material at a discount. But there are a lot of other great certifications

out there. I mentioned AFAA which goes over more aerobics. It s not a bad certification.

I think ACE will be a little bit better than AFAA to go into the personal training world,

but you could be just as successful with AFAA. There s also NESTA National Exercise and Sports

Trainers Association, there s ISSA, the International Sports Science Association, the NFPT, the

National Federation of Personal Training, and a harder one to get outside of the -- those

certifications I mentioned NSCA, National Strength and Conditioning Association. I would

say, if your passion is training athletes and predominantly athletes, NSCA is a good

route to take. And the mother of all personal training sessions personal training certifications,

ACSM, the American College of Sports and Medicine which I ve seen really carry the trainers

the labor for a very long time to get. Now, do I feel that you should get one particular

certification or a bunch of these? Not necessarily, but what I will say is in terms of the difference

between these certs, it s really the same information, they ll going to go over kinesiology,

they re going to go over nutrition, they re going to go over anatomy. The difference is

where they place emphasis on their forms of test. I know with ACE, a fair amount of it

was you know, they take your body fat, how do you take the rest of your heart rate, you

know, going over VO2 Max. And for me, my opinion is that with boot camp, you have to understand

who you re training, so a lot of the information while important isn t used as often because

clients don t focus on that. Now, you as a trainer can encourage your clients to track

the rest of their heart rate and to notice the difference in their blood pressure and

cholesterol because they do need to know that, that at the end of the day, most clients in,

you know, that you re going to be targeting are looking for general fitness. It s kind

of the easiest client to train because it s really about making sure that their form

is correct, making sure that they re not overworking, and making sure that they re even healthy.

Whereas, with the high level athlete, it s more about you know from looking to shave

you know three tenths of a second off of my 100-meter dash. How am I going to do that?

Which muscles are going to work? What technique are we going use? I always say -- tell my

clients, if you ever had a need of personal trainer, you want to kill me because it would

have to get so detailed and in general fitness that s not required. It s more about safety,

if I can put it -- I m trying to put -- I m trying to put this the best way possible,

but essentially, these clients aren t looking for you know the optimum, optimum level of

fitness, what they re looking for is general health. You ve got people coming in with 40%

body fat, they are just trying to get to a, you know, a reasonable body fat range and

that is mainly you re going to be focused around nutrition, exercise and safety, making

sure they have the correct form . So I would say in that respect, if you re looking for

personal training certification, ACE, NASM -- oh, I forgot NASM, I m sorry for all you

NASM certified personal trainers, National Association of Sports Medicine, if that s

correct, if I m wrong comment below and I apologize. But you have NASM and other one.

You know they had their different course from what I understand, NFPT tends to focus -- they

dedicate a little bit more time into making you a more business-minded personal trainer.

NASM has a lot more testing upfront like overhead squad testing; something that I see big a

lot with personal trainers that are NASM certified that I saw in my gym. But in terms of what

you need, you know, to get the fundamentals under your belt, I think NESTA, ISSA, NFPT,

ACE are perfectly fine. If you re looking for a higher level of training for specifically

athletes then NSCA would probably be one of your better bets and the mother of all them

is ACSM. AFAA is fine. I have nothing against AFAA. I just don t know enough about it to

give it as much credit. So for all you athletes certified trainers I m not throwing stones

at your certification. And at the end of the day like I always say, the clients really

don t care about your cert, you can tell them what letters following your name you know

[00:14:33][Indiscernible] and they ll just nod and say, Well, okay, fine. What does that

mean? They don t know. So the goal is for you to be as prepared as possible to be an

effective trainer. Now, in terms of jumping in to boot camp and management after your

cert, like I said before, you re going to best off, I think working in a gym for a year.

Get advice from your head trainer, had them critique your work. I mean, hopefully they

don t break the golden rule of training where you -- unless you re about to kill your client,

they don t interrupt you and correct you in front of your client. For those of you that

don t know, there s a golden rule in personal training. If the trainer is training their

client and they re doing something slightly wrong, you do not interrupt the personal training

session in front of their client and reprimand them. You re either going to pull them aside

and say that you had to ask them about something and then let them know personally or you re

going to wait until after the session if it s not completely wrong, go like, Hey, you

know that exercise, maybe you want to do that a little bit different. If you want to make

the trainer hate you, correct hem in front of their client. If you know about that, comment

below. But for those of you that just happen to find this video, this is part of the series

that I ve created where I m looking to -- I m dedicating my life essentially right now

to helping personal trainers transition over into entrepreneurship owning their own boot

camps as I feel that that is a better route and for all parties involved, for the clients

that has to pay less for their training, for the trainers that has -- that doesn t have

to exhaust themselves for 8 to 10 hours a day training each client for one hour at a