You were listening to the nasm CPT podcast with Rick Richie the official podcast of the National Academy of sports medicine. Welcome to that nasm CPT podcast. My name is Rick Ritchie. And today we're going to talk about the importance of being certified The Importance of Being certified again. I own several gyms in New York City and without fail within every month or two months.I get somebody that reaches out as an independent trainer and they want to train out of one of my facilities and they'll say you know, what do I need in order to train their and I give them a list of things and the first thing on that list is an accredited certification. So I need an up-to-date accredited certification and then it's insurance and CPR and their AED and a list of a few other things and majority of the time when somebody has a problem with something. It's the very first thing that I Ask for its well, I let my certification lapse but I've been in the industry for 20 years. And so I've got a lot more experience and a lot of these other people. I feel like just recertifying or getting certified maintaining certification. It's it's not important. It's just I'm spinning my wheels. I'm already certified and I also get people that say I already know this stuff. I know how to work out at work out on my own spending. Money to become certified is a waste of money and I don't need it. I I I usually just say hey, let me stop you right there. You're barking up the wrong tree with me man. If you were not certified, then you're not going to be able to train here. I mean, if you're going to tell somebody that something is not important when it comes to education in the field that you say that you want to be a part of that. Maybe you don't want to be a part of that field you imagine your medical. Doctor Who has the same requirements. They got to go and do continuing education every year or two years in order to maintain their license nurses have to do it massage therapists have to do at athletic trainers have to do it. But you as a personal trainer or so smart that you don't need to be up to date on any of the information that's coming out because it's unnecessary to you. I don't think that that's valuable. Step number one important part number one. You should want to be educated. You should desire to be educated and I'm going to tell you that I'm one of those guys that was surprised and I'm sure many of you are in that boat when I opened my very first personal training textbook. I opened it up and I thought what is this? Like I exercised already. I'm athletic but now I got to learn. This stuff it just seemed overwhelming and complicated and all I want to do is be able to count to 10 when people are like doing reps. You know what I mean? Like it's simple yeah, you open a textbook and you find out it's a bit more advanced than you thought it was going to be it's harder than you thought it was going to be. So we the industry weeds out a lot of people right there and yet people are still out there and they say well, I don't want to get certified don't need to get certified. I do the same stuff at the gym that I see all the trainer's doing a At the gym, so what does it matter? I think that you got to be real really really quite careful with that line of thinking. Being up to date and having something that shows that you're up to date which is what a valid certification and accredited certification. That's within the timeline of maintaining its validity. You need that. All right. Let me to being up-to-date and knowledge is one of the main reasons for getting certified. Textbooks for accredited certifications go through updates every four or five years something like that. So even the textbooks these companies are spending money. They're having researchers come in and authors come in and they update the content and they find the up-to-date research out there that's supporting the information that producing the textbook. So the the companies are staying up-to-date. The accredited ones are required to do that to maintain their accreditation. So it's valuable to even work with a company that's maintaining an up-to-date certification. Well, I've also had people come in and say well I have a degree in the field. I have a bachelor's in kinesiology and I agree with them when they say this I guarantee I learned more in my four years of college studying Kinesiology than somebody learns in a hundred and twenty day home study course and maybe a weekend Workshop that goes along with it. It that's probably true. Maybe that is true. But what keeps you up to date because I know that once I got my degrees nobody came around a few years later and said, you know, have you have you updated your degree? No, once once I graduated I graduated I I always will have a Bachelors in this and and I will always have a whatever in this go whatever field of study you did. You're always going to have that so nobody's asking you are you up to date but a certification does that every time? Years certification make sure that you're up to date every two years in something so and it has to be an approved provision. So whether that's college courses that you get credit for your certification or whether it's approved courses that the certifying body says we think that this person has good education good content. We will offer continuing education credits for this line of study towards the update of your credential. Then they provide that but so yeah, you you may have learned a lot more than I did in through your degree while I was doing my certification, but I have to continue to take courses every year to stay up to date and same thing goes again. We go back to the medical profession and we'll go back so that the doctors and the nurses and the LM teas and athletic trainers and physical therapists. All of the people have to stay up-to-date in their content. So Require that usually if you have a license, then there's a registration. So you have to maintain your license or registration. If you are a professional in a certain field that like like a doctor or physical therapist this just a way that trainers can maintain that I'll also say this many colleges are going to partner with a certifying body so nasm they may they may partner with ACSM or you know, like several hi. High quality providers of content and education and a lot of these colleges not just partner with them, but they prepared their students at to study and to pass this accredited certification as part of their coursework. So often times if you did go and get a degree that degree is preparing you for a certification not just for a degree of so you walk out not just as someone that has a bachelor's in exercise science. Kinesiology or physiology but you also walk out with a certification in as a personal trainer through the National Academy of sports medicine or whomever whatever certifying body is that partnered with with your college or university college is find the value of partnering and creating these relationships with certifications. Number three learning how to not hurt somebody is primary then optimizing outcomes is going to be next. So going in and learning how to not hurt somebody I think is incredibly valuable. I know that you may work on a regular basis. You don't think that you need to get certified but you got to learn how to not hurt people that's it should be very important that and what are the things that people do when it comes to Sighs and movement and and dysfunction and impairment and then adding resistance on to it. You know, what what are you learning about? When when you don't go through a certification? You're not you're not focusing on what are the potential injuries? You just may be focused that I did this when I was in college and this worked for me. So I'm basically just going to charge people the same thing it you know a price for what I did in college. college and I don't I don't know if you know this but there are multiple college programs out there that have terrible strength and conditioning Concepts that go into training them and I remember one of my friends who played baseball at a high-level division one team was talking about his strength and conditioning program and when he got together with some of the other athletes that were in different sports, They all had the same program. You're telling me that this guy that played baseball had the same program as the female volleyball player who had the same program as the guys are on the football team and there are totally different man demands and all of these Sports and it was baffling and he said that's when I was very confused and realize that a lot of times the colleges aren't out there producing the best content when it comes to exercise. No don't get me wrong. A lot of them are brilliant and they are Cutting Edge and they are out there doing the research. And they've got great stuff, but we do know that we all those people out there doing the research people like nasm are finding that research and we're simulating that and putting it into our content. I'm working right now on doing some rewrites within one of our textbooks and I'm going through and just filing through all of this content and research that's up to date through these universities so we can have peer-reviewed quality content that we are continually updating with then the text. Isn't everything when it comes to not hurting somebody and that being primary litigations On The Rise and I just want you to imagine what it's going to look like if somebody gets hurt while they're training with you and you are not certified as a personal trainer, but you were charging them to teach so that you can teach them how to exercise. I don't think that that's going to look good for you in your day in court so realize that the certification and And insurance and you're going to need insurance and in order to be insured having a certification is a vital importance. So are you and insured and certified personal trainer and a lot of times you go in to get insurance? They'll ask who you're certified through and what is your number? Like? What is your your Certification Number so they can track it and then they will provide you with insurance as a thank you for listening to the nasm CPT podcast. Special effort for you 20% off of any nasm order you can use that 20% to get certified as a personal trainer through a CPT program the standard for the fitness industry or expand your career with one of our specializations, including our latest One nasm Nutrition certification, which gives you the skills to be a certified nutrition coach get 20 percent off your order by calling 804 6-0 6-2 7-6 or visiting nasm dot org and using the code podcast 20. That's eight hundred four six zero six to seven. Six and the discount code is podcast 20 start changing even more lives today. Man, you do not want to hurt anybody. First of all get certified so that you can minimize the opportunity to anybody would ever get hurt while working with you. But secondly if somebody does because we are in an active and athletic Sport and I have been an expert witness for an injury and litigation before and you want to make sure that the person that is being sued. Are they certified? I'd are they insured that's important for financial reasons. And then did they follow what the certification said or the basic standards and guidelines in order to exercise this person and was in an anomaly a freak happening or did that person go outside the realm of standards? And that's the reason that person ended up getting injured. As we're going to look at and then we're also going to look at another thing number four, you need to understand programming periodization and queuing those things. I think are vitally important understanding programming periodization and queuing is a big difference between understanding programming and periodization and doing a workout workout and exercise routine. Let's that's the thing that you do that one day. Say when you go to the gym, that's the 60 minutes or so that you are inside of a Fitness Wellness facility or outside and doing exercise. The program is how many of those you put together and are they systematic and Progressive and periodization is looking at finding how you program and then shifting what that program looks like in order to maximize results. It's so that there's minimal plateauing we want to minimize the amount of plateauing by creating periodization. And the last thing I mentioned there was queuing because a lot of people are out there that don't understand the concept of queuing and if you're not educated and practiced in queueing you may not understand how exactly to help people out with doing exercise because you know what it looks like, you know what it's supposed to look like and you know, you can do it. It but if you can't teach it then what does it matter if you can do it and you're a personal trainer you have to be able to teach that information. So do you have the right cues the cues that are going to help to optimize alignment the ones that are going to help to maximize at outcomes, whether that's Force production, you know, how much are you lifting or are you able to stabilize or you able to maintain stability? and structural integrity and to create this neuromuscular efficiency with your body's ability to produce and reduce and dynamically stabilizing multiple planes and various speeds and safe coordinated fashion and can you cue somebody while doing that but also not over cue them so now over queuing can cause paralysis paralysis by you doing an over analysis of what they're doing and we find is an and motor learning is that people who are very new to exercise don't like too many cues while they're exercising, but they want to make sure they want to know that you are there and paying attention to them. So, yes, you should still queue them. It makes them comfortable. You should still pay attention to their form and their technique and let them know that you're doing that and but at the same time be wonderfully supportive, even if it's not perfect and it's not going to Perfect. I don't sit around with my children have three kids and as they were growing up. I was never like Hey, listen, I know you're trying to learn how to walk. But when you put one foot in front of the other and your big head Teeters forward a little bit and I do need to pull in your belly button and squeeze your glutes and try to create a short foot to raise the arch in your foot and then see if maybe then your next step would be able to stabilize that have fallen down a bit. Great. All right, go for it. This is how we do it. I think we we don't teach our children that way I don't want to over teach any of our clients that way either the one over teach it but what they need as a young client new to training is more support. So like I do with my kids they took their first few steps they fall down you go. Yeah. Hey, yay, let's try it again. Right, and then maybe maybe you get closer to them right and make it easier for them to get to you maybe get farther away when they start to progress and then we try different things and we want to queue people. We want people to be in good form, but we need to be really supportive. Now. We know with Advanced athletes and people who are really looking to learn once they've progressed. They don't want the yay all the time. They want to look just tell me what I need to do to get better. What do I need to do to optimize my movement to be You're faster stronger. Give me the nuts and bolts. Yes. I do want a high five from time to time to time. I want to feel good about it. But in order for me to be an elite level person. Give me what I need to do to get better. I already know I'm good. What do I need to do to get better? And so we know that about motor learning and we can take that with are queuing and understand. It's not just about did somebody draw in and did they brace and did they keep their chin tucked and did they stabilize their spine and keep an arch in there? Foot and it's not just about that but it's about the support that's provided with that as well. And then finally, the last thing I want to talk about is why it's important to have a nationally accredited certification is because a nationally accredited certification is the bare minimum. It is the entry level. It is the least possible amount of knowledge that you should have in your dome. In order to train is the least amount that you should have. So I'm curious that when When you're looking at whether or not you're going to be certified, do you and you open up the text book? You know, ye o man, that's a lot of information that seems really difficult which is what I thought when I opened up the textbook and then somebody like me Taps you on the shoulder and there's microphone right here and you and it says this is the bare minimum you need to know in order to become a personal trainer let you know that the folks out there that are training went through some rigor in order to be able to do the job that they're doing and I think that we need to understand the value of that. Is all of that stuff. I don't expect you to remember that two years later, but that's okay because you're going to go through continuing education courses in order to maintain your certification. So now what I want to make sure you do is it you may not have the most experience as a trainer, but I'm going to provide you with a lot of content that when the moment arises you don't have to memorize it but when the moment arises and you realize that oh, I studied that what you're talking about. That doesn't feel right or how you're moving. That doesn't seem right. I studied this when I was getting certified. I bet this applies to this situation. It's not about memorizing things. It's about being familiar with things most textbooks. By the way. They're not designed to be memorized. They're designed to be a reference for you to look up content and be able to use it. But there there's a minimum expectation of the content within that stick. But you should be able to know and that's where the questions come from. And those are kind of the highlights of the content within every textbook when you take an examination. So taking that examination and and accomplishing the bare minimum requirements to be a certified personal trainer the least amount possible that entry-level you've proven that you're capable of starting a path where you put others Fitness and Illness outcomes in your hands you proven that you can do that now now you can be a personal trainer. And let me let me just add one thing to it new trainers you're going to make mistakes and Veteran trainers make mistakes, but new trainers you are going to make mistakes and I get a lot of people that that are paralyzing themselves saying I don't feel like I know enough yet that I'm certified but I don't want to charge people any money. I don't want to ask them for money. I don't feel confident. In my abilities yet. I'm going to say it. I understand that maybe start with your friends and your family and train people that are close to you and will be forgiving of the mistakes that you make but also if you're going to make mistakes make mistakes within the guidelines of being certified. Within the guidelines of being certified you can make those mistakes and learn from those mistakes and I'm hoping that if you're certified and you are going to go through and and hit some bumps in the road that those bumps in the road are going to be less significant because you've gone through not just read through a text and studied some study material but challenged yourself through an examination process provided by a third body. Ting certification company that says you've reached the bare minimum and then after that the developmental process begins where you start at a fitness facility and you develop with other professionals around you and then you continue to develop continue your own education and your lifelong learning so you now take that education and you start applying it and find out what is the niche that you want to be a part of more. Is it corrective exercise? Is it performance enhancement? Is it new? Channel counseling Wellness coaching. What is it that you want to do and really focus on and then you now you have your certified personal trainer, but you've got a line of specialization that you can then start focusing on. I hope this oh, this was helpful. For those of you who are considering becoming a certified personal trainer those new to your path and even those who are working as personal trainers and and trying to identify whether or not should I maintain my certification should I not hold onto it? Continue to challenge yourself do your continuing education and help support other people out there that are in need and do that with the understanding that you are certified. You've gone through the rigor to challenge yourself to be able to call yourself a certified personal trainer and then be supportive of the others out there that may need your help. All right. This is the nasm CPT podcast with Rick Richie. I hope this helps if you guys want to reach out to me on Instagrams probably where I'm a bit most active dear. Da trick or I seek a rich ER IC H ey and dma. Let me know if you want to hear about something go. So shoot me an e-mail it rick dot Richie at nasm.
As an independent gym owner, I get monthly inquiries from uncertified personal trainers that have been training for many … many… years that have decided not to renew their certification. Yet they still wish to train out of my facility. Below is a small list of responses I have gotten throughout the years when I ask why they are not certified: “I could teach these courses.” “I know more than most trainers anyway because I’ve been doing this for a long time.” “It’s all a racket” … (to make you smarter… oh no!) I, being relatively educated in the space of exercise and health science, still maintain multiple certifications. I actually want to increase my education as opposed to only continuing education because a CEU requirement. So, when those that are uncertified want to explain why they should train out of my facilities in NYC, I do not balk. It is unprofessional and there is a HUGE liability issue at stake as well. If you want to become a personal trainer – you MUST get certified. Preferably NASM…;-) This episode of the NASM CPT Podcast will discuss, from my perspective, why trainers need to be certified. Tune in and provide your feedback and ideas for future topics to me on IG: @dr.rickrichey or email rick.richey@nasm.org  Get 20% off your order now by calling 800-460-6276 or visiting NASM.org, and using the code Podcast 20. 