Personal Trainer?

If you're serious about employment, avoid AFAA. Employers don't take them seriously. Your best bets are NSCA, ACE, and ACSM. There's usually a weekend course and/or a test you'll have to take for your certification, and those good certifications will test you on a lot of things you won't have learned in a weekend. Most major cities have testing sites and dates a few times a year. Check with the individual organizations' websites. There may also be continuing education things you'll ahve to do to retain your certification or a recertification process, again depending on who certifies you. So study up and be prepared to pay $300-400 on the test. Good luck.

I am a personal trainer, but the process ranges from 2 years - 4 years. You acutally have to go to the Friedinsons Aerobics Center, they have 200 centers spread world wide, and I believe they have at least one in every state except in the state of Maine.

When you enter, of course, you cannot just become a personal trainer, first you will take a 100 question test, asking you questions about what you do to stay in shape, for example, a question might be if a 34 year old male who weighs 212 pounds and is 5"11, what should be his caloric intake be, how much exercise he should do a week, what type of exercise, what should he eat, etc.

You must get at least 95 questions out of 100 correct in order to go to the next test which consists of a display of healthy foods and unhealthy foods, obvious ones would be fast food, french fries, and sweets for unhealthy, and healthy would be vegetables, fruits, milk, bread, grains, fish, etc. But there are not just regular foods in there, you need to come up with a dish of food, by making a meal there with the food that is big enough and will not cause hunger later on in the day so therefore it will satisfy the person, however it cannot be over their calorie intake, and keep in mind, they eat multiple meals a day, so this one meal cannot take away all the calories for the day.

If you pass this one, you now go to the gym, to show them your workout routine, and they will show you various exercise equipment and you will show them what do to on each one and tell them detail instructions on each one, easy ones would be the treadmill, etc.

After that, you are done with the gym and Friendinsons tests, which remeber Friedinsons is the Personal Traniers headquarters basically, however, you have to have at least 2 years of fitness quality and nutriton education, you can do this at home, and during your time on the computer, when you are about to enter the 2 years of personal trainers education, the place where ever you are trying to educate yourself at will give you their site and your password to your account, remeber Friendinsons is finished and over with it, you have to go to some college to attend this, they offer 3 years of this course, however only 2 years is required.

If you need any help just email me and I will be glad to help you, good luck.

I have NASM and NSCA...I did them online after College. I liked them because I could go at my own pace. I went to the seminars but tested online....if youre in San Diego look up my friend Bryan at www.wiredfitness.com