Fast Online Personal Training Certification
When you want to know more about fitness, a fast online personal training certification comes to mind. Cost and quality of a certified personal trainer course are important. But, you don’t have to sacrifice either of these if you want to finish a certification program in under 30 days. In fact, the best length for any online course is 20 hours of interaction with the study program materials. This means, it shouldn’t take you more than one month to learn the fundamentals of exercise science and earn your trainer certification. Anything longer than 30 days means the certification program is going too deep into fitness theory. Instead, a certification like this should only teach you what it takes to be an entry level personal trainer. On the other side of the spectrum, a fitness certification that you can earn in less than a couple of weeks isn’t enough. An online course like this is more for continuing education rather than teaching you what you need to know to begin a career as a personal trainer.
Interestingly, many people enroll in an online personal training course not because they want to make a career change. They aren’t aspiring personal trainers. Instead, these people love exercise, nutrition, and healthy living. And, they’re looking to know the fitness secrets from a personal trainer to take their fitness goals to another level. Especially in these cases, a personal training certification should be easy to understand and apply.
It doesn’t matter if you want a career in the fitness industry, or if you’re just interested in learning the fundamentals of exercise science for your own personal fitness. A one-month personal course is the ideal length of time it should take you to get your certification. Here we’ll explore:
- Why some certifications take longer than a month
- Why some certifications take less than a month
- The range of difficulty in passing a certification exam
- What to expect in a personal training course
EMAC Certified Personal Trainer Course requires four to five hours of learning per week. After five weeks, and under one month, you can earn your personal training certification.
What If A Personal Training Certification Program Takes Longer Than One Month?
When you start to look at the options for a personal trainer course, you’ll see some take longer than a month. In fact, it’s common to see a 10-week certification study program by companies such as National Academy Of Sports Medicine (NASM), International Sports Sciences Association (ISSA), and American Council On Exercise (ACE). When a certification program takes longer than one month to learn the material, it’s too advanced for the majority of students or fitness enthusiasts. The advanced information will teach complex concepts such as the exact bone attachment sites of each muscle. Or, the course will require you to know the full anatomy of the circulatory system, including memorizing all the heart chambers and blood vessels. Further, you’ll be reading chapters on bioenergetics and the biochemical processes involved in producing energy. Learning this type of information, if you don’t have a degree in exercise science, takes time.
Additionally, a long online personal training certification takes into consideration the exact memorization you’ll need to pass the exam. The ACE certification, NASM CPT exam, and ACSM exam all have to be taken at a testing center or with an exam proctor. This means you must schedule an appointment in advance, can’t bring in notes, and only get one attempt at the exam for each appointment. Because of this difficult process, learning the course material requires high stakes and intensive studying. However, the concepts you are tested over aren’t always applicable to common fitness goals or how a personal trainer would talk to a client.
Why Do Some Personal Training Certifications Take Less Than A Month?
Although not as common, some personal trainer certificate programs can take just a couple of days. These types of programs usually involve a live workshop where you learn all the fitness theory in a couple of days. At the end of the weekend workshop, you take an exam or are issued a certification for your completion. These live fitness workshops are great because personal training is a physical study. So, many students learn better in a physical environment. However, it’s unrealistic to fully digest and absorb this fitness education in just a few days. Instead, these concepts require focus spread over several weeks for you to fully understand how it relates to being a personal trainer. Therefore, if you want to retain the information long-term, it’s best to seek a one-month personal training certification program.
Why Are Some Certifications So Hard?
When personal training first became a recognized occupation, it was hard for fitness trainers to gain credibility. As with many new professions, it takes time for an industry, and society, to understand how it fits into the working economy. The pioneers in the personal training certification space were started by medical doctors, doctors of physical therapy, or doctors of chiropractic care. Their education was far more advanced than what an entry level personal trainer needed to know. However, these certification companies were embarking on an admirable mission, which was to bring credibility and science to the art of fitness training. With time, these organizations grew. And, making a certification difficult seemed to be the primary mission. For example, thinking the more pages in a textbook will make it a better certification. Or, the harder the certification is, the better it is. Therefore, the evolution of a “difficult” fitness certification was born.
This can be problematic, however. The more information an aspiring personal trainer is exposed to, the more difficult it will be for them to understand how it relates to working with clients. Additionally, difficult concepts can easily wane a fitness enthusiast’s motivation to learn. These two factors combined lead to low student retention. This means, many people enrolled in a certification won’t stay engaged for longer than a few weeks. And, the pass rates for those who take the certification are low, in most cases less than 70%. Therefore, the numbers alone show that a difficult certification is more of a rite of passage, and less of a value-add to the fitness profession.
The best online personal training certification is one that delivers the most relevant information in the most digestible way. This means, making difficult concepts easy to understand and relate to a workout in the gym. It also means, a fast online personal training certification program isn’t bad. In fact, one month of dedicated focus and study time is exactly what you need to learn how to get fitness clients to their goals. Most people can keep their motivation levels over the course of 30 days. Further, if the information makes sense, and they can apply it to their workouts, even better.
What To Expect In A Personal Training Certification Course
Most online personal training certification courses will include:
- Digital Textbook
- Online Videos
- Chapter Quizzes
- Final Certification Exam
In these courses, you’ll learn about the human movement system. This includes how the nervous system, muscular system, and skeletal system all interact with one another. You can also expect to learn anatomy and biomechanics such as the names, locations, and functions of muscles as well as their joint motions. Then, you’ll learn about how to do client assessments to establish a starting point. Finally, your personal training course will teach you how to develop an exercise program. Common program goals you’ll learn how to develop include workouts for functional fitness, weight loss, and hypertrophy.
EMAC Certified Personal Trainers learn all of this information. Equally important, they will learn the art of fitness coaching. This involves how to educate clients, provide fitness motivation to live healthy, and help them be accountable for their lifestyle choices. These factors (education, motivation, and accountability) are the driving forces behind whether a client can stick with a nutrition and exercise program or not.
Additionally, the EMAC Certified Personal Trainer Course can be completed in as little as 30 days. There are 30 chapters that break up difficult concepts into easy to understand ways. The corresponding lecture videos make it easy to understand how the body responds to exercise. Lastly, the strong focus on coaching adds the missing element in most personal training certifications.
To learn more about how to become an EMAC-CPT, check out our programs today.