Article by Desmond Baldwin
One topic that often comes up when discussing personal training certifications is whether or not they are truly necessary. If a person exercises regularly and is in good shape, it seems likely that he or she would be able to help other people do the same thing. Why should someone have to spend a bunch of time and money on studying and taking a personal trainer exam when it should be pretty simple to tell if the person can help others raise their fitness level? There actually are many reasons why a personal trainer certification is important.
The first reason is pretty straightforward: there needs to be a minimum amount of knowledge that every personal trainer has. A certification from an accredited organization helps achieve this. Just because a potential personal trainer is able to stay in shape, it does not mean that he or she knows the best methods of doing so. There also needs to be a way of ensuring that a trainer has other skills needed (motivation, communication, etc.) besides just the ability to lose weight or gain muscle.
A personal training certification is especially critical because clients’ health is involved. People are putting their physical well-beings in the trainer’s hands. It is one thing for exercises to be ineffective and a client ends up wasting time and money; it would be even worse if the client were to get injured.
Certification makes the hiring process easier too. If there was no certifying process, an employer would have to give a comprehensive test to every single applicant interested in a personal training job. This would be a huge waste of time.
Finally, a personal training certification builds trust not only with an employer, but also with clients. This is significant not only when a personal trainer is being considered for a job, but also later on in