The 5 Best Continuing Education Courses for Personal Trainers
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The 5 Best Continuing Education Courses for Personal Trainers
We all know this to be true:
If you know more about your craft, you can further assist the people paying for your services.
The Fitness Continuing Education scene can be pretty confusing. It is dominated by the large fitness education companies trying to kindle your spending by stroking your eagerness to learn new and exciting fitness topics. Let us help you unravel this confusion as we explore the purposes of continuing education and give you our 5 most recommended courses and/or seminars.
Learning more about the peak athletic training can create better strategies for improving performance, but this matters little if your main clientele is people with osteoporosis. Make the right choice on building your credentials based on the following three factors:
- Purpose: Why are you choosing a specific course or seminar? What will you use it for?
- Population: What type of client will benefit from the skills or knowledge you will attain? Are they abundant? Is this the population you want to work with?
- Passion: Do you enjoy learning about this topic?
Analyzing these factors will allow you to make proper decisions based on your career and training goals.
Furthermore, there may be different reasons you are now looking into continuing education. Some of you may have procrastinated and are now desperate for last minute CEU’s that you need for your recertification. On the other end you might be eager to continue learning and growing in your craft, and have all the time in the world. Some of our recommendations below may be good for the short term and inexpensive, while some require big bucks, time and travel to complete. Choose based on your timeline and budget needs as well.
LAST TIP:
It is important to understand if you are new to the game your continuing education focus should be on one thing: Business. Other education is not needed unless you have what it takes to build a sustainable career. This is one of the biggest mistakes made by new trainers and contributes to the failure of over 50,000 fitness pros per year.
Below we have laid out 5 of our most highly recommended continuing education courses for recertifying your CPT. For further ease we have listed the pros and cons of each course.
1
Certified Online Personal Trainer
The Fitness Industry is rapidly changing. COVID-19 came in and destroyed the conventional path of the fitness professional. With gyms being closed for many months, people turned to online options to continue getting their workouts in. This forced change created so much discord for personal trainers but also created something that will reshape the career path of all trainers: consumer trust in online fitness training.
For the trainer that is ready to take advantage of this newly formed trust the Certified Online Personal Trainer Certification teaches you how to train clients online, build every aspect of your online services, get 5-10 new online clients per month and truly help people achieve their health and fitness goals online.
Pros:
- More Personal Freedom
- More Financial Freedom
- Ensure Your Future Job Security
- Help More People
- Offer New Services to Grow Your Revenue Streams
- Contains all the CEU’s you need to recertify your CPT Certification
Cons:
- Cost is listed at $699 (Use Code WOW25 for 25% off)
- Will force you to change your perspective on helping clients.
2
NASM's Certified Nutrition Coach (CNC)
If you are looking for the current most prestigious certification in the Fitness Nutrition scene, NASM’s Certified Nutrition Coach is your go-to.
The course feels like a college level class an focuses on science backed nutrition and Behavioral studies. It is an at home course that allows you to study at your own pace. The content focuses on a two headed approach, nutritional coaching and nutritional sciences.
Once finished with this course you will feel confident in addressing nutrition with any type of client goal. One thing that makes this course less attainable is that the cost is high. It also only has two enrollment dates per year which may be bad for those of you looking for a quick way to get the CEU’s needed for recertification.
Pros:
- Most respected nutrition certification in the fitness industry
- College level learning and structure
- Go at your own pace online
- Contains all the CEU’s you need to recertify (20 credit hours)
- Teaches nutrition coaching as well as the nutritional sciences
Cons:
- Almost $1000 (Check Pricing Here)
- Mainly government backed nutritional science (not much on newer strategies).
3
Business And Sales: The Guide To Success As A Personal Trainer
Business and Sales: The Guide to Success as a Personal Trainer, will teach you a system all about generating leads and closing client sales. With an emphasis on ACTION, this course will teach you how to create the necessary documents and tools that lead to creating an easy road to success. The value from a course like this far surpasses that of other topics in continuing education, as the knowledge you attain goes directly toward financial gain.
Getting new clients and closing sales can be tough. I can’t stress enough how important it is to have a system, to combat this difficulty. Most trainers mosey about the gym and wait for people to make eye contact, with the intent to spark up a conversation. Although this may lead to a new client here and there, taking action and relying on a proven system will create boundless opportunity.
The course is $349 (use code WOW25 for 25% off) and it is an online, home-study course. It can be completed relatively fast for those of you in need of last minute CEUs.
REMEMBER: You can be the most educated personal trainer in the world, but if you don’t have any sales technique or clients your education is pointless.
Pros:
- Only $349
- Contains all the CEU’s you need to recertify
- Home study which allows you to go at your own pace
- Build your business step by step from the ground up
- Actionable documents to assist your business processes
- Learn how to increase sales
- Great for new trainers and experienced trainers
- Will build the most value to your resume when being hired at a commercial gym
- The best business and sales certification in the industry
- Receive the title of Fitness Sales Specialist (FSS)
Cons:
- Forces you to take action and create your business
- Might be less fun than learning exercise based continuing education
4
Pain Management Specialist
The Pain Management Specialist certification is absolutely one of the best certifications to have. It forces you to understand origins of pain based on postural analysis and teaches you how to fix it.
My biggest concern with my own training was learning how to always progress in strength, athleticism and body image, while avoiding any training associated injury. NOTE: If you don’t have efficient flexibility and muscle balance, you are on your way to creating an injury.
When taking the Pain Management Specialist course you learn about all the issues in flexibility and movement patterns that can lead to injuries.
You can also build a ton of value describing why someone might have pain or a nagging injury. Explaining to someone how their overactive hip flexors are giving them that back pain they have had for years, and then immediately assisting them in alleviating that pain via stretching goes yards for an initial impression.
It is an at home study course which allows you to go at your own pace and you have one year to complete it from your purchase date. The final exam is a bit tough but forces you to know your stuff, which is good thing for you and your clients.
Pros:
- In-depth education on posture and causes of pain
- Learn the corrective exercise continuum for treating postural imbalances
- Great for assisting older clientele in pain management
- Best corrective exercise certification available
- Contains all of the CEUs needed for recertification
- Increase your practical knowledge of muscles
- Receive the title of Pain Management Specialist
Cons:
- Cost is $399 (use code lift30 for 30% off)
- Final Exam is a bit challenging
- The study hours are higher than other courses
5
NCSF Strength Coaching Specialist
The NCSF Strength Coach Specialist is the most prestigious athletic conditioning certification in the fitness industry. In fact, it is so prestigious, it is required by almost all college and professional teams to work as a conditioning coach.
The content is quite expansive and covers everything you would need to know about training the most popular sports like Baseball, Basketball, Football, Hockey, Track and Field; and other major sports. The textbook is large, but typically if you are going after this certification your passion will encourage your reading. One downfall to training athletes is that it is typically not very lucrative. Don’t expect this certification to make you more money.
Pros:
- Needed to train for a college or professional team
- Most prestigious athletic conditioning cert in the industry
- Great content for learning about athletic conditioning.
Cons:
- $399 (check pricing here)
- Requires a Bachelor’s degree to sit for the exam
- Lengthy study hours
- Difficult final exam
- Requires you to take further continuing education every 2 years
You have a lot of choices when choosing your continuing education courses and we hope this settles some of the confusion. Remember to apply the three factors to your decision making process. We believe the above five courses will bring the most value to you and your business.
If you have any questions we would love to hear from you. Contact us via comment, call (310) 227-9261, or by using the contact button on this page. We are always here to assist you in choosing the most successful path for your fitness career.
For more information on becoming a successful personal trainer click the below link and check out our business and sales course
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