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Aug 5

What Makes Someone an Expert in Fitness and Exercise? – Everyday Health

Exercise Programs Comments Off on What Makes Someone an Expert in Fitness and Exercise? – Everyday Health

Hop on your favorite social media platform and youll find a seemingly endless stream of exercise and workout content from certified personal trainers, exercise enthusiasts, and everyday users pumped to share their personal hot takes.

While these communities can be great resources for surfacing exercise inspiration, motivation, and know-how, its important to know who youre turning to for what info.

Anyone can create a social media profile and start sharing information, says Frances Neric, national director of certification for the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) in Indianapolis. But what theyre saying doesnt have to be scientifically sound.

Seeking advice from the wrong person can lead you to workouts that are poorly designed, ineffective, or potentially dangerous. So, how can you differentiate whos legitimate and whos not? Who should you be turning to for what type of advice?

Heres what you should know:

Unlike some professions (like medicine or dentistry), theres no one professional society or board that oversees fitness training. Multiple professional societies offer programs to train fitness professionals.

And those seeking training can choose from a fairly wide variety of certificates and credentials from several professional organizations. When vetting an expert youll turn to for advice about exercise and working out, Neric suggests checking which organization has certified the personal trainer.

You can check the U.S. Registry of Exercise Professionals (USREPS) to see if a personal trainer is certified by a National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA)accredited program, which shows that the fitness professionals certification has met standards set by the industry and comes from a proven safe and effective program, says Neric. (NCCA accredits a range of professions, including nurses and counselors.)

A common fitness certification is "certified personal trainer," or CPT. Reputable organizations that certify personal trainers include the American Council on Exercise (ACE), the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), the National Council on Strength and Fitness (NCSF), and the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA), according to USREPS.

Other NCCA-accredited fitness certifications include:

While this registry is extensive and easily searchable (in that there are a number of member organizations that are represented here), its not comprehensive.

There are other NCCA-accredited organizations that certify personal trainers and group fitness instructors, such as the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) and the National Federation of Professional Trainers (NFTP), that arent members of the USREPS.

To verify that an individual has been certified by an authoritative fitness training organization, check that the certifying body is NCCA-accredited, Neric says.

RELATED: Should You Get a Personal Trainer?

According to the NFPT, a certified personal trainer (or someone with any of the other advanced NCCA-accredited fitness credentials) will be able to:

While a certified personal trainer can talk about basic nutrition, they cannot give you specific nutrition information. If an exercise professional is giving direct advice about what and what not to eat, be on alert, says Neric. This person can share generic information, like what a calorie is, but they should not prescribe a specific diet or eating plan.

For information about what to eat and how to exercise, a registered dietitian-nutritionist (RDN) can offer diet advice and recommendations for eating and exercise, according to the American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

RELATED: What to Eat Before and After You Work Out

If you want more specific nutrition advice to optimize training or athletic performance, you may want to look for someone with additional certification, ideally someone who is a board-certified specialist in sports dietetics (CSSD), a credential from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Some accredited exercise certification programs also offer additional specialty programs in nutrition. Individuals with these certifications have additional training in nutrition, but they do not necessarily have the same breadth of education as an RDN.

If youre looking for someone who can provide both tailored training and nutrition advice, Neric suggests finding someone who is both an RDN and a certified exercise professional. They are harder to find, but they are out there.

When it comes to specialized workouts, like Zumba, CrossFit, Pilates, and others, what makes someone an expert varies:

RELATED: Everything You Need to Know About Yoga

If you have a chronic illness or disability, if youre pregnant, or you have other special health concerns, you may want to get exercise advice from someone with more expertise about your condition.

If you have a clinical condition, such as obesity, diabetes, or hypertension, its important that your trainer has advanced training beyond a certified personal trainer certification ideally as an exercise physiologist so he or she is able to tailor fitness recommendations for your condition, says Lee Stoner, PhD, MPH, assistant professor in exercise physiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (Dr. Stoner is a fellow of the ACSM and is the director of the Exercise is Medicine program at UNC.)

As an example, the ACSM offers itscertified clinical exercise physiologist program (ACSM-EP), which requires advanced education and hands-on training. Individuals pursuing this certification must have a masters degree in clinical exercise physiology and complete 600 hours of hands-on training, or have a bachelors degree in exercise science and complete 1,200 hours of hands-on training.

For this requirement, hands-on training can include developing exercise programs, using electrocardiography (a test that measure the hearts electrical activity), or working with people who have heart, lung, or neuromuscular disease.

Acccording to Stoner, people with this certification need to have a lot of education. You need to know the pathways of physiology of these various conditions, how to interpret an electrocardiogram, and how to communicate with the clients physician, he says.

If you are on a medication, like insulin to treat diabetes or a beta-blocker for high blood pressure, an exercise physiologist will understand what effect those have on exercise so they can train you in a safe way, Stoner says.

RELATED: Why Being Fit Helps You Manage Chronic Diseases

If you are looking for information about working out while pregnant, ideally look for a CPT who has taken continuing education courses in prenatal and postnatal fitness, from ACE or another accredited fitness organization. (Some prenatal fitness programs do not require experience to be certified, so make sure the person youre taking instruction from has their CPT.)

If youre looking for advice about senior fitness, look for a CPT who is also trained in senior fitness. One example is the NASM Senior Fitness Specialization, which is a continuing education program.

If you are injured, your exercise program should be modified. Ideally, this would be done through input from a physical or occupational therapists, notes ACSM.

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What Makes Someone an Expert in Fitness and Exercise? - Everyday Health

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