Everyone has heard of online CPE courses that help the medical and legal personnel remain in good standing with his or her accreditation agencies, but how many ever imagined such requirements of fitness professionals? Yes, those guys and gals at the gym barking at their clients to DO ONE MORE GIVE ME ONE MORE JUST ONE MORE ONE MORE ONE MORE NOW DO IT DO IT DO IT NOW!!!!
. Yes, them. That is, if industry movers and shakers such as the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) or the American Council on Exercise (ACE) will have anything to do with it. The “CPE” in the term “online CPE courses” stands for “continuing professional education.” Now most folks don’t think of personal trainers as professionals at all – performing heart surgery is a profession; encouraging people to exercise their hearts and lungs is a job. Isn’t that so?
Not according to the likes of the ACSM or ACE. Due to the fast pace of new discoveries in the field of human health and fitness, the industry wants to make things a lot more professional, more academically rigorous, more upscale and high-value. But such efforts may have hit a plateau. Yet after all these years, the number of different certifications available on the market has skyrocketed to little discernible benefit for everyday consumers despite, now, the endeavor to require online CPE courses for trainers, coaches, and other industry job titles remain the monopoly of the organization certifying them in the first place.
In fact, certification is only meaningful for insurance purposes. It will be hard to the general public to think of personal training as a profession, CPE course and credits notwithstanding. Turnover is high while the quality of trainers, despite certification, is often low; many franchise gyms hire teenagers – kids – to advise clients paying eighty dollars and up an hour (of which only twenty to forty go to the trainer).For one thing, many chain gyms have college kids working as personal trainers: hard to see a doctor, lawyer, or accountant regarding such workers as fellow “professionals!”