Personal Training Degree Scam

I just got off the phone with a friend that wants to become a personal trainer and was telling me that they were going to enroll in Provo College to get a degree in personal training.

I have a huge problem with the scam that Provo College and many other colleges whether big, small or online are trying to pull. The fact is that these colleges are making up a degree so that they can steal peoples money to give them some bogus degree that will not help them get a job any more than taking the personal trainer certification test would.

To become a personal trainer you simply have to pass a test. There are many different tests and they all cost a lot of money to take. This is annoying because most of them don't even test actual knowledge that you would need to be a good trainer but they got paid a lot of money by you taking their test. And gyms trusts these inaccurate tests and don't question the knowledge of the trainer.

Basically anyone can pass most of the certification tests after one day of studying. Sadly the hardest test to pass (the ACSM) focuses more on physiology than actual workouts with clients.

People with degrees in the health field from accredited universities cannot be trainers with their 4 year bachelors degree until they pay the money to take a random test from one of the hundreds of companies capitalizing on the poor qualification for personal trainers.

The fact that more importance in put on a simple test than on a 4 year Degree shows that the only reason is money. These large gyms most likely have contracts with the companies that provide the tests and they most likely share the earnings from the outrageous charges to take the tests.

Mobile Fitness

I keep seeing a commercial and it bothers me a lot. It's a commercial for some state college that is advertising how you can go to there school to become a personal trainer. You don't need to go to a school and pay them thousands of dollars to become a personal trainer! That school is robbing people of their money by misleading people to think that they need to pay a few grand in education to become a personal trainer. If you are interested in being a personal trainer, you should buy a book that teaches you about it, read it, implement it and then go take a test to become certified. There are many different certifications that will all give you title of personal trainer and most gyms don't care which one you get so long as you have one. Some of the best known and most accepted certifications are ACSM and NASM. Every gym accepts those 2 personal training certifications. ACSM deals a lot more on the physiology of the human body than on actual workout routines and the test is probably the hardest to pass of all the personal trainer certifications.
It's amazing how misleading and deceiving an organization can be just so they can make some money. Don't be deceived by schools offering fake degrees that they made up so that they can earn some extra money from students.