NASM vs ISSA
- Thread starter Dustin07
- Start date
Dustin07
Legend
She's been in barbell sports for around 15 years and most recently has got herself back into phenomenal shape after last years breast cancer, mastectomy, and 2 surgeries so she's got a new vigor. Her target demographic would likely be menopausal women, recognizing that women are frequently least likely to use a barbell, and also women of this bracket struggle the most with understanding how to 'get fit' again when hormones run amuk.
She has been offered some small classes which she might take over as an addition to her current job to 'test the waters' and see if she can move over into fitness entirely. She's definitely hankering for a career change so she's trying to pull in as much information as possible to build a resume in that field in case it makes sense for her mental health to make that change.
I don't think it would be sports training, per se, since I'm 99% sure her demographic would be outside of most sports by our definition, but in need of general fitness/health improvement.
Julianbee
New member
It’s awesome your wife wants to get into this industry. With her passion, I have no doubt she’ll help change lives.
There are CPT courses(certified personal trainer) and then they’re specialty certifications offered as continuing education.
Her ISSA or NASM certification will provide the baseline knowledge, then she can get certified in say NASM’s Performance Enhancement Specialist(PES) course to expand her knowledge in sports training.
If you browse through the ISSA, NASM, NSCA, ACSM, ACE sites you can see what other specialty courses they offer. What they have to offer might determine what certification organization she goes through.
There are CPT courses(certified personal trainer) and then they’re specialty certifications offered as continuing education.
Her ISSA or NASM certification will provide the baseline knowledge, then she can get certified in say NASM’s Performance Enhancement Specialist(PES) course to expand her knowledge in sports training.
If you browse through the ISSA, NASM, NSCA, ACSM, ACE sites you can see what other specialty courses they offer. What they have to offer might determine what certification organization she goes through.
Ironpirate
Active member
Yes it's important depending what area of expertise is of interest. Some of these certs offer classroom courses at colleges and universities. For example continued ed. courses for nasm at unlv.
Dustin07
Legend
It's kinda funny to hear these response because I've collected probably somewhere from 12-20 random ones from CFL1/L2 etc, USAW, and then all the smaller ones. All are much faster of coruse than the ones in question but I'd tend to agree with the sentiment. Having taken those courses, it felt great to have it under my wing and I certainly did learn quite a bit, but I recall when I renewed and grabbed my L2 I learned to just shut up and tell them what they want to hear when I questioned why we were programming direct shoulder work into wods every single day of the week.
USAW was probably my preferred organziation from that collection, great people and great follow up educational resources available, but again none of these are like ACSM, NASM etc. usually people attending L1 or L2 courses already had those certs and were beefing up resumes. A lot of the small certs I picked up along the way were free to me from either other boxes or the box I briefly owned.
USAW was probably my preferred organziation from that collection, great people and great follow up educational resources available, but again none of these are like ACSM, NASM etc. usually people attending L1 or L2 courses already had those certs and were beefing up resumes. A lot of the small certs I picked up along the way were free to me from either other boxes or the box I briefly owned.
Dustin07
Legend
Those are really good points, I've shared your thoughts and advice here and told her my general summary of thoughts is simply to pick one that is the most interesting to her so that she will enjoy it and have additional knowledge from a group and focus that she's the most in to. Ironically despite her having a decade+ xfit experience that's the one field she's least interested in.