Purdue Personal Trainer Degree??

[Bill Hartman]

As a Purdue grad, I found this interesting. I certainly hope they are teaching a great deal of marketing to these people or there will be one helluva lot of factory workers with Personal Training Degrees.

I also found it interesting that the photo shows a trainer "assisting" a client with a leg press. Now that says "quality" to me.


November 18, 2004

Purdue students to be first to get fit as personal trainers
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Students planning to pursue a career in personal fitness training have a new option at Purdue, which will be the first university in the nation to offer a four-year degree with a concentration in this area.


"More people are turning to personal fitness trainers to design exercise programs and serve as guides to combat obesity and obtain healthy lifestyles," said Ken Baldwin, program coordinator for personal fitness training at Purdue's Department of Health and Kinesiology. "The certification industry for personal fitness trainers has exploded. As a result, it has become easier for anyone, even without the necessary health background, to acquire a certification because there is no nationally recognized set of standards for performance, ethics, certification and practices.

"Purdue will set the standard for educating students with the necessary and preferred skills, competencies and background for personal fitness trainers. Because students will be learning from a medically based fitness model, they will have the skills and expertise, especially in skeletal and muscular structure, to work as part of a client's integrated health care team," said Baldwin, who also is assistant director of the A.H. Ismail Center for Health, Exercise, and Nutrition at Purdue.



Personal trainers are responsible for fitness management by designing and leading exercise programs in group or individual settings, as well as providing health education to improve lifestyle behaviors, Baldwin said. Trainers, typically thought of as being employed at health clubs, also can be found in corporate, commercial, community and university wellness settings.

Starting in the 2005 fall semester, Purdue undergraduates pursuing the health and fitness major can concentrate or specialize in personal fitness training. Current students are eligible to add the concentration to their plan of study, said Roger Seehafer, associate professor and division chair of health promotion.

"Purdue currently offers a major in health and fitness, and 70 percent of these majors identify personal fitness training as their career objective," Seehafer said. "The health and fitness major already focuses on exercise physiology, basic health studies, fitness evaluation and program management, psychology, and nutrition. In addition, the personal fitness trainer concentration will cover topics related to aging, biomechanics, anatomy, risk factors, injury prevention, nutrition and weight management."

The personal fitness trainer concentration will include a course on personal training education. Students also will participate in eight different six-week rotations in commercial health clubs, as well as centers for cardiac rehabilitation, physical therapy, athletic training, senior fitness, children's fitness and worksite wellness. Students will need to be certified by the American College of Sports Medicine to work as personal fitness trainers during rotations. They also will need to be certified as health fitness instructors during their senior years so they can work with specialized clients, such as those who have been in physical therapy rehabilitation.

A four-year degree in personal training is not offered anywhere else, but other universities team with the American College of Sports Medicine as part of a University Endorsement Program, which provides guidelines for colleges.

"The Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that personal fitness training will be one of the fastest growing professions in the next few years," said Mike Niederpruem, national director of certification for the American College of Sports Medicine in Indianapolis. "Anticipating the need for personal trainers with relevant academic training results in safer and more effective outcomes both for individuals and public health overall."

Other universities offer a degree in exercise science, which is similar to personal fitness training, but fitness training will work on perfecting exercise movements and cover the business practices often needed for working in fitness facilities or health clubs, Baldwin said.

Personal fitness trainers currently can seek certification with more than 100 programs online, Baldwin said. Some groups certify based on participation in weekend courses or on passing an online test.

"Not all of the different certifications out there reinforce proper procedure for analyzing risk factors, such as injuries," Baldwin said. "For example, a certification program may suggest that the trainer should have the participant complete a health-related questionnaire. But the trainer is not educated to analyze the results, including risk factors, or address them appropriately during the training session."

The Department of Health and Kinesiology, which is located in Purdue's School of Liberal Arts, also offers majors in health promotion, health and safety secondary teaching, movement and sport sciences, and physical education. A concentration also is offered in athletic training. Areas of faculty research include physiology of exercise, human movement and sport; psychology of sports, exercise and motor behavior; and health promotion and disease prevention. Approximately 650 undergraduate students and 100 graduate students are enrolled in the department.

Writer: Amy Patterson-Neubert, (765) 494-9723, apatterson@purdue.edu

Sources: Ken Baldwin, (765) 496-6887, kbaldwin@sla.purdue.edu

Roger Seehafer, (765) 494-3159, seehafer@purdue.edu

Mike Niederpruem, (317) 637-9200, ext. 123, mniederpruem@acsm.org

Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu



PHOTO CAPTION:
Stacey Jackson, a senior studying health and fitness from Goshen, Ind., and a fitness supervisor at the A.H. Ismail Center for Health, Exercise and Nutrition at Purdue University, assists her client, Chris Strantz of Lafayette. Starting in the 2005 fall semester, Purdue undergraduates pursuing the health and fitness major concentrate or specialize in personal fitness training. Personal trainers are responsible for fitness management by designing and leading exercise programs in group or individual settings, as well as providing health education to improve lifestyle behaviors. Purdue will be the first university in the nation to offer a four-year degree with a concentration in this area. (Purdue News Service photo/David Umberger)

[OldGuy]

TC had something to say about this over at T-Mag.

http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do...itan?id=530949

[gregl515]

It could be a really good thing if it included a concentration in marketing and business. Alas, alot of professional training doesn't. I know law schools ignored it and my accounts receivable my first year in private reflected that fact.

[GqArtguy]

I think this stupid. I mean it MIGHT give them an emphasis in injury prevention or treatment but they still might play out a lot of gym fallacies. Additionally, the good trainers are the ones that continure learn after they get certified. Anyone can get ace certified but if you read up some classic books, a some online sources, and tried to get extra certifications that would help you be a better trainer (ie ART, oly certificcation, etc.) youd be really badass as you apply this new knowledge. Im not expecting this major to cover any of that.

I mean really, the last thing we need is a dumbass trainer who knows how to market his crap

[Jean-Paul]

To make it a little easier...

ATOMIC DOG
A Bullshit Degree?
by TC


Starting in the fall of 2005, slack-jawed but presumably firm-bottomed college students will be able to enroll in Purdue University’s four-year degree in personal training.

The program will be the first of its kind anywhere.

Whereas personal training was once just an excuse to hang around the gym all day, eat out of Tupperware bowls and meet juicy women with disposable incomes, it’s now on the verge of becoming a real-deal occupation, with a degree and everything!

I gotta’ tell you, I’m not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, it’s a good thing. It’s high time that someone took matters into hand and tried to set some standards for a profession whose members sometimes garner about as much respect as those guys in restrooms who hand you a towel after you’re done shaking your willie.

Yeah, maybe I’m being a little harsh, but look at it this way: there are scores of certification programs available–more than a hundred on-line alone–and many require only participation in a weekend course or passing an on-line test. It seems to me that a field that wants to earn a little respect should be at least somewhat discriminating; perhaps tough enough to pass so that I wouldn’t see Crackhead Bob in some gym teaching a client how to do "chest presses" while drooling on his or her forehead.

What’s more, very few programs require any background in health, nor is there a nationally recognized set of standards regarding practice, performance, or ethics. Neither is there any set criteria regarding knowledge of nutrition, anatomy or anything else a personal trainer might want to know.

Obviously, there are plenty of trainers out there that are good, real good, but I hope they’re not so insecure that they think I’m talking about them. No, I’m talking about the legions of Bosu Ball boys who think they’re hot stuff because their clients spend the bulk of their sessions staggering around like drunks. (I swear, half the time when I walk into a gym, I’m not sure whether I’m really in the gym or I suddenly astrally projected to happy hour at Hooters.) I’m talking about the dregs, the slackers, poseurs and generic poo-pooh heads that form the bulk of the profession.


Beverly didn’t know if she’d win this year’s Heisman Trophy but by God, thanks to the Bosu Ball, she was ready.

So consider the poor schlub who’s looking for a qualified personal trainer—he or she has no idea of what to look for. With the number of personal trainers in the country–a number that’s growing at an alarming rate—it can be overwhelming. I’ve done some random calculations on my cocktail napkin and I figure that by the year 2010, every other man, woman and child in America will be a personal trainer with his or her own studio.

The battle for clients will be like a grisly science fiction movie with trainers clubbing each other to death with those silly wobble sticks or strangling each other with those little stretchy cords they’re so fond of. Even gym rats who don’t want to hire personal trainers will be besieged in the middle of their sets by client-hungry trainers who run up to them and prove their mettle by showing them how well they can count reps and how many times they can work the phrase, "ya’ gotta’ work your core," into a sentence.

God help us. God help us all.

So having some set standards will probably be a good thing. HOWEVER, part of this scares the shit out of me. Who exactly will determine the curriculum? What if it’s some guy who got his certification from ACE? What if it’s the personal trainer from my gym who smells like cheese and learned how to train people from studying the little stick drawings that came with the Denise Austin stretchy bands he bought from K-Mart??

Maybe you don’t think it matters who designs the curriculum. Maybe you figure that trainers who don’t opt for the degree will just continue doing what they’ve been doing. Sure, but the public tends to give more credence to those that have a degree, even if it’s a bullshit degree. Their opinions will carry more weight than the non-Purdue-ejicated fellas.

Look at what’s been going on in the sports world lately. Victor Conte decides to outgun just about...well, just about everybody who ever lived, in the hubris department by going on TV and spilling his guts. The next day, the papers are filled with stories about the dangers of steroids. Who do they go to for information and juicy quotes? Gary Wadler and Charles Yesalis, the self-anointed steroid experts. Never mind that Wadler’s book on drugs in sport is outdated, often wrong, and sensationalistic, he gets to tell the public all about steroids.

These guys have always been vehemently anti-steroid and the dangers they espouse are way overblown. Going to them to find out about steroids is like going to Reverend Jerry Falwell and asking him what he thinks of a couple of my favorite holiday movies, "I Saw Three Clits Come Sailing In" and "Cum All Ye Faithful." I bet you dollars to dildos Falwell wouldn’t have anything nice to say about the acting, the cinematography, or the fine script, nothing!

So why talk to Wadler and Yesalis? Because Wadler and Yesalis are codger-esque, have fancy dee-grees, and got to establish themselves as experts long ago. The public and press, as such, is quite content with its current experts, thank you, and they don’t need to get info from anyone else, regardless of whether that anyone else knows far more about steroid use and alleged side effects than Yesalis and Wadler—Wadler, who when asked about Barry Bond’s now famous "flax seed oil excuse," had to go on the Internet and look up flax seed oil!

I can see if Wadler and Yesalis were anthropologists studying monkeys. Hell, if you want to know about monkeys you’ve got no choice, you’ve got to talk to the anthropologists because them-there monkeys can’t talk. But why is it the same in the world of athletics? We’re the monkeys they’re studying and this group of primates can talk! A lot of us monkeys are pretty well educated, too, so ask us–the real experts–about drugs in sport!

Sheesh. Hearing or reading what these guys have to say about drugs and athletes without asking the people who actually live in the supplement and drug culture makes me feel like I’m sitting in a room listening to people talk about me:

"Do you know that when TC was young, his mother caught him masturbating so many times that he now can’t get off unless he hires a boy scout to put on a wig and a gingham skirt to bust into the room screaming, "My Gawd, what are you doing!?!"

You’d gain a lot more insight into my self-gratification problem if you JUST ASKED ME!

See what I’m getting at? When Purdue lets loose its first gaggle of graduates, they’ll be the experts. They’ll get the sound bites and the respect. Their opinions will trickle down into the consciousness of the masses. They’ll join the degreed assholes that try to win every argument by sniffing, "I’ve got a degree in the subject." Never mind that in most areas of study, a degree means you’ve been studying stuff that’s at least 10 years old.

The end result is you non-degreed trainer types will either have to adopt the graduates’ way of thinking or die, career-wise. Your opinion just won’t count any more because, you see, you don’t have a degree in personal training.

So, that’s why I’ve got mixed feelings about the whole thing.

I wish at least we got to have a say in their curriculum. Maybe I’d just tell Purdue to print off every article that was ever posted in Testosterone and T-Nation and slap a binder around it...well, all of the articles except maybe for that Dasha interview, or the one about the Venice Beach Sex Club, that one where Chris Shugart writes about killing all the fat people and come to think of it, quite a few of my Atomic Dogs, but you get the picture.

I just hope they teach them the real stuff, the good stuff, and not fill their heads with the wives’ tales, assorted myths, and plain old bullshit that are so common in weight lifting.

I might also request that Purdue teach its students to respect those of us who train sans personal trainers. Please, please, please teach them to keep their clients at least spitting distance away from us while we’re doing squats. We’ve got to concentrate, you see, and if we’ve got to listen to your client kvetch about his sore glutes, his castrating wife, or the whore spawn that are his children, we’re going to lose our concentration, rupture our spleen, and see it explode across the room and hit the Pilates instructor in the head.

Of course, maybe all that stuff will be part of the Master’s Degree program.

Now that’s a scary thought.


Tomorrow’s non-degreed personal trainers will have to devise complex strategies to compete with the Purdue personal trainers.


© 1998 — 2004 Testosterone, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

[Jean-Paul]

BTW, Bill, just to keep things in perspective. Sometimes the experts involved are not necessarily involved in the marketing. To illustrate the point, everyone in here knows your perspective on swiss balls. Well, when you were down in LR the news came in and filmed some footage of people doing some of your workouts, and they filmed the guys playing "the game", immediately followed by footage of your interview, which made it look to an outside observer like you came down to Little Rock and got us all up on balls tossing med balls back and forth. I just got a copy of that tape, and I have to admit to laughing out loud when I saw that.

[chris_f]

I saw ACE certification knocked on quite a few times in that article and the responses from people on the t-mag forum. Is ACE certification crap? Why all the negative feelings towards it, out of curiousity?

The trainer my parents are thinking of hiring is ACE certified, and had mentioned core training to my parents as a way to correct the back pain they both have. I want to make sure they're not getting ripped off, or possibly doing more harm than good.

[Q.]

Originally posted by sharkbait31:
or possibly doing more harm than good.

THAT'S the part that concerns me. I've seen it mentioned in other threads that sometimes the approach a trainer takes CAN do harm to some clients with existing health problems. Do trainers not have to carry any kind of liability insurance? I would guess that, if they worked for a gym, they'd be covered by the business but what about the independents?

[ninja]

If the injury happened doing a prescribed exercise from a trainer, but the trainer wasn't present, I'm sure the trainer wouldn't be responsible for the injury because the client wasn't under direct supervision. At least that's what our legal system may say.

[GqArtguy]

Originally posted by Q.:

quote:

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Originally posted by sharkbait31:
or possibly doing more harm than good.

THAT'S the part that concerns me. I've seen it mentioned in other threads that sometimes the approach a trainer takes CAN do harm to some clients with existing health problems. Do trainers not have to carry any kind of liability insurance? I would guess that, if they worked for a gym, they'd be covered by the business but what about the independents? [/quote]Many gyms require you to fill out a liability waiver before you join.

[chris_f]

"Many gyms require you to fill out a liability waiver before you join."

Ain't those a bitch! My mom actually hurt her lower back using the leg press, under the supervision of her trainer. He told her he had people throw up from doing so much weight on them before, and he was one of those "dumb jock" types who worked her like a drill sergant, trying to get her to put up as much weight as possible.

Ever since, she's had chronic lower back pain

[cuvermodel]

Originally posted by sharkbait31:
I saw ACE certification knocked on quite a few times in that article and the responses from people on the t-mag forum. Is ACE certification crap? Why all the negative feelings towards it, out of curiousity?

The trainer my parents are thinking of hiring is ACE certified, and had mentioned core training to my parents as a way to correct the back pain they both have. I want to make sure they're not getting ripped off, or possibly doing more harm than good.

Well ACE is one of the more popular certifications out there so it's pretty easy to "pick" on. Bottom line is all certifications have flaws, I mean my older brother knows very little about exercise, but he's smart and has a masters degree. So he can take a CSCS test (you have to have a bachelors in anything I do believe, it doesn't have to be exercise related), and I know if he studied for it hard he'd be able to pass it. He's just a good test taker. I'm sure he could study for any certification and get it, but that doesn't make him a good PT. He hasn't spent much time working with others, hasn't spent a lot of time lifting, hasn't read on the subject, and many other things that make someone a good trainer.

Just because someone is an ACE trainer doesn't mean their not worth the money, but at the same time it doesn't mean they are. You need to work with a guy for a while, and see if you believe his views, usually done by asking WHY to do things instead of just what or how. If he gives you solid scientific reasons your usually in good hands.

Hope that helps!

[n.neate]

Originally posted by GqArtguy:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Q.:

quote:

---

Originally posted by sharkbait31:
or possibly doing more harm than good.

THAT'S the part that concerns me. I've seen it mentioned in other threads that sometimes the approach a trainer takes CAN do harm to some clients with existing health problems. Do trainers not have to carry any kind of liability insurance? I would guess that, if they worked for a gym, they'd be covered by the business but what about the independents? [/quote]Many gyms require you to fill out a liability waiver before you join. [/quote]A good lawyer could smack that liability waiver around for a joke, they're mostly there to put off anyone that is injured and doesnt even bother to sue because they know they signed that waiver, in all reality it wouldn't hold up in court.