Fitness Industry Pushes Better Trainers

Margie Sharples, left, has the range of motion in her neck checked by Sarah Hession, a student in Purdue's four-year undergraduate personal fitness trainer program in West Lafayette, Ind., Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2006. The program, which began in the fall of 2005, is built on Purdue's health and fitness major, which already focuses on exercise physiology, basic health studies, fitness evaluation and program management, psychology and nutrition. (AP Photo/AJ Mast) (Aj Mast - AP)

Within a few years, he predicted, the standard for personal fitness trainers will be a bachelor's degree and certification from an accredited organization.

"Personal training used to be the best-looking man or woman in the gym who'd try to teach you to get in shape. That sort of thing worked fine helping someone who's already lean get in shape, but it's another thing if your 65-year-old mother with cardiovascular problems goes to a gym and wants to get fit," Clark said.

Clark's group, which certifies about 10,000 people a year in the field, began offering a fully accredited personal training undergraduate degree this summer online through California University of Pennsylvania. It also offers an online master's degree.

He said the online programs are based on models that have taken 20 years to develop and aren't like the "fly-by-night" certification programs rampant on the Internet.

Out of roughly 275 certification programs in the fitness world, he said, only four are certified by a third-party accreditation organization.

Last year, the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association urged its roughly 5,000 member health clubs in the U.S. to hire personal trainers with a least one certification from a group that has third-party accreditation.

Joe Moore, the Boston-based group's president and CEO, said qualified personal trainers can be hard to find outside big cities. Yet personal training, he said, is "one of the most sought-after services at health clubs."

Marjorie Albohm, a board member of the Dallas-based National Athletic Trainers' Association, urged consumers to ask about a personal trainer's qualifications before they join a health club.

"We spend weeks shopping for a new car, but we walk into a gym and say 'I want someone to train me' and we don't ask what their credentials are," she said. "You're trusting this person with your body _ the most valuable piece of property that you own."

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On the Net:

Purdue Health & Kinesiology: http://www.cla.purdue.edu/hk/

National Academy of Sports Medicine: http://www.nasm.org/

National Athletic Trainers' Association: http://www.nata.org/