On board the bus to KL, I was thinking about my career in the fitness industry and the hoards of information that is available online and on print.
Thinking about the certifications and how easy one can get it with minimum requirements.
I generally have no qualms with any of them in particular but it has got me thinking, how competent is a “professional” even if they do get a certification?
As Alwyn Cosgrove commented on one of his article -
AC: With certifications, we’re confusing education with expertise. There’s a difference between a NASCAR driver and a kid who just passed his driver’s-ed class. And certifications are on the driver’s-ed side of things.
All certifications show is basic competence that you won’t hurt someone. It doesn’t make you an expert. It just shows that you’re not an idiot.
Some people think that certifications are worthless. Yes, probably, but it’s hard to not pick them up on the way to becoming good. If you told me that you did martial arts for 30 years and you’re not a black belt, that’s kind of odd, right? You haven’t picked up any sort of third-party recognition of your ability.
So by coming here to KL to pursue a certification with IKFF will not make me an expert in lifting a Kettlebell but what it will do is to give me the knowledge compared to the average man on the street.
I personally think that certification are worthless but I have plans get certified by a third party body for the sake of marketing. As of now, I’m just trying to get my ass out there in the trenches and getting as much experience as possible just to be a better trainer/coach.
As the title of the blog post suggest, information is just information if its not applied. If it is not applied, then one cannot understand the application of such knowledge and when one doesn’t understand, it cannot be converted into wisdom.
If I had any worthy advice for people who wanted to become a trainer then the first step is to learn what is good movement and what is bad movement, second it’ll be to learn how to cue concisely and precisely so that that trainee can understand.
Finally when you are more confident with your eye of details then worry about program design and the “hows” and “whys”.
I spent alot of time going backwards, while it wasn’t a waste of time in my opinion. I find that it was not productive and that I could have spent more time to understand the basics and learning how to apply it.
Another thing I like to note that is that if you’re really interested in becoming a trainer, look for a mentor who knows more than you and is willing to teach you what you’d like to learn. You only know what you know and you don’t know what you don’t know; even if a squat looks average, you have no clue as to how to make it better.
Know for a fact that everyone can move better and their form can be improved no matter how you look at it, all you need to know is to guide them and correct them.
