I was recently scanning through the archives of the journal of strength and conditioning when I came across a paper by Berger et al., (2002). The paper is extremely interesting and, while we could argue that it is not in line with the times, a lot of the points made do still hold resonance. The paper is titled “Importance of health science education for personal fitness trainers”; the researchers developed a knowledge assessment for practicing personal trainers, called the `Fitness Instructor Knowledge Assessment` or FIKA for short. The paper seeked to answer the question: “What are good predictors of expertise among personal trainers?” While experience is a key factor in personal training development, it does not necessarily translate to a knowledgeable or even a capable professional. Before we go into the paper in a little more depth, here are some key points the study pulled from previous research findings:
- Fuller and Harding 2000: a study of 58 fitness instructors found that 60% had not attended any CPD since qualifying (mean time 6 years)
- Davis 1999 found that only 39% of fitness instructors were qualified at a degree level
- McInnes et al 2001: a USA study established that 74% of clubs did not require pre screening before exercise prescription commenced
So moving on what did the FIKA include? The test included 55 questions, split evenly across 5 broad topics (nutrition, health screening, testing protocols, exercise prescription and special populations). The test was given to 115 fitness instructors (61 men, 54 women) in the USA.
The study reported the following results:
- Personal trainers that had a degree and governing body accreditation scored 85% on the FIKA
- Personal trainers that had no degree and no governing body accreditation scored 36% on the FIKA
- Personal trainers that had no degree but had governing body accreditation scored 55% on the FIKA
Whilst you don’t need to have degree level knowledge to be a knowledgeable personal trainer, a sound understanding of exercise science does dramatically help, and may go some of the way to stopping poor practice in our industry. For the fitness industry to progress and be viewed as a credible profession, we need to focus on approved CPD and driving for continued education.
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