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Real life experience versus a Cert

Do you value a trainer with a cert or a trainer with experience training others with no cert?

  • Trainer with a cert

    Votes: 2 22.2%

  • Real life experience

    Votes: 7 77.8%
  • Total voters
    9
Abishai

Abishai

Level 5 Valued Member
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Abishai said:
In a different thread (Other/Mixed - Training certification opinions/recommendations), I got the entire SF universe mad at me for suggesting that I value a trainer who has real-life success in fitness (with a body or stats that prove it) and has successfully replicated it with clients more than a dweeb with no records that has a cert.
I thought it deserved its own thread so here we go...
slightly unrelated The Tao of the Gym Bro | IMPOSSIBLE ®
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I think it is because you are conflating two things - success in fitness is, in your words, equal to both a great looking physique /“stats” AND success training clients.

A great looking physique / “stats” tells me as much as a cert.

Success with clients tells me more than either.

And one can have success with clients without having a great looking physique / “stats.”
 
Abishai said:
In a different thread (Other/Mixed - Training certification opinions/recommendations), I got the entire SF universe mad at me for suggesting that I value a trainer who has real-life success in fitness (with a body or stats that prove it) and has successfully replicated it with clients more than a dweeb with no records that has a cert.
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It depends on the cert. For many of us, including me, the SF cert was life-changing. When I was at one a few years ago, half the students set military press PR's in the middle of their second long day of training, no small feat, that. Read instructor reviews here to see what students think about their SF-certified teachers.

-S-
 
A trainers looks don’t impress at all because how they look does tell how they got there. I tell a good trainer by how he or she trains others.

On a side note I like the StrongFirst approach but it’s not my religion. I would not be where I am today if I didn’t stumble here. I feel as if I struck gold.
 
The cool thing about Strong First is when you go to events, you will meet very strong instructors. And strong people seek to make those around them stronger. It is more than a certificate, it is proven to yourself that you are better and stronger for going through the process. That is why I like attending the SFG Cert's because it is a huge recharge for my own training. And of course I want a coach who is stronger than me. While I value an experienced coach, it is even more important for me to be a teachable student who can follow a plan and stick to it.
 
Steve Freides said:
It depends on the cert. For many of us, including me, the SF cert was life-changing. When I was at one a few years ago, half the students set military press PR's in the middle of their second long day of training, no small feat, that. Read instructor reviews here to see what students think about their SF-certified teachers.

-S-
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I respect SF because there is a skill bar to be a SFG not just knowledge.
 
Abishai said:
I got the entire SF universe mad at me for suggesting that I value a trainer who has real-life success in fitness (with a body or stats that prove it) and has successfully replicated it with clients more than a dweeb with no records that has a cert.
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To your point, some people get too caught up in being "evidence based," needing research to back everything, etc. There's still a LOT of room for improvement in study design, depending on what study you read. There are also a lot of techniques out there that haven't been studied much, that definitely produce results. Until a trainee reaches a decent strength/fitness level, the only program they need is a consistent one. The only cues they need are simple ones. The only diet they need is, likewise, a lot more simple than people make it seem.

Also a lot of people arguing against you seem to be ignoring what I bolded above.

John K said:
A great looking physique / “stats” tells me as much as a cert.
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This is my point. Neither of those things means as much as getting results from clients does.

The only upside to a cert, in that light, is that it proves to strangers that you're not totally incompetent and have at least a basic bit of knowledge. The downside to it is that (anecdotally speaking) I have seen people with virtually zero training experience get certified and go on to have terrible coaching methods. If your cert comes alongside hands-on experiences (even if it's just weekend seminars), that's another story.

A certification is good in that it can help people who don't know much about training get into it. They just need to keep an open mind, and be a perpetual student themselves.

Before I get too rambl-y, I will just leave it at this for now:
Its not as simple as "cert-good, no cert=bad." It's just not. I think making polarized/polarizing statements about it doesn't help the discussion in a positive way. There are pros to certifications, and the main cons I can think of are that you might have to pay a bunch of money to be "taught" things you either already know or disagree with.
 
Abishai said:
I respect SF because there is a skill bar to be a SFG not just knowledge.
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Quite honestly, I think that should be more of a standard than it is. It's the way with GMB, if I am not mistaken, and it was the way with Gymnastic Bodies in the past (and those GB certs were no joke). The only place it gets hazy is when you have people who maybe have a physical disability but who are still fit (amputees, parapalegics, movement disorders -which I have had, and taught through-). In general though, the gen-pop certs like NASM can be gotten by anyone, without a physical test.
 
bluejeff said:
To your point, some people get too caught up in being "evidence based," needing research to back everything, etc. There's still a LOT of room for improvement in study design, depending on what study you read. There are also a lot of techniques out there that haven't been studied much, that definitely produce results. Until a trainee reaches a decent strength/fitness level, the only program they need is a consistent one. The only cues they need are simple ones. The only diet they need is, likewise, a lot more simple than people make it seem.
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100%.
healing injuries is one arena that is like the wild west.
reddit is a more useful resource than some .gov or vanilla fitness website.
 
Idk why it has to be one or the other. I'm thinking most coaches and trainers at work today have certifications AND qualifications AND experience. In the S&C and fitness industries, generally speaking (and I'm not talking about online gurus...), you need all of those things. Now, of course, there are some who can get away without having all of them - for example, a veteran coach/trainer with so much experience that it speaks for itself and a certification is irrelevant. But, for just about everyone else, the cert/credential/license/etc matters.

I coach swimming (not currently, but generally). If I seek any head coach position, I absolutely would NOT be hired without credentials AND experience. For an entry level position, I need baseline credentials and certifications. For anything more than that, unless I have great connections, I'm going to need experience and, unless the person hiring is lazy, successful experience.
 
Abishai said:
real-life success in fitness (with a body or stats that prove it)
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success in fitness, IMO, is not only body or number on the bar; but also the mileage.
My ex-coach has multi record-holders in Vietnamese powerlifting and Bodybuilding.
I ran his program to a T and have all the nagging.
He replies is run a cycle of Anavar and other oral.
...
 
I've always told my kids that "Education" is great, "Experience" is great.... if you have both, that's like E + E, even better.... but if you have them in the same field that's when the magic happens and you get E x E. So I think the same thing about being a trainer. Certs are the education piece and working with clients is the Experience piece. Doing both well is what gets you that multiplier effect.

Luis T. Gonzalez said:
The cool thing about Strong First is when you go to events, you will meet very strong instructors. And strong people seek to make those around them stronger. It is more than a certificate, it is proven to yourself that you are better and stronger for going through the process. That is why I like attending the SFG Cert's because it is a huge recharge for my own training. And of course I want a coach who is stronger than me. While I value an experienced coach, it is even more important for me to be a teachable student who can follow a plan and stick to it.
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Also 2 GREAT points here. 1) when you do a StrongFirst cert you meet SO MANY great people who will share their knowledge and remain connected for support. 2) you have to work hard for a StrongFirst cert yourself, so it ensures that you have the LIVED experience on doing the training yourself.
 
Anna C said:
I've always told my kids that "Education" is great, "Experience" is great.... if you have both, that's like E + E, even better.... but if you have them in the same field that's when the magic happens and you get E x E. So I think the same thing about being a trainer. Certs are the education piece and working with clients is the Experience piece. Doing both well is what gets you that multiplier effect.



Also 2 GREAT points here. 1) when you do a StrongFirst cert you meet SO MANY great people who will share their knowledge and remain connected for support. 2) you have to work hard for a StrongFirst cert yourself, so it ensures that you have the LIVED experience on doing the training yourself.
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I couldn’t agree more. When I made SFG 1 it was awesome. I worked with my coach for about nine months before attending. I got to work with awesome people and they were all so helpful. And I agree about education plus experience. I met an old who has passed away now but he saw me with my son at the park probably close to ten years ago. He asked me if I knew God. Then he asked me what I was going to do for a career. At the time I was in school for business so I said I’m going to school and I’m going to make money. He told me, just because you are in school doesn’t guarantee you money, you need a plan. It took me a long time to realize that I needed education and experience. I completed graduate school in 2020 with no experience in my career field. It took about three years to finally find someone who was willing to give me a chance. But to pass the time I kept my sanity by reading and training to pass the SFG 1. And now I’m about to go to the SFG 2 in Chicago. Well that’s enough rambling but either way, strong first is very awesome and that cert changed my life for the better. I appreciate all of you.
 
There was a great podcast recently with Dave Tate and Matt Wenning where they were talking about this.

The unfortunate trend of people only listening to fit looking people means we have to basically reset our knowledge every generation. So everyone has to rediscover stuff people already knew just because the guy teaching it got old.
 
Abishai said:
I respect SF because there is a skill bar to be a SFG not just knowledge.
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There are for me so many parallels between my career in music and how StrongFirst works. I had to audition for my B.M., M.M., and D.M.A. degrees, a "skill bar" just to get in and another, higher skill bar to complete them. The alternatives would have been degrees in music theory or music history. The equivalent of a PhD thesis in a college graduate music performance program is a performance, a concert.

-S-
 
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I would say both, walk the walk, talk the talk.

As a personal trainer myself I'm tired of Instagram university where everyone without a shred of evidence can claim everything.

As a trainer you'll need to learn how the body's react, not just your own, and how to adapt on your clients needs
 
I can't speak to SF cert in particular, but generally I don't put too much stock in them. Yes it means you were exposed to some good information. If there was a physical component you might pass it via training from some other approach, so a personal feat is likewise sketchy.

How many people have you trained? And how many totally detrained people have you bettered?
 
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