Is the National Academy of Sports Medicine a worthwhile personal training certification?
Yes, NASM is certainly a worthwhile certification. I have both NASM and ISSA, and from personal experience, NASM seems to be more respected because most gyms know it’s relatively difficult to attain (the exam is long and involved, but the information is useful and highly applicable). Just the discussion of exercise progressions alone is worth the price of admission. Highly recommended. The income potential of a personal trainer — well, that’s entirely up to you. Think about it — personal trainers earn roughly $25 per hour and up (depends on if you have your own business independent of a gym, or if you work with a gym, in which case you split the earnings). If you work on your own (without a gym), you also then have to think about insurance. In any case, you figure that if you earn a certain hourly rate, then you have to calculate how many clients you will need and how often you will need to see them. So, if you make like $30 and hour, and you have 10 clients who you see twice a week,
