Know Your Enemy
Tuesday, December 16, 2008 at 12:00PM 
In a cruel twist of fate, I’m sitting for the ACE Personal Trainer exam on Saturday. It makes me feel dirty, and not in a good way.
The American Council on Exercise has jammed more bullshit into their six-hundred page manual than one would think possible, and I’m responsible for regurgitating every inch of it. Along with an intimate knowledge of the Ross Submaximal Treadmill Protocol, I’m expected to consider the feelings of lacto-ovo vegetarians while implementing the YMCA Bench Press Test. I’m looking at pictures of overweight forty year olds doing spotted biceps curls on a stability ball, and I’m considering putting my face through the desk.
I’m held back from this self-inflicted contusion by a single fact: there is a battle to be won.
Our country’s de facto authority on personal training is creating hordes of polo-shirted morons who have no business calling themselves trainers, and they’re fighting for the attention of every one of my clients. They’re armed with a battery of vocabulary words and functional movement screens, and they don’t have a clue as to creating real strength.
Their incompetence is driving thousands of otherwise motivated individuals away from athletics, spiraling commitment into the ground through ineffective techniques and motivational neglect. This attrition isn’t just unfortunate. It’s completely criminal.
Given the growth of CrossFit and the exponential embrace of high intensity compound movement, it’s easy to think that we’re winning, but the fact remains that majority of the gym-going public has no clue we exist. Serviced by ACE-certified trainers, they genuinely believe that fitness is a high score on the Three-Minute Step Test and a 5% improvement in VO2 Max.
We have a responsibility to these people, no lighter than a complete redefinition of health, beauty, and fitness. We need to show them that there is a better way, and it lies along a harder path. We need to show them that aesthetics are irrelevant and performance is paramount, and we need to start today. We need to show them that fitness is not mirrors and lockers, waivers and calipers. It is the sweat of the human soul, grinding through painful exertion in search of a more ideal self.
You have a co-worker, a family member, a neighbor who needs your help. Stop worrying about sounding like a fanatic and get in there. Get them a barbell and a pair of gymnastics rings, and do it now. Your hesitation increases the likelihood that they’ll fall into big-box purgatory, grabbed by a khaki-wearing trainer and forcibly removed from the joys of physical culture. Don't let it happen.
In four days, I’ll be sitting at a computer terminal, answering multiple-choice questions on the proper environment for engendering emotional comfort during training. I’ll select the answer describing Northern California in May, but I’ll be thinking of a dark basement and rusty dumbbells, of overbearing humidity and an all-consuming desire to succeed. With every answer, I’ll know that the enemy is complacent and soft, and I’ll smile.
They have no idea we're coming, and they can be beaten.
Black and Gold CrossFit of West Point is leading the fight against traditional training in the United States Army. Keep it up, Gentlemen. Picture courtesy of The Napping Poet.
Reader Comments (15)
Great article Jon! Freaking hilarious! Felt the same way sitting for my ACSM test! I feel like a spy....using their certification so I can get insurance/credibility in order to achieve my greater goal of really making peiple fit.
Wow, I'm debating getting an ACE or NCSA cert and you summarized my feelings well. I’m really trying to go in with an open mind. I’m sure there is SOMETHING I can learn from this, but I’m also not sure I’m going to be able to hold my tongue through the entire process. Unfortunately I'm not sure that (as you put it) they have no idea where coming.
I think that the establishment is beginning to recognize the growing trend in Crossfit and similar programs, but is starting to move past trying to ignore it, to actively attacking it. Witness Charles Poliquin’s recent commentary for an example of this.
From what I’ve seen most of the establishment tends to fit into one of two camps:
Those with a solid background in science, who generally recognize the principles behind the kind of training we espouse, and those with just enough knowledge to be dangerous, who don’t “get it”. Both of these groups are beginning to recognize the threat though, and lash out as a response, though I'm seeing some in the former group start to come around and express in interest.
You see this with any new paradaigm. First it’s ignored, then attacked, then finally embraced. We’re moving into the “attack” phase now though, which will only make things harder for the time being.
Wow Jon! Cool post.
At the time I thought my ISSA Cert was a leap above the majority of other certs.
Then I found Crossfit and knew that they had made a compromise somewhere.
They had the heavy deadlifts, squats, anatomy and the charts I have seen drawn in a ton of crossfit videos, but then they went and did something. They added 400 pages of complacent, appeal to the masses BS that made me shake my head and wonder what good half of it was going to do for anyone.
They almost got it right.
At least it forced me to renew my CPR/AED cert :-)
Thanks Jon!
Jon, Why waste your time, money, and energy on the ACE Personal Trainer cert? Knowing the enemy is one thing, but, you don't have to become one of them. Must be confusing as hell trying to unlearn all the great CF stuff that works while cramming your head with all that machine based, low intensity, rep-counting, towel folding crap. But good luck anyway! - Steve
Steve,
No faith! I can do it all, brother.
Best,
Jon
Awesome article.......I find myself checking in every other day to see if you've post yet.......I have a Personal Training Cert through NASM......I studied about 3 to 4 months before I took the test.......right before I took the test I stumbled across Crossfit and began obsessing with it........I passed my test and began picking up clients here and there training them with a little bit Crossfit and little bit the way i learned through NASM.........Well I'm now training all my clients Crossfit......I just recently attended a Lv1 cert @ CFSD....I feel like I truly earned my Crossfit cert......I'm convinced any monkey can read, memorize, study and get a C P T cert......I had to earn my Crossfit cert by doing.....I got real hands on experience! And I got to do the "Fran"......I don't think there would be allot of people signing up to be a" Personal Trainer" If they thought they'd have to actually do a workout especially "Fran" ........Thanks, keep the good stuff coming Jon......http://bodyfit4everybody.com/ Hey Jon can I put your article on my site?
Jon, why bother with ACE? I understand your frustration with, indeed your contempt for, those "polo-shirted morons" and the ACE's interesting hypothesis on what constitues fitness. However, I'm puzzled by your perception about the potential loss of clients. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I'd assume that a client of yours, by definition, has eschewed the pablum proffered by the "polo-shirted morons" . Perhaps you meant potential clients, those who have not yet experienced the benefits of what training such as that offered at CrossFit Boston provide. Anyway, good point about spreading the word to those individuals.
John,
Oh how I feel for you!! Have done the same thing myself....these morons don't have a clue. I had to answer more legal questions
than questions on how do your muscles work and whats the best for them. I worked at a private gym, I went in as an ACE trainer then became a Crossfit instructor, So I brought in Crossfit. Guess what, don't work at the private gym anymore. Didn't "Fit" their training plan. But, the one good thing, all (24) clients that I had have either stuck with me in my garage gym, or have moved on the other Crossfit gyms until I open my own. It's a REVOLUTION BABY! And we will WIN!
Jon, thanks once again! I was sitting in the chow hall last night talking fanatically to one of my bros about CF programming. In reflection I was loud and spoke rhythmically like I was possessed . As I stood up to walk away from the conversation I felt like such a goober. This feeling continued on and I couldn't get it out of my head as I tried to go to sleep.
Thanks for the reassurance-It's ok to be a fanatic about this stuff! We have responsibility!
Keep it coming Bro,
Mike
Great article as usual Jon.
Keep the faith, there is hope.
I'm a personal trainer by qualification through, what sounds like, the ACE or similar equivelant in Australia.
I'm also the personal training manager, and have got there through my success as a trainer, success brought about by client results. And what training style brings the greatest results? Crossfit and the like of course!
So while I do in fact appear to be a 'polo shirt wearing moron' as you delicately put it, and I do work in a commercial gym amongst a plethora of Calgym and Nautilus machines, Pilates, Pump and Spin group classes; those items are merely shiny decorum for my clients who regularly grapple with kettlebells, power rings, while brushing up on basic Oly lifts and bodyweight exercises. And of course, all are often mashed together for rounds against the clock.
And despite the odd glares which occasionally escalate to complaints from the iller informed of the members, I do all this with the blessing of the club owner/manager.
I also insist it as my duty to take under my wing any of the newer trainers who show some gumption, and subtly steer them down the Crossfit path. Those ALWAYS become our most in demand trainers.
So no need to feel dirty Jon, take whatever medicine 'ACE' ask you swallow, and then save your best work for that done behind enemy lines. A few good Crossfit men and women performing an act of commercial fitness espionage such as this will be for the better of the world!
All the best,
Will.
I have an NASM cert too! I work at an enormous globo-gym where the equipment to use in circuits is very far apart and there are too many people to get through to make it work anyway. I try to pick up clients and explain that the hamster wheel thing isn't going to help you lose weight (do what you've always done get what you've always got). My fellow trainers feel that merely making people exert themselves without measuring their heart rate and following convention (assesments and calculations) is a VERY bad thing... I may in fact be watched by the thought police. It's NOT ok to exert yourself. Come to the gym, watch tv, no noise allowed (unless it's the blaring loudspeakers), and if you go through the motions and don't lose weight maybe you should hire a personal trainer who won't help you out either!
Awesome piece Jon!
Keep up the good posts man!
-Justin
GymJunkies.com
Awesome post!!!
Quick question:
Why are you getting the ACE cert? I would assume for maintaining credentials that allow for liability insurance...???
I am a trainer working at the "globo gym", programming my clients with Crossfit movements and WODs---feeling as if I could be screwed in litigation for not following my ACSM cert protocols in the event someone gets hurt. How do we deal with this? Does CF certification qualify a trainer for a good liability policy? if so please enlighten me...
I am up for re-cert in a few months and am incredibly frustrated to AGAIN go through the process of studying 3x10 seated biceps curls (with a spotter) ----it is close to unbearable.
The garage gym sounds better and better everyday...
Cheers,
Kyl
Jon,
As you know I too 'had' to sit for my ACE exam last May. I had to memorize their words, rules and thoughts on fitness. It was a hard pill to swallow. Having found CrossFit in February and attending as many certs as possible in 2008, I had to put what I believe in out of my head temporarily and as rip would say, "pass the test' . If I had not taken/passed the test, I would not be allowed into my local gyms to train. After passing I now train out of 3 local gyms and introduce each client to CrossFit. They love it. I have clients from 14 to 83 and they all CrossFit. I bring my own equipment and recently purchased a 15# barbell, as you know, to cart around to the gym. One gym I work at decided to purchase $10k worth of treadmills and elliptical machines but would not spring for a light weight barbell.
I get odd looks when I struggle to carry my kettlebells, pvc and barbell. My clients happily help me through the doors, while receiving odd looks from the other trainers. They have their clients pull on bands, stand on bosu balls and sit on machines, eyes glazed over as they perform the same old same old. Thank god I have my ACT-PT so I can get through the doors and save some of them.
I am a traveling trainer but will open a box next summer in New Zealand, until then, I will use my ACE-PT for good and keep up my CEU’s. Too bad they won't recognize CrossFit.
I took the test yesterday, and passed. I am now ACE Certified.
I always thought it was ironic that Again Faster could be trusted to inspire and train thousands of people every week, but I would not be eligible for a job at the local Gold's Gym. That irony didn't motivate me to do this. Rather, I was asked by some very dear friends at Concept2 to obtain the Certification so I could offer CECs at our Indoor Rowing Foundations courses, which I'll be teaching in 2009 (http://concept2cts.com/training/certification/default.asp) in Boston.
Given Concept2's amazing generosity and stalwart support of CrossFit, I couldn't say no. I bitched loudly, but I didn't say no.
I studied for about four hours before the exam, and passed with what would be a "C" on a normal scale. My poor mark stems from an inability to remember what I'm not supposed to remember.
Unfortunately, the practices that we employ to turn folks into athletes would not pass muster with ACE standards. Ballistic and dynamic full body movement is frowned upon, as is weightlifting. There are two mentions of the clean and jerk and snatch in the ACE Personal Trainer Manual, and they are both in the context of spinal injury. Any movements performed with a barbell or dumbbells are considered "advanced", and outside the scope of training for an adult simply seeking "health".
Throughout the ACE course, endurance training is elevated as the sole preventer of coronary artery disease, with strength and flexibility added only to supplement said endurance training. The dietary fallacies of fat and cholesterol are propagated and promoted, with a stunning recommendation that 65% of caloric intake come from carbohydrates.
The American Council on Exercise, while offering spot-on knowledge of anatomy and kinesthetics, continues to ignore any methodology that is not endorsed by their consortium of doctors and lawyers, a group whose only purpose seems to be avoidance of malpractice. The side-effect of their "first, do no harm" philosophy is that they do no good.
Among the litany of legal advice offered by ACE: Don't touch your clients.
I have never turned a sedentary adult, male or female, into an athlete without touching them. The need for immediate prioproceptive feedback is too great when teaching core-to-extremity movement. A hand on the back or the sternum communicates in a second what might take minutes or hours using words. The idea that someone will take me to court after pushing their knee into position or elevating their chest is ludicrous, as is the notion that they would have a case.
My end analysis: The American Council on Exercise is a product of outdated research on heart disease, chartered to reduce its incidence using flawed diets and ineffective training modalities. ACE has failed to keep up with advances in the field, and clings to a body of "knowledge" that keeps its insurers, doctors, and lawyers safe from lawsuit.
Pussies.