The NCSF Workshop - Part 3

by Nancy

I ventured out to Las Vegas this past weekend for the NCSF workshop and I'll cut to the chase by saying I was really impressed. I learned a TON and was taking notes like a mad woman.... so in my case, what happens in Vegas did NOT stay in Vegas... it is all in my notebook:)

I am really glad I attended this workshop. When I arrived I met Brian from the NCSF (who has about 94 degrees in exercise physiology) and my 8 other fellow students for the weekend. We started off in a room adjacent to the 24-Hour Fitness aerobics room with tables and chairs and a powerpoint presentation. The first 4 hours consisted of Brian lecturing which sounds incredibly boring but it wasn't. He was really knowledgeable and also able to explain things with analogies, stories and examples so we could understand. He didn't dumb it down... I found myself thinking I definitely need to study up on my anatomy and names of muscles more... but being a novice to the technicalities of training, I was able to get a lot out of it. After lunch we all went into the aerobics room and applied some of the stuff we had learned that morning... practicing with the ball and light weights and learning the biomechanics of the various exercises.

The second day was structured the same. Lecture in the morning and practical application in the gym in the afternoon. We never worked with the weight machines (which we learned were mostly designed for body building in the first place because they isolate muscles quite a bit) but worked with mats, balls and free weights. (PS, I was sore on Monday!) Brian stressed a lot of "killing 3 or 4 birds with one stone" by combining exercises where appropriate. Since you typically only have 1 hour with a client you want to maximize what you can teach in 60 minutes.

Throughout the workshop, Brian would point out which pieces of info were especially important for the test and answered all of our questions thoroughly. I think it's going to be very helpful.

The workshop definitely gave me a renewed appreciation for the NCSF, because they are no nonsense and they believe personal trainers have an important responsibility of human body, nutrition, aerobic and anaerobic training knowledge. One of the first things Brian said to us is, "The reality of personal training is that you can kill someone." Although we only had 2 days, I felt like he covered almost everything major in the book and I understand it all so much better now. I've already signed up to take the test... so wish me luck! :) Feel free to send me any feedback or questions if you have them.

I would encourage anybody who is studying with the NCSF to take this workshop. Some of the students in my class were already operating as personal trainers at various gyms around the country and some of them had 1 or 2 certifications from other organizations already... so this workshop isn't just for novices! Everybody seemed to derive a great deal from the weekend.

Best,
Nancy