Yes, this is old news to most fitness professionals, but it came up in the office the other day and I realized that I never shared this with you! If you click on this link you will see that NASM (National Academy of Sports Medicine) and AFAA (Aerobics and Fitness Association of America) are both listed on the same screen, on AFAA’s website nonetheless. Don’t be confused, AFAA has not acquired NASM; it’s actually the other way around. On this particular page, AFAA is offering a NASM Group Personal Training Online Workshop for $129, granting 7 AFAA CEUs. Essentially, you read a bit, watch some videos, and take a quiz that you need to pass in three attempts.
Image source: NASM
Now, I haven’t taken this course yet because it is very new and I have been extremely busy lately with all of my projects, budget season, and our move. Still, I have an opinion on this already and I’ll share my two cents now, as usual. AFAA has always been considered the second best primary certification for group exercise behind ACE. ACE’s Group Fitness Instructor Certification is the gold standard for primary certs in group exercise, which means someone can teach a large group how to workout or help them burn some calories. Obviously, this doesn’t take specializations such as cycling or TRX into consideration from a liability standpoint, but it does cover the fundamentals of working with a group.
While NASM is arguably the “best” Personal Trainer Certification available on the market, the organization has always been geared more towards specializations for the personal trainers in a one-on-one setting. Therefore, they’ve been missing a large chunk of the market share on group exercise, which is considerable in size for numbers if you own a club or fitness facility. Why would this juggernaut allow itself to not have a piece of the pie? Well, let’s just say that they grew too hungry and here they are.
NASM “acquired” AFAA to give itself the best possible entry into the Group Exercise market, in terms of certifications for fitness professionals, which can be extremely profitable with the need for re-certifications, liability considerations, and of course, the competitive edge to be hired as a professional. The dynamic that has been developing in recent years is this concept of what ACE calls Small Group Training, which NASM is now calling Group Personal Training because they can’t just copy ACE’s name without sacrificing their status as an authority. If you’re a fitness professional, Small Group Training is the most profitable model because it allows you to charge every participant an elevated rate, while being able to handle larger groups.
Image Source: AFAA
For example, if I charge $180 an hour for personal training, I make $180 in one hour. If I charge every participant $30 and have 10 clients in my small group, I make $300 in one hour. Easy math, right? Most trainers charge $80-100 an hour, but if they have a small group of 6-10 people and charge them each $20, now they’ve already increased their revenue a considerable percentage. NASM recognizes this and is using it as their leverage, using an organization that has many members and certified professionals, to enter this particular market as competition for ACE in the most effective way possible.
I hope that helps you understand that move and it makes sense. I’ll try to take that course soon and post a review of it so you all know if this move benefits you, or just the big businesses. It’s interesting to see that competitive price but also the lack of CEUs it grants to anyone outside of AFAA. We all know we’ve spent far too much on certification and re-cert courses, so this is the least I can do for you. Either way, knowledge is power and power helps you stay hungry and fit!
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