Complaint Review: NHE Certification

If you are trying to get into personal training to make additional money, you should think about corporate training or in home training, and/or boot camp training too. These opportunities are the only real way to make a living as a trainer, without worry about having to sell products. Every gym makes their trainers sell and that is why many of us don't work in fitness centers any longer. The key is finding opportunities that will allow you to keep most if not all of the service fee and to allow you to grow as a professional. If you work for a fitness center, you will only maintain a fraction of what you earn and you will not grow. There is no where to move up to in a fitness center atmosphere. They take most of your earnings and then they take out taxes too, and you are left with peanuts. Unless your family loves peanuts, you are going to have a serious problem in a short few months! Talk about being frustrated... the others are right, don't spin your wheels trying to work at a fitness center.

Your NHE certification is some sort of phenomenon that everyone on the Internet is talking about. Their certification programs are new and it may take a while before gyms add them to their lists. You may be frustrated with the industry but at least you are not embarrassed! Personal trainers know the NHE programs are brutal to pass and it's hard not to admire a trainer who actually has one.

I hope this makes you feel better Christine.

I doubt anyone was attacking you. I just think people are trying to explain that 24 hour fitness is a joke for trainers and trying to land a job there is a waste of time. I can't speak for the others, but I worked there, at Bally's and at Gold's Gym.

You said it yourself, the NHE program is tough and expensive. Those are the two attributes that separate NHE from 90 percent of the other online/proctored programs so any gym that would not accept that certification has priority problems. As a manager, just because you don't recognize a certification ,doesn't mean much because you can just get the information you need. It doesn't take a whole lot of effort if you really want to bring a new trainer on board.

I can testify as to what managers/GM's do at these clubs. In 2004, I was a manager at a Bally's and for a period of three years,  I would hire trainers who had recognized certifications, I hired trainers with certs I never saw before and even hired trainers with no certification at all. Possessing a certification is not required by law and so as a manager, we were not required to hire trainers who possessed a certification. We had the authorization to hire anyone we thought would increase sales. It's not required by law that you be certified, and so there is no recourse for hiring uncertified trainers. You'd be surprised how many trainers are not certified, or possess only the house certification. As long as you have professional insurance, nothing else really matters and anyone can get insurance with the most basic of certifications. You can acquire professional insurance with an Expert Rating certification and that certification cost $45.

The managers basically look at you and make a decision... are you going to make them money or are you going to cost them money. I don't think it is because you look like a bodybuilder or that you may not be young, because there are clients for everybody.

Remember, you don't need a certification to work at 24 hour fitness, they could  provide you with a house certification for free if they chose to. It is never the certification that gets you the job, it's the individual.

I don't seem to be getting my point across, I am not complaining about not getting a job.  I wanted to let others know that this NHE test is a very difficult test to pass, costs money and I don't know where the personal trainer certificate is recognized.  I just wanted others to know that spending the money and the hours it takes to pass this course may not be the best thing to do.  I was NOT applying to become a personal trainer, however, I had the NHE certification on my resume and was shocked to find out it was not recognized.  Perhaps, I should have investigated more, so, for those who are thinking about spending the money and the time for the NHE certification, you may want to to know about my experience.  As far as personally attacking me for my age or choice of careers or my appearance is rude and not relevant to what I was trying to let others know.

Unless they told you, either by phone or by letter, that you were going to get the job, you were not misled. Theres a difference between being hopeful (which tends to take over reality) and being told you have a job. People like to think they are something they are not.

If you have been in fitness your whole life, been body building your whole life, yet you are just now trying to get into personal training by starting at the very bottom that says wonders and fitness HR personally tend to wonder why? Im sure you have admirable excuses, but the fact is that at your age, you should be on your way out of personal training, not trying to get back in.

As far as 24 hour fitness is concerned, they are all beautiful. I dont think thats the point everyone is making. The point is, they are a pt trainer mill. They take anyone off the street, have them take a house certification program (if you have one of the certifications on their list, you get paid a higher percentage) and basically make them go out and sell products and over priced services. Being an ex body builder is irrelevant., as is, having a degree in business. The only thing most chains care about is how much they can exploit their employees. 24 hour fitness doesnt want body builders (especially female) in there scary away their members because 99 percent of their members do not want to look like a bodybuilder, which sounds to me like why maybe they turned you away.

I just want you all to know that I am a former body building champion, I have been involved in fitness all my life and the two brand new 24 fitness sports gyms being built in the denver area are beautiful.  I was given a list of accepted certifications and was just very very disappointed after passing NHE's exam that the certification was useless.  I also have a Bachelor's Degree in business, I just wanted to set the record straight regarding who I am.  I really wanted to be an exam processor from home and just think that I was led on for a year thinking this was possible.

I was searching nhe on google and this post was listed in the search. I've signed up to take the nhe fitness nutrition exam in April and I'm looking forward to getting certified. A guy who used to train me was certified by them and that's how I got their information. I work out at 24 hour fitness and that's where he trains people too. I think it's true that it may depend on who you are because the acceptance clause at the gym doesn't seem to be set it stone. I've checked and nhe isn't on that list at my gym either but there are two nhe trainers working there and only one also has a nasm certification. The other one doesn't have any other certifications.

It doesn't matter to me, I'm getting the nhe certification anyway because I want to do different things besides be a slave to 24 hour fitness or Bally's or any other chain gang.

NHE has one of the hardest programs. If you passed, then that is an accomplishment within itself. Don't feel discouraged about 24 hour fitness, there isn't much opportunity there anyways. I used to work for them and I never met anyone who made more than $500 a week as a personal fitness trainer. 24 hour fitness is a bit slow when it comes to recognizing fitness programs. The fact that NHE is so hard to pass is enough reason for you to think twice about a gym that won't accept it. The only reason a gym should deny a certification is maybe it was cheap or easy to obtain. NHE is neither. I would rather have a NHE certification than an ACE certification any day. Don't worry about it, 24 hour did you a favor!

24 hour fitness? Are you kidding? They won't accept NHE because NHE denied them rights to proctor their exams in Dallas. Cooper did the same and you won't see them in some 24 hours either. Besides, I don't think NHE wants their trainers anywhere near 24 hour fitness because that place is a pit. It is the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to personal training. Only the worst of the worst work there. Rumor has it, 24 hour fitness, as retaliation, left NHE off their list of 'accepted certifications'. Funny how they left NESTA and other crappy programs on though? Anyway, I saw this posting online and thought it was interesting:

" Academically, National Health Educators is more advanced than more recognizable programs. They have three different levels so that trainers who already know exercise fundamentals don't have to go through that crap again. Kinda like once you have your drivers license, you don't need to take the road test to renew it. Very smart. As far as being widely accepted, my suggestion is to not fall into that trap because AFAA is widely accepted and their program is a joke. Most gym owners know if their going to hire you within five minutes of talking to you. If a gym owner tells you he/she wont hire you because they don't "accept" your certification, they are basically saying, "You are not a good fit for my club". Because they can accept any certification they want. It's never the certification, that's just a perfect way to avoid EEO violations if they don't want to hire you because your too soft, ugly, short or whatever."