Friday, September 18, 2009

Personal Training Interviews are like Video Games

First, there is the certification process. Let's call this level 1. Here, you have to pay a bunch of money to take a test that confirms all you have learned in college. If you take the better test, the CSCS one, it is like getting a cheat code and it makes the rest of the process a lot easier.

Level 2 is the initial interview. Here they ask you really basic questions like what would you do if your client has high blood pressure? or what kind of program would you prescribe for a 40 year old woman? Pretty simple. I said level 1 had a cheat because it is really easy to get an interview if you have the CSCS and a degree in the field and a small amount of experience.

Level 3 is preparing for the second interview. Oh, surprise! We didn't mention this at the first one, but yep, there is a second. You said you knew how to take blood pressure and do body fat testing, so we will have you do that plus an hour personal training session. Since you haven't done this stuff in 3 years, you worry and write some notes down from your textbook hoping the SWAG equation works (scientific wild ass guess).

Level 4 is the moments prior to the interview where you scramble around the facility trying to figure out where everything is.

Level 5 is the initial consultation. Here you may do a few things wrong like do the body fat testing before the blood pressure. You are relieved when your knowledge doesn't fail you and you successfully complete the tasks. You also ask a lot of questions.

Level 6 is the actual training session. Here you wonder if they will throw tricks at you like make the person fall down or get hurt. Luckily, they don't do this, and you progress through the level without too much difficulty except that the actual program doesn't take as long as you thought it would so you spend some time stretching at the end.

Level 7 is the feedback. The person who observed you says what you did right and what you did wrong.

If you did it right, they might say something like "we want to bring you on board" and you feel like you have reached the end of a video game which cues the happy music starts and the 1 minute montage of the video game character grabbing the golden key on top of the castle.

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