About Online Fitness Schools

People who want to become personal trainers must be certified. There are many certificates that can be earned online. These online schools are great for people who have a busy lifestyle and cannot attend traditional classes because of time constraints.

American Council on Exercise

The American Council on Exercise (ACE) program includes four certified courses. Students learn how to create and teach workouts, inspect clients for potential risk factors and give advice to clients on how to change their lifestyle with the personal training course. Students learn how to create and teach programs to a group of people instead of one individual with the group fitness professional course. The two advanced personal training courses are only offered to people with four-year fitness degrees.

American Fitness Training of Athletics (AFTA)

This course is open for anyone 18 years and older to take. There are no other requirements other than the age of the student. This course usually takes between four and six weeks to complete and students must pass an exam at the end of the class period. An instructional DVD is also part of the curriculum. This certification allows students to teach fitness routines to youth, seniors and large groups.

U.S. Career Institute (USCI)

The U.S. Career Institute (USCI) certification includes five phases of training. The first part is about training psychology and what the trainer’s role is in the psychology of training. The second part is about the musculoskeletal anatomy. Flexibility and core training is the main focus of the third part. Injury prevention is covered in the fourth part and the final chapter teaches students how to create workout plans.