If you have aspirations of becoming a personal trainer, gaining certifications can help to strengthen your reputation as an experienced and knowledgeable professional. Although there are different routes to enjoying a successful career as a personal trainer, most of these avenues involve an element of study and preparation for an exam. So, what can you do to make studying for a personal training qualification easier? Let’s discover how you can prepare for your exam.
Get Organised Early
When it comes to preparing for your personal training qualification exam, it is never too early to begin the revision process. Different personal training courses offer a variety of programs that last for varying amounts of time, so when preparing for your exam, it is essential that you take the length of your course into consideration. While it is not always helpful to hold yourself to a time frame, if you begin to notice your studies slipping, you can soon start to lose motivation and fall behind.
For example, when learning how to become an NASM personal trainer, be generous with yourself and provide adequate time to initially process, and then review the course materials. It is no secret that personal training exams cover a large number of topics about health and fitness, so once you have an exam date in mind, prioritise your study material accordingly by focusing on your weakest areas first. Drawing up a study timetable can help you to cover everything for your course while still setting time aside for breaks, meals and free time.
Embrace Your Learning Style
Our ability to learn and retain information comes down to a lot of interlinked factors. This can include, but is not limited to, your life schedule, previous educational background, and more generally, how quickly you can learn and integrate new material. With this in mind, it is important to remember that different people have preferential methods of learning and unique learning styles. For instance, are you a visual, aural or kinaesthetic learner?
Passing the personal training exam is about much more than having a photographic memory though. In order to excel as a personal trainer, you must be able to integrate large amounts of information about health and fitness into actual practice. Specifically, this involves making judgements about how to assess and make recommendations about a potential client’s fitness. Work on finding learning style appropriate ways to help you retain information about anatomy, exercises, and relevant charts or statistics.
Tips for Exam Day
Having put in the bulk of your studying throughout the duration of your course, try to think of your exam day as a chance to shine and demonstrate all the useful lessons you have learned along the way. Make sure you get a good night’s sleep the day before your exam and aim to avoid burn out by studying too hard in the hours leading up to the test itself. Remember to drink plenty of water and bring a bottle with you so that you stay hydrated.
During the exam, if you find yourself struggling on a question, try not to let this impact your performance throughout the rest of the exam. Take a few deep breaths to help you to stay calm and read each question slowly to ensure you understand precisely what the question is asking. Depending on the exam you are taking, you might be able to skip to the next question and revisit your answer later on, so if possible do not get bogged down with any parts of the exam that seem tricky.
Ultimately, as long as you have an invested interest in your study materials and take time to learn the course content on your own terms, you are more likely to experience success in any personal training exam. Above all, stay calm and have confidence in yourself. If you are planning on starting up your own personal training business, then you should check out this article here.
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