Total number of certified personal fitness trainers in the USA or with
ACE, NASM, ACSM, IDEA, or other top national fitness
certifications?(American Counsel on Exercise, National Accademy of
Sports Medicine, American Counsel on Sports Medicine)

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Request for Question Clarification by cynabun-ga on 25 Nov 2002 13:03 PST

Are you interested in the number of people who hold these particular
certifications regardless of whether or not they make their living as
trainers?

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Clarification of Question by hunter9-ga on 25 Nov 2002 17:18 PST

I would like to find those trainers that are serious enough to make a
sizable portion of their income from personal fitness training in the
USA. Trainers that are nationaly certified and work at this profession
at least part time.If they are certified by any of the top 5
certifications that is a plus.

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Request for Question Clarification by cynabun-ga on 26 Nov 2002 10:59 PST

I have found some of the information that you are interested in,
however I am running into a few snags.

1) The US Bureau of Labor Statistics catagorizes fitness trainers and
aerobic instructors together and gives a total for the two job
categories. Would you want this number?

2)Some of the certifying agencies only list the number of members, not
the number of certification holders, so it highly probable that you
would be missing out on large numbers of trainers that hold
cerifications, but are not members of the association, council, etc. I
have put out requests for exact numbers on certification holders with
the bodies you listed as well the NSCA. If membership numbers are the
only number available would you be interested in those instead?

3) I did hear from an Account Manager at IDEA, and he stated that IDEA
is not in the business of certifying trainers, but endorses a list of
certification agency ( the ones you have listed and several others) as
well as provides continuing education credits for certification
maintenance. Are you interested in obtaining membership numbers from
this organization?

Thanks

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Clarification of Question by hunter9-ga on 26 Nov 2002 13:47 PST

1. I'll take the statistic given by the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics combining fitness trainers with aerobic instructors.
2. The specific certification agencies membership numbers are useful
as long as their separated from one another.
3. And the membership #'s associated with IDEA are helpful as long as
they are in a separate catagory as well.
Thank you for help!

Hunter9-ga

I apologize for the delay, but I was away for the holiday. Hope yours
was good..

Unfortunately, I did not hear back from all of the agencies with whom
I made inquiries, but this what I did get....

-In 2001, the US Bureau of Labor identifies approx. 160,490 persons as
fitness trainers and aerobics instructors.

-The American Council on Exercise (ACE) states that there are approx.
"45,000 active ACE-certified members in the US and 77 other
countries."

- The American College of Sports Medicine(ACSM)has "more than 18,000
international, national and regional chapter members."

- According to the Janet Owen, Commission Administrator for the
National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) there are 5, 098
trainers holding NSCA-PT certification in the US, and 500 in Canada
and other countries.

- IDEA's wording is ambiguous...."your membership in IDEA puts the
resources, voice and support of over 19,000 of the world's top health
and fitness leaders behind you."

If you need more information, please check the links and contact
information provided below.

Additional Links and Contact Information:

Bureau of Labor Statistics 2001 National Occupational and Wage
Estimates
http://www.bls.gov/oes/2001/oes_39e.htm

American Council on Exercise (ACE)
http://www.acefitness.org/aboutace/index.cfm

American Council of Sports Medicine (ACSM)
http://www.acsm.org/membership/index.htm

National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA)
http://www.nsca-cc.org

Janet Owens, Commission Administrator National Strength and
Conditioning Association (NSCA)
Administration@nsca-cc.org

IDEA
http://www.ideafit.com

Chris Herb, Account Manager Personal Training IDEA
Herbc@IDEAFIT.com

Hope this helps.

cynabun-ga

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Clarification of Answer by cynabun-ga on 04 Dec 2002 13:39 PST

Hunter9-ga,

I received a response from Jennifer Norris at ACSM. She states,"Our
certification is used in fields outside of personal training and we
don't keep occupation demographics of our certified individuals.  You
might
try contacting IHRSA but I doubt they could tell you how many personal
trainers have a specific certification." 

If you would like to contact her, try the following email address:
jlnorris@acsm.org.


Cynabun-ga