The Show Up Fitness Podcast

Should you get NASM certified 2025 | NASM vs McDonalds, who did it better | NASM breakdown

• Chris Hitchko, CEO Show Up Fitness • Season 3 • Episode 248

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Ever wondered why so many personal trainers struggle despite having "gold standard" certifications? This eye-opening exploration pulls back the curtain on the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) - the fitness industry's equivalent of McDonald's.

Founded in 1987 by Dr. Robert Goldman and developed by respected professionals like Dr. Michael Clark, NASM once represented cutting-edge fitness education. Today, after multiple corporate acquisitions (Ascend Learning in 2009, then Blackstone in 2017), it's become a marketing powerhouse with 1.5 million certified trainers worldwide. But quantity doesn't always equal quality.

We dive deep into NASM's transformation from respected education provider to corporate giant, examining both its strengths (global recognition, gym employment opportunities) and critical limitations. The certification offers minimal business training, relies on outdated biomechanical concepts like upper cross syndrome (largely debunked by physical therapists), and features questionable programming recommendations.

Most troublingly, newly certified trainers face a harsh reality: $9-12 per half-hour pay at big box gyms while clients are charged $50+, demanding split shifts, and pressure to sell supplements they may not believe in. It's no wonder 90% of trainers quit within their first year.

True success in fitness requires more than passing a multiple-choice test. Elite trainers need mentorship, hands-on experience, business acumen, and professional networks – elements textbook certifications rarely provide. Whether you're considering becoming a trainer or looking to level up your career, understanding the limitations of standard certifications is crucial to avoiding the common pitfalls of the fitness industry.

Ready to move beyond basic certifications? Discover what it really takes to build a sustainable, six-figure training career. Subscribe for more industry insights that separate fitness facts from mar

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Show Up Fitness Podcast, where great personal trainers are made. We are changing the fitness industry, one qualified trainer at a time, with our in-person and online personal training certification. If you want to become an elite personal trainer, head on over to showupfitnesscom. Also, make sure to check out my book how to Become a Successful Personal Trainer. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. Have a great day and keep showing up. Howdy y'all. Welcome back to the show for this podcast.

Speaker 1:

Today we're going to bring to you a new style of our podcast as we enter season three. Two variations One is going to be digesting companies, such as the textbook certifications. Today we're going to get into should you get your NASM certification, and then also taking a look at the big box gems, the history, the business of the equinoxes, the lifetimes, and just provide information for you to give you a better lens for your decision in the future. We're also going to be doing live podcasts. Our first one will be today in Santa Monica. We're going to be flying out SUFCPTs who have amazing stories with success and we're going to talk to you, do a good hour, two hours, talking about what helped you become successful and then also get a little workout in. Afterwards we're going to fly you out, put you up in a hotel all inclusive. That's what happens when you show up with the best certification. But let's start by talking about NASM, National Academy of Sports Medicine.

Speaker 1:

I wrote a Substack article you can read the whole thing in there where I introduce the idea behind what I call the fast food or the fitness company, and here's the reason why I get into some history and I compare it to some books that I've read over the years, and one of my favorite ones is called Grinding it Out by Ray Kroc. He was the person who purchased McDonald's from the McDonald brothers in 1961 for 2.7 million, and at the time, mcdonald's was a small brand with only like 14 locations. Now we're looking at 2025, over 41,000 restaurants worldwide, and so would you consider McDonald's the gold standard? Probably not, but that's what McDonald's was able to do, with the speed and the systems and consistency that Ray brought in. And so, in juxtaposition with NASA that's one of my favorite words when you compare the two, they're very similar.

Speaker 1:

So in like 1987, dr Robert Goldman started NASM, and then he brought on some key players. Neil Spruce, who brought NASM to California, integrated it with Apex and his brand, dotfit, and they brought on Michael Clark. Dr Clark, the OPT model, great physical therapist who worked with the Phoenix Suns People are known to go work with him Also had some other industry leaders like Tom Purvis, played a role in expanding the NASM's influence. So if you kind of look at that today you'll be getting a doctor like Doc Israetol, and then you get some badass physical therapists like the Prehab guys and then you get some influencer trainers, maybe from Alpha Lead or Gymshark or whatever, and they get together and they work on scaling. They need exposure and back in the early 90s they didn't have the internet like we do today, and so a lot of it was word of mouth and the career capital that these individuals built up Dr Clark, dr Goodman and this is just information I'm getting from Wikipedia, chat, gpt, what I know and these are my hypotheses, I'm not passing any judgment what they were able to do is pretty spectacular when you think of the powerhouse that NASM has grown into today.

Speaker 1:

I've not spoken to any of these individuals. It's just based off the research I've done. Dr Goodman, the original founder, did call me individuals. It's just based off the research I've done. Dr Goodman, the original founder, did call me. I was driving to work one day at 4 am and I got a call from a Utah number and it was a very interesting conversation.

Speaker 1:

You can tell the big hunk is a very eccentric individual If you look at some of his records. He did like 321 handstand pushups. I mean, the guy's an absolute stud. He's definitely in his older years but he was just like no-transcript. But to each their own. He was able to grow his brand from the late 80s until now. He's not actively involved anymore, as nor is Dr Clark or anyone else they may be on the board. There's a new CEO, mahal Patel, great background in marketing and acquisitions, and so you can just kind of see where it started in the process of growing a brand and building your pie.

Speaker 1:

And this is something that really fascinates me, because in the late 90s and early 2000s, nasm was actually a really, really recognized fitness certification. And if you talk to the greats who've been in the game for a while, they'll talk about oh yeah, I did NASM when it was respected and it was recognized as a good certification. But what happens is to put it from the perspective of fitness, the business side of it, because this is what I've been doing for the last 10 plus years with show up is you have your pie. So let's say your pie is a hundred bucks. If you were to give 20% of your pie to someone else because they give you money, but now that pie can be a thousand dollars, you may have lost 10 to 20% of your ownership. But now you have a greater reach and so then you sell off another 10, 20% and you may only have 60 or 70% of the total ownership from the beginning, but now your pie is 10,000 and then your pie is a million. So if you look at some of these CEOs today, like Elon Musk and Bezos, they don't have a ton of ownership it's like less than 15% but these are market caps of trillion plus dollars. So that's why they're billionaires because they sold off a little bit here, a little bit there.

Speaker 1:

Usually you start off like seed funding or just getting money from family and friends. There's a great example of that with Nike and how they started out. Phil Knight would get money from the coworkers and people who bought in in the beginning, and then family members. His parents helped him out. I forget the name of one of his first employees, but he was in a wheelchair, waddell I believe, and his parents gave like $8,000 and that's what he needed as a bootstrap company. And so then, as you grow, you start getting more opportunities with series A and series B and you just get a lot more funding that comes in and so it allows for you to scale a lot more.

Speaker 1:

So NASM shifted really into that growth scaling mindset when it was acquired from Ascend Learning in 2009. And that was an undisclosed amount. But you can go to ChatGPT and have a conversation, hypothetically, doing your research what were your best judgment be, or guesstimation how much NASM was bought for from Ascend? And it's a really great analysis that it can do, and you can just go to ChatGPT and type it in how much did Ascend pay for NASA in 2009? It talks about its EBITDA being roughly 22 to 30 million and you just guesstimations as of 2016. And EBITDA is your earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization. It's a widget on how to determine how much a company is worth, and so they go like a backwards analysis, bottoms up sanity check. Maybe it was this amount. So these are all just hypotheticals, but their guesstimation is bought maybe for between 100 to 200 million, with the likely guesstimation being around 150. And then in 2017, ascend was bought by Blackstone and, as you know, blackstone is one of the largest investment firms in the world over a trillion dollars assets under management so it just allows for so much more growth.

Speaker 1:

And if you look at the quality, what typically happens is you go from having these four minds and these are just guesstimations, in my opinion, from a business standpoint, but also looking at the research online, it's always funny when people say they do their research but you clicked on the first button. But when you actually dig a little deeper and you look at the wiki pages and you talk to people who were around back in the day, let's say that Goldman was, say, 70%, and then he gave 5%, 10% to these other individuals who would contribute, they would bring in their connections and it would just help with the growth to get on that large scale. But then what happens is when people start buying into it, you're going to have to give away some of those shares. So maybe Goldman at the time of bias and maybe he only had 20% or 30% Again, these are just hypotheticals, but your say essentially starts to get diluted, so you can go to a board meeting and be like, hey, I really want to make the OPT model even better, and blah, blah, blah. But they'd be like, eh no, we're not going to do that, we're going to vote real quickly and maybe you have three or four votes or you have your buddies and they're voting on there as well, but then you get outvoted. And you see that with Facebook and you see that with Uber and how it's so important to strategize the structure of your company, because it could be your company but you can get outvoted. So your original thoughts, the stuff that went into this in the very beginning, could be significantly different than what it is now. And that's just the fabric of the company. And when those leading founders start stepping away whether if it's just because you put your time in 10, 15 years of really grinding it out and putting all your sweat equity into the company, and then they say, hey, here's X amount, and you're like, yeah, I'm out, and then you just kind of watch it grow and what happens from that point on it, you don't have much say. You try to be on the board again. I don't know if they're still on the board or what their role is within it. I do see stuff from some of these individuals that they'll be at the conferences that they'll have annually. But it would be nice to have a here's an actual report.

Speaker 1:

If you go to NASM's website, it's pretty simple. This is when we implemented the OPT model in 2000. And then we got accredited in 2005. So NASM was founded, as I said earlier, in 1987. And then in 2005, they got accredited. It just shows you how long that accreditation process takes.

Speaker 1:

So when people reach out to me, are you guys accredited? We're going through the process. It literally takes numerous years, lots of money, lawyers, you have to find a team to go through, implement all these crossing the T's and dotting the I's. They have to do it. I'm not actually applying for the accreditation me personally. You have a team that does it because it's very, very convoluted. And then in 2015, they acquired AFAA and that's interesting because that's essentially another board seat that they're going to get a vote on, and that's why the industry is never going to have one umbrella. We're not going to be recognized like physical therapists are with the APTA American Physical Therapies Association and they have boards and all that stuff. And I did a podcast with a lawyer, probably about maybe 10, 15 ago, and she talks about how it's so difficult to do and why the free market. These companies don't like that because you can profit so much more and there's less red tape.

Speaker 1:

So let's talk about some of the strengths of NASM and let's be clear. It has its advantages Global recognition it is the McDonald's of fitness certifications. Everyone knows the name. If you were to ask a trainer anytime or overseas, in the UK or in India, what certification should I get? People will regurgitate NASM, ace, issa and that's brand ubiquity. So great job to them. They are globally recognized. When it comes to you want to become a trainer. That equals NASM. That equals ISSA Also. Ironically, they're also owned by billion dollar companies. Let's think about how they can get that recognition.

Speaker 1:

The exam super, super easy. 35% of people fail. But that's for those that are insecure with the trade. They don't have hands-on experience, they've never been to a gym and they're reading an 800-page book. That's why, when people reach out to me, I just don't learn this way. Well, yeah, no shit, no one does. If we're a kinesthetic field, you need hands-on learning, you need mentorship, you need the ability to ask questions. You don't get that with a book. So a lot of people will wait. Six plus months, they'll take it and fail. Oh my God, it's such a hard test Trying to learn by yourself a new language.

Speaker 1:

If you were just given a book on Espanol and it was 800 pages, I bet you it's going to be pretty damn difficult to learn the material, the confidence behind the pronunciations and what you're taking away and what you're dissecting from that material. It's based on your confidence. Can you read the book, pass it and be a great trainer? Sure, but there's going to be that self-doubt or, as everyone says, that imposter syndrome, because you don't really know what you just learned if it's applicable. So it's not hard to pass if you get a guide. We've helped over 5,200 people pass this because I taught it at a school. When I taught at NPTI, national Personal Training Institute, that was the curriculum that they made us teach and I did that for over 10 years. So I know NASA more than pretty much anyone out there, and that's why Doc Goldman gave me a call is because I'm confident in what I know.

Speaker 1:

But some of the stuff may not line up because it's not public information and so it's super easy to pass if you focus on the big blocks OPT model, the overactive, underactive they don't ask you a lot of nutrition. They don't ask you a lot on sports and conditioning because they want you to get their other specializations. So it's entry-level opportunities for most big box gyms. If you want to work at LA Fitness, planet Fitness, 24-hour, orange Theory, you're going to get hired pretty much on the spot. They don't even check for your shirt because they just need bodies and, as I showed, 90% of these trainers quit within the first year because they just throw them to the sharks and you're not getting paid a lot and it takes a lot of grit and want for this to make it into a career. And if you get into one of these big boxes like an LA Fitness, you're getting paid maybe $9, $12 every half hour session. They're charging 50 plus.

Speaker 1:

I can't wait to really dig into these companies to get a really good sheet that we can deliver to y'all, where you can see the differences in the organizations and how much you make, because some of these gyms they don't pay you much at all. So imagine working 40 or 50 hours and at the end of the month you're bringing home maybe a couple grand. So the expectations upon entry are really convoluted. We think that we get certified. All of a sudden we're qualified and people are starting knocking on our door and we get to train from eight to five. It's not like that. As you know, you're going to be training at 5 am, you're going to have an 8 pm session and you really have to grind it out and you have to have some grit in you and resolve to make this into a career.

Speaker 1:

Very, very great at marketing, people will say you can also stand for the National Academy of Spectacular Marketing. Kudos to them for having the marketing team and the development of the brand recognition comes from marketing. People will not know who you are if you do not have a great marketing team. So they do an amazing job with that. I think Arnold has a great quote.

Speaker 1:

When you have a great product and you focus on getting it out there, the next thing you need to do is just market and advertise the hell out of it. Some of the limitations that you're going to get with NASM not a lot of business skills. You can go through that textbook front and back. You can check into their portal. They're not going to teach you how to scale your business, how to charge a hundred plus bucks per hour, how to overcome those objections. You don't work with people to do role-playing. You get certified and you get into the gym and the manager's like, hey, oh yeah, by the way, you need to start selling, and on top of that you got to start selling supplements. I didn't get into this to become a salesman, but that's what we do. We're selling our product, and if you work at one of these big box gyms, you may have to sell their product, which you may not 100% believe in, but you have to do it to hit those widgets.

Speaker 1:

And so the second thing is biomechanics and education. Not a lot in there. They're going to do their overhead squat assessment and tell you that your adductors are overactive and you need a foam roll and stretch or you're going to die. Bosu balls, stability balls, upper cross syndrome, which has been debunked time and time again. If you check out that Substack article, I have links where you can read from physical therapists debunking a lot of this stuff. In the beginning, when Dr Yanda proposed this stuff, it made sense, but through science and checks and balances, we've seen pain's a lot more complicated than that, and so this stuff has been pretty much thrown away. But there's still people that will implement it and it's unfortunate because that's fear-based.

Speaker 1:

Telling a client put your hands above your head which you've never done before and then you make them foam roll and stretch. It's like it's not going to help them long-term. They're coming in there for fat loss. You got to take a more holistic approach. Those are where the people skills come in. Again, you're not going to sign up and they're going to tell you that I need to think about it or it's too expensive. Or let me talk to my significant other. Those are the common things you see time and time again. But when you take a step back and you go, the average trainer just reads a textbook and these are the common complaints that you see. Well, what if you came in learning these skills of objections and the product which is yourself and the value add that you're going to provide? Your confidence is going to be significantly higher because your competence is there. Competence with the understanding of your team physical therapists, doctors, registered dieticians is going to go through the roof. Because you are confident in what you do, you can help people get results. It doesn't matter what it is, because if you can't, you have the team.

Speaker 1:

So the biomechanical aspect is not the best in that book. They don't even have Hedman size principle, which I find is ironic because it's one of the most important things from the fundamental standpoint of understanding movement competency and the neuromuscular communication threshold recruitment from motor units to standpoint. It's imperative to understand this and I'd be willing to bet 99.9 out of a hundred trainers don't even know the simple things like the size principle 17 muscles around the shoulder, 20 of the lower body and that's exactly why we test trainers on these things with our certification. And the last one is the programming depth. If you look at the last section of the seventh edition, I still can't make sense of day one and then two of 12 and three of 12. Go there and check it out and when you try to really dissect what's going on, I can't even tell you because it doesn't make sense. I don't know if it's workout one or month one into month two.

Speaker 1:

The OPT model looks great and it's super pretty and it's kind of like communism. It looks great on paper but when you implement it it begins to fall apart. So you got to be stable for a month and you got to do four, two, one tempos and you have to do zero to 90 seconds rest and everything needs to be on an unstable surface. Then after a month you move into muscular development, which is hypertrophy. Ironically, you're trying to get buff but yet you're resting zero to 60 seconds. So I mean, the programming stuff is just extremely outdated and I'll have links into the sub stack where you can read about the efficacy of unstable surface training and why it's just been debunked. Sure, if you sprain an ankle, hop on a BOSI ball, otherwise we don't need to be doing all this hunky-dory stuff that you're seeing on Instagram today. So the bottom line NASM is an excellent, excellent marketing company. They've scaled the certification. It's recognized globally.

Speaker 1:

But you really have to look at what is your goal when it comes to becoming a qualified, certified personal trainer. If you just want your foot in the door, or maybe you're in a smaller town and that gym says you have to have NASM, it's always kind of a red flag to me because maybe the manager or that gym is going to make you do all this overhead squat assessment bullshit and you're scaring your clients. I'm not on board with them. Let's show up. We assess the individual, we teach you the business side, the people side, building your team, communicating with medical professionals. It really builds you up. But if your goal is to make six figures, have a sustainable client base, mastering biomechanics and programming, if you want to crush imposter syndrome or learn how to sell, you're not really going to get that, in my opinion, through this textbook. So it may be a stepping stone.

Speaker 1:

There's 1.5 million trainers that have got certified through NASM. I would love to find some that can check those boxes. I just mentioned making 100,000 plus strictly because of NASM. Now what you're going to find is people say, well, I got this cert and then I just started getting my reps in and I found a mentor who really helped me better understand the sales process. Or I did a really cool transformation because I was 30 pounds overweight, got into great shape and then the business started shooting through the roof. But again, email me info at showupfitnesscom. I would love to have someone on here who got their NASM CPT and is a hundred percent all about it and implements the OPT model to date without modifications of your own.

Speaker 1:

I'm not talking about an instructor who's doing podcasts for NASM, who's getting paid because they're on their payroll or mind pump because they're sponsored by NASM. I'm talking about someone who just went through it, got certified and can say I am where I'm at today because of this. You can do that with show fitness and RCPT. You can do that if you went to Harvard. I got my business degree from Harvard and I was able to get these doors open because of my degree from Harvard 100%. I just don't hear about it much from trainers who just get their NASA.

Speaker 1:

So again, my take great at marketing, not necessarily great when it comes to the current information that's being provided. Back in the day the team was a rock star and the information was really solid, but it's just gotten really diluted. And I use that example from Elf. I love it when he takes her on a date and they're in that coffee shop and he's like try this out. And she's like what is that? It's a terrible, crappy cup of coffee. He's like no, no, no, it's the world's best coffee, just because it says it on the door. Of course now someone's going to say they're the gold standard. Well, so does ISSA and ACE. Does ISSA and ACE? Anyone can say that, just like when you look at a restaurant, we're the best in town. How do you know you're the best? Would it actually go through a thorough, intensive process of having third parties giving that recommendation? I don't think so.

Speaker 1:

So if you're looking to really level yourself up, get into a program where you can gain hands-on learning, internships, mentorships. Surround yourself with qualified medical professionals. Learning from physical therapists is going to be significantly better than any specialization out there. You throw it into your bio, you may feel good and strong inside, but just understand from true medical movement professionals. It's kind of looked at as a joke because today it's not nearly as recognized as it was back in the day. So if you're looking to level yourself up, get into those environments. Our next in-person internship is going to be in Atlanta, as well as Santa Monica. Two months, I guarantee you. In those two months you'll learn more than any textbook. Certification 100% guaranteed. We'll give you your money back. That's how confident we are. Remember big biceps are better than small ones. Nasm, I love you.