The Show Up Fitness Podcast

Is NASM CPT worth it? SNAP trainer NASM review

• Chris Hitchko, CEO Show Up Fitness • Season 3 • Episode 263

Share episode

Send us a text if you want to be on the Podcast & explain why!

Nicholas: Tik Tok Crag Monkey Fitness

Ready for a blunt look at what actually makes a great trainer? We sit down with Nicholas, a new coach who passed a major certification, stepped onto the gym floor, and realized the test didn’t prepare him to handle real clients with pain, limitations, and shifting goals. His turnaround came from mentorship, relentless anatomy study, and the discipline to plan, pivot, and communicate clearly—all before chasing trends or complicated gear.

We walk through his path from music major to fitness coach, the early shock of seeing clients arrive injured from unstable programming, and the mindset shift from “gain experience” to “earn competence.” Nicholas breaks down how he studied the knee—ACL, PCL, MCL, LCL, supporting musculature—and used simple tools like a cable machine and a plyo box to design safe, effective sessions for a client who couldn’t stand comfortably. Along the way, we cover the sales psychology that keeps training human: framing questions that respect autonomy, building trust through clear plans, and measuring progress clients can feel in daily life.

You’ll leave with a blueprint for faster growth: find a mentor, study one joint at a time, master regressions and progressions, choose a gym environment that lets you coach well, and skip the gimmicks. We share concrete strategies for retention, client assessment, and building your pipeline when you’re new and hungry. If you’ve ever wondered why a shiny badge doesn’t equal real-world skill—or how to bridge that gap with smart, ethical coaching—this conversation gives you the steps and the confidence to do it.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a coach who needs a nudge, and leave a review to help more trainers find practical, no-fluff guidance.

Want to ask us a question? Email email info@showupfitness.com with the subject line PODCAST QUESTION to get your question answered live on the show!

Our Instagram: Show Up Fitness CPT

TikTok: Show Up Fitness CPT

Website: https://www.showupfitness.com/
Become a Personal Trainer Book (Amazon): https://www.amazon.com/How-Become-Personal-Trainer-Successful/dp/B08WS992F8
NASM / ACE / ISSA study guide: https://www.showupfitness.com/collections/nasm

SPEAKER_00:

I cannot tell you how much I regret doing NASM. Just straight up regret doing NASM. It's the only positive of NASM is you are going to have that little badge that says, Hey, I did that thing that you all know about. And great, you are exactly the exact same fish in the exact same pond. Um, as soon as I get that ham NASM paid off, I'm gonna look into either well, I'd love to do the in-person, but I'm going to be doing more than likely the online show fitness CPT.

SPEAKER_01:

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 showufffitness.com. 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. Keep showing up. Hi everybody, welcome back to the Show Up Fitness podcast. Today we have Mr. Nicholas. And this young hunk right here has a really cool story. He tagged me on TikTok, and this was an unsolicited video that he put out there. And I really appreciate the word of show up getting out there. He was able to pass his NASA smart guy because he realized it didn't do too much for him. He put a nice video out there basically saying, if you want to become a trainer, I would definitely recommend going this route. So we just want to hear your story today, my man. So thank you for taking the time. It's seven o'clock on a Saturday morning.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So I'm a previous California resident. I grew up in Lake Almore in that area, if you know where that's at. Oh, yeah, I'm from Tico. Oh, yeah. I went to Tico State for college, uh tuba player of all things. And while I was there, it was during COVID and during the mass budget cuts. So my department quickly went from a very amazing music program to I have had seven tuba teachers in five years, which is unbelievably bad. So I got to a point where I was just fed up with college. I ended college just paying too much money, and I was like, I'm not getting anything out of this. And a girlfriend at the time was in the middle of taking her NASM and trying to become a personal trainer. She's like, well, you really like fitness. You're a rock climber, you like working out. Why don't you just go do that thing? You already held people in the gym working out. So just go do it. She's like, Great. Okay, I'll just go do it. So I got the NASM. I studied my butt off after work, doing as many units as I could. So I was trying to get through every single unit as fast as I could just to get it done. Because I, funny enough, I think I ran into your TikTok before I even bought NASM. So I was doing some research on all the different ones. And I was like, oh, that one's interesting. Maybe I'll come back to that for some. And then I started taking the NASM and I get to the end of it. No, I didn't even get to the end of it. I got to chapter three or chapter four. And I'm like, man, this sucks. This is this is awful information. This is going to get somebody hurt. Somebody's going to die. I just went, okay, well, if this is terrible, but I already paid for it, it's going to get my foot in the door. How can I use this to my advantage? And I stumbled across a couple of videos of yours. Um, I found a couple of other podcasts that I was listening to, but it what I noticed is in the fitness industry, like all the podcasts are either associated with an ASM or they're just kind of like passing on the exact same copy paste information. So I was just kind of in a state of like, well, I know that you shouldn't use a bosun ball for anything other than ankle recovery and maybe some very, very niche applications, but I can't find anything great to like apply that information. So I went and I found a local, my local gym had a personal trainer, and she was great. I got I mentored with her for a long time. In that time, I found your podcast right towards the end of me wanting to pass the NASM test. And I just put that three-hour podcast on repeat. I was a lawn, I was going to lawns over the summer, and I would just plug in my airpods, turn on the noise canceling, mow rich people's yards, and listen to the the belt buckle trainer in my earlier psychopath for hours. Three hours on repeat every day, at least three times a day for like two months.

SPEAKER_01:

That's the the beauty of, like you said, the belt buckle trainer right there is it gets you to pass it. And that's exactly what you did. And when you're taking your test, you probably came across a lot of almost confusion. Because if you if you were that person who's just going through the NASA book and also the NASAM quizzes, when you get into the NASAM test, you're like, it's completely different. The the guide as well as the podcast, we just focus on passing it because that's all you need to do is just pass it, get through it. Don't waste you know numerous months where, as you know, it's not applicable afterwards. And so you pass it great, or even worse, you fail it. And then you have this like sunk cost and you think you're a failure. And there's a lot of people out there that aren't able to, as you've attested to, you want to turn your passion for fitness into a career. But because of that test, which literally has nothing to do with actually training people, it can just put people off on a nasty road. So then you passed it, and then you're like, okay, I'm I'm smart enough to realize that this didn't actually do too much for me. I need to go out there. You're lucky you had a mentor. And so then you went to Snap.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So Snap came a little bit later down the line. Uh, I was in California still, and the girlfriend was gonna go to college in Oregon because she wants to be a doctor in that field. So she's found her college and it came up here. Uh, but in the meantime, I was like, okay, well, I gotta I gotta find a job before I move up there, right? Because it's moving's expensive. Moving is even more expensive when you're moving from California to anywhere. So I sat down. I obviously had that mentor and she was amazing. I I can't thank her enough for all the hours that she spent with me. She would trade me uh training hours and I would go out and I would harake and clean her gym for her. So that was awesome. I highly recommend anybody getting into the fitness industry to find a mentor because there are you don't know what you don't know. So like she sat down with me and she had a client who just had issues that I couldn't even comprehend how to start. And it was like she had the whole plan in her head in 10 seconds. That was awesome. And that like that foot in the door, and then sitting down with her and being able to break down, I was like, Well, why did you do this, this, and this, and why not this, this, and this? And she's like, Well, this, this, this, this, this, this. This is awesome. And that helped me so much when I first got or when I got my first couple of clients. So the mood. Uh, interestingly enough, uh, something I found with the NASM certification is it's that and ISSI are like the only two that people know about and talk about because they're they're the popular ones, they're what everybody uses. And it is, it really is just like a generic book test train. And it is scary how easy it can be for some people who really don't put in any effort outside of hey, I passed it to start training. Up here, I got my job and I was training, and I think my first and my third client that I ever got were prior crunch members. They were training at Crunch and they wanted to come try out Snap Fitness because they got injured with their trainer at Crunch and they wanted to give it one more shot. I was like, okay, well, what were you doing? And then I'm not gonna go through like the whole list of stuff because I don't I don't want a bad mouth of trainers at Crunch, but listening to their training programs, just you're sitting there holding your head, like, oh my gosh, or you're not dead. You know, it's it's insane what we can get away with. So my next plan of attack wasn't uh, okay, I know everything in the world, I'm gonna go train. It's like I know nothing and I'm scared that I'm gonna kill somebody. I like every day I wake up, and I'm like, if I do the wrong thing and I put you on the wrong exercise, I am to blame for that. That is a scary thought. So uh with a combination of podcasts and YouTube videos and my favorite weapon of all time, Chat GPT, because that thing can just condense everything into one little package for you and go, okay, well, here's all of the resources now go do. I just every day uh I you work desk hours because I'm new. I don't have enough clients, so I just spend most of my desk hours. If I'm not helping somebody or cleaning the gym and researching something, like right now I'm going over all of the things of the knee. Say I just got through just the ACL, MCL, or the uh the collaterals and uh crucial ligaments. Yes, thank you. I just spent like two and a half hours studying those, the different ways they can get injured, the different things that you should be careful of, what they do, where they're at, why they're at, you know. Just because it's that dense. It's every little part you can just keep zooming in and zooming in, and you can get lost in that world. But the more you zoom in, the more you know, and the more little things you can notice.

SPEAKER_01:

I love that because what trainers need to do is exactly what you did. And unfortunately, what the average trainer will do is they'll say, I'm gonna go out there and gain experience. And the advantage that you had is you had someone to talk through and have critical thought behind that. And that's where I know you'll be successful and be able to do this for however long you want to, because again, the average trainer goes out there too, a crunch or whatever, and they experiment blindly with their clients where you're going into anatomy, you spend a good year in that, yeah, you're gonna master the 14 muscles around the knee, what they do, injuries that are common, whether it fits LCL, MCL, you're diving into that and you're focusing on that. Whereas a lot of trainers go out there and they just try to gain experience without supervision. That's just so damn scary. When you think of any other profession, it's like, I can't fucking read a book on how to play a tuba and then just randomly start playing it. You need someone say, no, that's actually wrong. This is right, this is what you need to do. Practice, practice, practice. Come back, tell me how you did, and then you showcase it. You read, you learn, you implement it, and then you rinse and repeat. And it's just unfortunate because so many trainers quit because they don't have a path. And the path, as you were saying, they come across ISSA, NASA, I mean, that's what we're going up against is we have our own certification. We're letting people know, but we don't have billions of dollars behind us to market. And as you were saying, it's like a lot of these podcasts, they're backed by pod by NASA Maurice or ISSA, and they're paying these people to tell you how awesome their cert is. So people think that, oh my God, this is what I need to do. And then when you're put into the trenches and the client comes in, as you said, lady with ankle issues and she has gut issues and she has inner ear issues, it's like, where do I find that in this textbook? You can't, and just experimenting blindly isn't the right path. And so, I mean, I just love hearing your story because it's so cool. You've been able to get like a mentor sauce internship, and then you're gaining your reps. And how long have you been training for?

SPEAKER_00:

Two months coming up here in a couple of weeks.

SPEAKER_01:

I love it. And how many sessions a week are you doing?

SPEAKER_00:

So I'm kind of bouncing back around. Um, I I've I've got a pretty good record for client gain already. I think I've had what we call our fitness assessments. You're supposed to get five a month, and then you're aiming for about a 30% conversion rate, which I mean, industry standards. Like it's it's hard to convert because you are a salesperson. Also, for anybody getting into this, you are a salesperson. Read, listen, understand human human psychology. Like, it's the framing of a question such as um, are do you want to do this versus are you opposed to this? Humans just want to naturally say no. We're more comfortable saying no. So allow them to say no in a positive light. It's like it's the most influential thing I think I've learned.

SPEAKER_01:

I'll challenge you on something you said earlier, a book that you read, because you have my book, and on one of the first pages I talk about, one of the best books all trainers should read is How to Win Friends and Influence People. You said you found it at NASA. I'm not sure if NASA has it in their book, but you know, just learning human nature, like the people skills, the business skills, you don't learn that in those. So you have to go out there and find other things. And you got your clients are buying you, they're investing into you. And if you're uh you know stick in the wall or stick in the mud, whatever the hell they say, they don't want to work with you. If you're too nerdy, if you're getting into all the science-y stuff, they're like, uh, I don't know if I want to do this. They have goals and you help them get their goals and you're able to empathize with them. That's what they're gonna sign up for. And most importantly, you're able to retain your clients. So far, within two, three months of training, what have been some of the most rewarding parts?

SPEAKER_00:

I have uh an older client who is working with me. She's taking some time off to the financial stuff, you know, because it's expensive. But she we sat down, it was either it was Thursday. We had uh our last session for the month on Thursday, and she was like, she came to me, she's like, the problems I came to you for are getting so much better, and I'm getting stronger. And I can't wait to come back once the finances fix themselves because I feel great, like I'm feeling better, and it's like that's very rewarding. So there's a lot of hours spent after work not getting paid for just researching. I was like, if I if I do this little thing and it works, great, but I'm planning for failure because if I plan for failure, then I have options when it happens. It's like it that first session I had with her, I sat down and I was like, great, my first but ever compliant. I got this plan, and two seconds in, she was like, no, that hurts really, really bad. You have to replan. And now that I'm into it and I kind of understand her anatomy a little bit more, because everybody's into everybody's unique. Everybody's the same, everybody's unique, everybody's got their own little thing going on. Nobody can do the exact same thing the same way. But once you figure out what really checks the box for that person and gets them feeling better and out of pain, oh my gosh, if we can get somebody out of pain, it's awesome. Because then they're one, they're gonna stick with you, and two, they're singing your praises. And don't live in the world of being sung praises. You don't want to be the gluttonous praised guy. But at the same time, it does feel so rewarding that the effort pays off.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. And imagine putting them through a stability ball squat, curl, press, stability ball press, stability ball row. That's the program that you're gonna see in the beginning with NASA. And yet you have to throw that out the window because that's not applicable. And so being able to pivot shows confidence. And you're a smart trainer because the client says, Oh, this hurts. Well, you can modify within reason, but if that modification doesn't work, what do you do next? And if you're just looking around like a deer in the headlights, your clients see that and they see that you're not confident. So then when you sit down and you talk about training with you, they're gonna say, Oh, it's too expensive, or let me think about it, or I need to talk to my significant other. But really, what they're saying is you weren't confident in owning this session because I had an issue and you couldn't take care of it. And so you're able to navigate through that, which is huge. And so you're you're learning a ton and and just love hearing your story. And if we can go back to that TikTok that you did, could you just kind of give us the cliff notes on what it's like when you're talking about becoming a trainer and the path that people should probably go?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So um, we're obviously on the show of fitness podcast. Um, I cannot tell you how much I regret doing NASM, just straight up regret doing NASM. It's the only positive of NASM is you are going to have that little badge that says, Hey, I did that thing that you all know about. And great, you are exactly the exact same fish in the exact same pond. Um, as soon as I get that Tam NASM paid off, I'm gonna look into either. Well, I'd love to do the in person, but I'm going to be doing more than likely the online show of fitness CPT. Going down the path of what it's like, uh the hiring process is a pain. Just depending on where you live, you're probably going to be working with a big box gym. Uh Crunch is becoming overly popular. I'm not 100% sure why they're just blowing up right now.

SPEAKER_01:

Money, money. They just got a big investment, uh, like a$200 or$300 million round. So they're going to be able to just oh yeah, just pumping out more developmental uh projects and and turning some of the gyms out there. So I think they've grown like almost like 50% the last couple of years. So Crunch is definitely popular, and it's you know, there's an opportunity there, but you know, if you don't have a crunch or a lifetime or Equinox, then you have to find a spot that's gonna be able to allow for you to help your clients. And it sounds like Snap's a pretty good one.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, Snap's everywhere. They they put uh they started off in I think Indiana or Montana, uh one of the two. And they oh sorry, uh morning voice crack. Um they did they did this cool thing where they offer free training to all of their new sign-ons. So they give you that foot in the door, unlike a lot of gyms do. So that's very nice. You get that uh intro to training, you can sell yourself right away. You don't have to really like tooth and nail fight somebody for that training session. So that's nice. Uh that's one of the big benefits of Snap. But if you don't have a Snap, I recommend looking for somewhere that you feel comfortable training in. Because if you're not comfortable in an environment, you're gonna have a hard time training. The thing I enjoy about Crunk or uh Snap is it really does feel like just your hometown gym. They've got a nice cardio section, but it's not too overbearing. They've got equipment, but it's not like all of that equipment that you've never used in your life and is still rusting because it hasn't been used since we got taken out of the box. They've got a great dumbbell section that's separate from your main weightlifting section so that you can do all of your dumbbells away from your weights, and then they have their big weight room, and then they have an area in the back where they can do group classes or you can do, they have a punching bag even. Like they just they offer things that are reasonably useful so that you as a trainer have options. So I highly recommend finding a place like that because it's gonna allow you to broaden your availability. But even so, uh plan and understand that you're going to need to attack from a basis of nothing and then grow your knowledge up. So, like, if you've got literally nothing and you can't do anything because every piece of equipment is taken up in the gym, how do you take a client and put them through a core workout where they're at the end and they're like, oh my gosh, that was awesome. I can't feel my toes because my core is on fire. I'm coming back tomorrow. It's like as soon as you can do that, you can sell yourself with minimal tools, start upgrading your knowledge of tools and understand what you can do with different equipment. If you've got an adjustable cable machine, you have got an infinite world of traceabilities that you can do. I've got that client that can't stand up. Like she has just got all the bag problems in the world. So we grab a plyo box and we're at the cable machine and we can alter any exercise for her so she can do something, so she can get up and moving. Because more movement or any movement is better than no movement. She's already feeling better. It's only been two weeks. So she's doing great now. If you're going into this, know that this world is confusing and don't follow trends. Trends get people hurt. Um, and stick to what you know. And if you can't stick to what you know, figure out why you can't stick to it and learn. Make sure that everything you say, you can put your true effort into and you're back behind you and be like, Yes, this is why, and this is I know this because of this.

SPEAKER_01:

So, what advice would you give to that trainer who it's kind of like that divide where you're at? You're done with Chico State, you didn't want that tube of career, and you're looking into becoming a trainer. If you could go back and you didn't have the influence from your girlfriend who said, get NASA, what would that advice be for that trainer who's wanting to turn their passion for fitness into career?

SPEAKER_00:

Um you don't need a certification to start learning what to do. Like if you're really interested in this, you're already gonna rabbit hole down the the wild world of working out. When I started, I was a rock climber playing tuba working out in a gym just because my rock climbing gym had a nice gym and I was trying to lose weight. And I knew absolutely nothing. I think the first time I tried to hip thrust, my pivot point was on my neck.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

It was fantastic. Like I was gonna get myself injured, and luckily somebody came up to me, grabbed the weight, pulled it off me, and said, Hey, you're gonna hurt yourself. Don't do that, do this. And there's so many people in the world that know what they're doing that you can go and you can intern. If you're willing to put in your time for pay as a payment for education, you can find somebody willing to teach you. And then once you have figured out what you're trying to do, then you just go do it. Snap fitness, or sorry, show up fitness is great because you're going to show up and there's going to be those people already there teaching you what to do. Like you're paying to have the premium experience. You can obviously go get an asm, it works. It's proven time and time in the end, it works. But my God, the effort is going to be so much more. You're going to be putting in hours and hours and hours unlearning all that crap that you had to learn to pass the test and then figuring out all the stuff you do not know. And I'm going to tell you, learning what you do not know is hard because you don't know what you don't know. And you will every day find something that you did not know you didn't know, and it will bite you in the ass.

SPEAKER_01:

How much of the material that you learned from NASA are you currently implementing with your clients right now?

SPEAKER_00:

You know, I couldn't tell you if I ever have. I think the only thing the NASM textbook for is good for is starting a fire.

SPEAKER_01:

I like that. That's good. And again, people you get that sunk cost fallacy because they invested thousands and sometimes three, four thousand with a bundle. And then the unfortunate thing is they spend a year or two and they just have that doubt that, oh, well, I don't actually know how to train people. And this isn't really actually teaching me how to train people. So they just postpone it and postpone it. And then when that time finally comes, it's been two or three years. Whereas, like you said, if you would have came across show up significantly before that and you already got it, okay, whatever. You get the guide, you listen to the podcast, you pass it, and we've had people pass it in three days. And then you're okay. Now, like you said, intern, find some hands-on learning, get to a seminar, find professionals who aren't just gonna give you a system that is blanket for the whole entire population. You know, you need to uh have someone who's training all walks of life and the people who you want to be working with, niche down, and then just gain your experience, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. And that's how you're gonna build the confidence. And so, you know, you're doing a great job now. What so, what would you say has been some of the more challenging parts of being a trainer?

SPEAKER_00:

Patience for sure. I mean, you're going into this if you're not at an equinox or a big box gym where you're making a ton of money, you're not making a ton of money. It's you have to be so incredibly patient and diligent. Like you, uh the saying is like you you're really in the eating the dirt moment right now until you figure out and make a name for yourself. Um one thing that I started is obviously the TikTok because I do want the multiple strains of exposure, the 60-30-10 that you're talking about. It's so important to build that 60-3010. Uh, you can't expect to get a whole lot of hours from your gym because they only have so many hours to give you and they only have so many clients. I got really lucky when I joined Snap, I was only one of two trainers. Uh, we had a third trainer leaving, and there was some other trainers after me getting hired on, but there was a period where I got really lucky and I got most of the incoming clientele. That's not the case anymore. Like I'm sharing it now with five people or five, yeah, five people. So you have to be patient. And when you get your chance, boy, you better jump on it. You gotta really make sure that you know what you're doing. That means you gotta spend so much time in the meantime prepping. It's like luck is not a thing. Luck is just preparation with a chance to expose what you've learned. So that's definitely the biggest struggle.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh well, going off of luck, I just want to end today's podcast by saying I appreciate you taking the time to hop on this podcast, but also spread the word. And I'm not paying you any money to talk about that on TikTok, but I do want to let you know that if you can make it down to a seminar, I'll pay for the seminar. I'll also put you up in a hotel. Love to meet you in person. We're gonna be in Sacramento the 7th and 8th of November, and then we'll be in Orange County the 5th and 6th of December. So if you can get down there, I'll take care of the rest, my man. Really looking forward to the next steps and hearing more about your journey a year from now, three years from now, five years from now. It's just gonna compound with how many people you're gonna be helping.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, thank you for bringing me on the podcast. Like you said, you don't pay me. I just the amount of information that you give out for free has been amazing. You even just did a story the other day on TikTok that was just, oh, these are the 17 hospitals, and like this is a rotator cuff pulled off. Like this is what everything is doing. And that free knowledge is amazing. So thank you for all the information you pump out. It's I greatly appreciate it. Because again, I don't know what I don't know. And when I learn something I do know from you guys, it's awesome.

SPEAKER_01:

I love it, my man. Well, hey, most importantly, keep on showing up.