I signed up to be a beta tester for Athletic Certification & Training Commision (ACT) when they first launched in September 2009. The ACT is relatively new in the fitness industry as an organization that provide opportunities to fitness enthusiast to be a Certified Personal Trainer. Above all, they provide their Personal Trainer course for free, on a Basic Plan. People have an option to upgrade their Basic Plan to a Pro Plan for a small fee of one time payment $65.
The Pro Plan include pre-recorded lectures, online lectures with live instructors, practice exams and many other benefit that are useful. You may click here to view and compare the Basic Plan and Pro Plan.
In case you are wondering what’s the catch behind ACT offering free fitness certification, you may read them all here. You may also think, how good can ACT‘s course be in terms of education quality? Especially when it’s offered for free (unless you upgrade to a Pro Plan), I’m sure you who is currently reading this would be skeptical. I admit, I was skeptical too.
As a beta tester, I was given a Pro Plan account without charges. I have to admit that the resources provided by ACT is as good as other certifying fitness organizations, if not better. I’m only able to say this because I’ve read textbooks by 3 different fitness organizations – National Academy of Sports Medicine, International Sports Sciences Association, American Council on Exercise. ACT‘s Personal Trainer textbook was not lacking of all the necessary information despite being a free e-book in PDF form. Same goes to the pre-recorded lectures, which are good additional study material when preparing for the ACT Certified Personal Trainer examination, and even when you are already an active fitness professional.
Above all that, ACT is currently actively pursuing accreditation from the National Commision For Certifying Agencies (NCCA). If ACT is granted the accreditation by NCCA, ACT would be on par with other well known certifying fitness organizations such as American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM), National Strength & Conditioning Association (NSCA), National Exercise & Sports Trainers Association (NESTA) and American Council on Exercise (ACE).
On the side line, after ACT announced that they will retire their online examination on 30th September 2011, I decided to sit for my examination with ACT after being an inactive owner of the Pro Plan account for two years. And yes, I hold an additional ACT Certified Personal Trainer certification now although I don’t need it as I’ve been certified by the International Sports Sciences Association (ISSA) since 2008. ISSA hold to its own high standard as being the first fitness organization to be accredited by the U.S Department of Education.