In 1997 the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) in Edmonton held the first classes of its year and a half Personal Fitness Training certificate program. It was felt back then that there was a void of proper accreditation and training for Fitness Trainers. Some Fitness Trainers had Physical Education or Kinesiology degrees. Many had certificates from weekend courses. Many Fitness Trainers had no accreditation at all.
At the time, I happened to be in a period of career transition and the NAIT program was a fresh start.
It was an intense year and a half of courses with the reward of a college certificate, and national and provincial accreditation. Some confusion ensued with the general public and potential clients. How were they to differentiate between a certificate earned in a year and a half of intense study or a certificate earned for a weekend course?
NAIT wisely decided to add another semester and turn the Personal Fitness Trainer program into a college diploma program. The program is now also available online as internet studies. I always wanted to update but never found the time. Finally almost 2 years ago I made the decision to go for it. After 20 months of online work involving video presentations, reports, case studies, and exams, my diploma finally arrived in the mail.
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| My Personal Fitness Trainer Certificate from 1998 |
There were some memorable highlights of my latest return to the world of scholastic endeavor:
- I had to submit all of my assignments through the college internet system known as Moodle. A task that would take a child of the Millennium 2 keystrokes to complete often took me hours or days with many failed submission attempts along with the accompanying fits of blasphemous rage. Fortunately, the instructors understood the trials and tribulations of the pre-tech generation and were quite fair and benevolent.
- I ran a 40 meter sprint for the Sports Performance course. Since I had a total hip replacement in 2006, I was quite pleased with my running time of around 6 seconds.
- The next day when I got out of bed my hamstrings locked and I almost fell flat on my face. The obvious culprit was a pair of underactive Gluteus Maximus muscles.
- A video of my sprint was to be submitted. Due to technical issues the camera was on still picture mode. That meant that I had to redo the sprint.
- On the sprint rerun 3 days later I strained my quadriceps muscle. At my age, there is only 1 full out sprint per year left in the body.
- Dating sites to meet Russian women popping up on my my screen as I was about to post a shared exercise group discussion admittedly caused me some anxious moments of stress. I don't know how my laptop was exposed to such a questionable link!!!!
- My laptop froze during one of the online exams. Fortunately it kicked back in after a minute but not before I thought my heart tissue had gone into cardiac arrest mode.
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| The final product. My hard earned diploma! |
I wisely only took one course at a time. Given my work demands, any more might have been overwhelming. It took 20 months to complete a full semester worth of 5 courses.
I am glad that I did it. I am thankful that it is over. That which does not destroy me - strengthens me! (Neitzsche)
Now I feel more confident in my knowledge and skills for sounding off on my blog rants. In the world of sports and fitness, there is much ranting that needs to be done.
Until next time , keep fit!
Little Bobby Strong
Links
www.fitnwell.com
Congrats! I think your blind encompassing rage at the tech gods must have fueled your ultimate victory☺
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