Important Updated CEU Information from the IFPA

Dear IFPA Certified Member,

The IFPA is initiating some changes in the Continuing Education Department effective immediately. The IFPA has always been the leader in practical fitness education and therefore has maintained a high standard for it’s members. In keeping with this tradition we are changing the requirements for ceu’s from eight per year to twelve. We will be adding a greater selection of courses in order to facilitate this requirement. Please review category V of the IFPA Continuing Education Requirements and General Info. The maximum number of CEU’S accepted from courses other than IFPA will be six. The remaining six must be obtained through the IFPA.    

This step, as well as other actions the IFPA is currently pursuing is designed to avoid government intervention. Currently several state governments are considering legislation against personal trainers. The IFPA is taking aggressive steps to prevent state and federal governments from imposing their view of what personal training should be.

While on the surface, government regulation may seem necessary to prevent unskilled, incompetent, personal trainers from wreaking havoc on the unsuspecting public. Havoc, in terms of potential injuries or at the very least, wasting hard-earned dollars on a personal trainer that is totally inept. Every fitness professional must recognize that government bureaucrats, deciding what the professional guidelines for personal training should be, in collusion with academicians from the “Ivory Towers of Academia” can not possibly do our profession or the public that relies on our profession any good.

Therefore, the IFPA continues to work diligently to “Raise-the-Bar” on the competency level of professional fitness trainers. We need help from everyone else in the fitness industry. We need help from fitness centers owners and managers to crackdown on incompetent trainers. We can no longer tolerate incompetence for the sake of profit. Maintaining an inept trainer because he is a great salesman and brings in the “gross” is sacrificing long-term business growth for short-term profit.

Many of the industries best trainers are among the industries worst salespeople. The IFPA is currently working on a program to solve this problem and should be ready by the end of October.

The IFPA is also requesting help from all fitness professionals. You can no longer rely on being average. You can no longer rely on being mediocre. You can no longer settle for what has become “the standard.”

If our industry is to survive we are all going to look to work faster, harder and smarter to achieve Professional Status. We all “talk” about the fitness professional without truly understanding what that means. Professionalism is determined by three criteria: (1) advanced training and education, (2) dedication to serve the community and (3) strict ethical guidelines. How do you measure – up to these three criteria? How many courses have you taken to advance your education? How many courses have you taken to advance your training? How many courses have you taken to improve your ability to service your clientele? How earnestly do you work to improve yourself as a person? How diligent are you at conducting yourself as a professional with character, integrity and ethics?

If your replies to the questions are negative, then you are part of the problem. Please, become part of the solution, as the old saying goes “no matter how far you’ve traveled down the wrong path – turn back!”

Sincerely,

James T. Bell, M.S., President, IFPA

IFPA Continuing Education Programs