Certification options?

[dcpt]

I am in my final year of grad school and want to make myself a more competitive option when applying for jobs. I have been considering getting my CSCS certification from NSCA but I recently noticed ACSM had a performance enhancement specialist and also a corrective exercise specialist and the NSCA also has a certified special populations specialist. Ideally I would like to work in outpatient ortho/sports clinic. Any thoughts on which would be best?

 

[jesspt]

You're probably better off to try to get a good outpatient ortho affiliation during your final year, with a contemplative CI with good clinical reasoning skills. You'll be a much better clinician after that.

Most of those certifications are alphabet soup.

 

[starrsgirl]

I previously held a performance enhancement specialist and corrective exercise specialist certification from NASM (before PT school). I have a pretty extensive background in personal training and would like to use some of that experience in a job. I spoke to a lot of practitioners about the CSCS. My interpretation is that many PTs don't know about those other certifications very well. But most ortho PTs know about the CSCS. It's a common one in our field where the others are still specific to personal training. I decided to go for the CSCS just to establish a common language in the field of PT. I didn't find the information in the course to be different from my other certs...so knowledge one, I think either would be fine. But for PTs, you may have more acceptance of the CSCS (this may change in the future). From the personal training world, I do know that CSCS is considered to be the toughest exam...most people can't pass that exam after taking a weekend personal training course.

I took the exam midway through my 2nd year of PT school and it did not require a lot of studying for me.