This post from http://www.stage5cycling.com/news/they-were-in-shock and has been re-posted with permission.
By Tom Scotto
You don”™t want to continually warn people how hard your certification testing is because it always sounds like you”™re just trying to hype things up. That was never our intention. We just wanted to give folks a heads-up that this may not be what they”™ve experienced in the past. Despite the warnings and the strong recommendation to study and practice before taking the written and practical exams, some have hastily attempted the certification and failed. They were in shock! “How could I fail, both the written AND practical. I”™ve been teaching at multiple health clubs for X amount of years. You must have made a mistake”.
Unfortunately, there was no mistake.
Who”™s to Blame?
Is the written test too hard? No. Is expecting an instructor to be able to demonstrate their ability to teach too much to require? Absolutely not. So why would someone who has been teaching indoor cycling for years (some previously holding more than one indoor cycling certification) fail the Stage5 Cycling certification? Who is to blame?
It is NOT the instructors fault!
The blame falls on indoor cycling companies and health clubs. Indoor cycling companies have provided inadequate training and “certification” from the start and health clubs have allowed it to enter their facilities.
“Certification”
Historically, indoor cycling certifications have never been legitimate certifications. Participants attend a 1-day “orientation” and are awarded their certification because of their attendance. No exams, written or practical are required. Instructors are then considered qualified to teach 20 to 30+ people in a group fitness environment after just one day of training. There would be a shred of merit to the process if instructors were required to at least hold a personal trainer or group fitness certification. Then the indoor cycling certification would be considered an “add-on” to their existing knowledge and experience base. This is not the case. Anyone can take an indoor cycling certification workshop and then be considered a certified instructor.
Workshop Adventures
Because of the expectation that has been created over the years, a number of people get confused when they sign-up for our 2-day workshop. They automatically assume the workshop provides them with their certification. It takes them a few moments to wrap their mind around the concept that they will still have to take a comprehensive written and practical exam — on a separate date. The encouraging part is that instructors get it. Once you explain the value and the standard we are trying to uphold, they get excited and express that this is what they always wanted.
Resetting Expectations
Our goal is to recapture the value, expertise and pride in being a indoor cycling instructor. This can only happen if people obtain a legitimate certification. The expectation needs to be reset. For example, one expects to study, take workshops and sit for a challenging exam in order to become a personal trainer. This is the expectation that the industry has created. Take a look at the hours, cost and requirements of some popular health and fitness certifications:
| Name / Type | Study Materials | Workshop | Hours | Exam | Total |
| ACE Personal Trainer | $149 | $199 | 12 | $249 | $597 |
| ACSM Personal Trainer | $129 | $375 | 20 | $279 | $783 |
| NASM Personal Trainer | $90 | $249 | 16 | $549 | $888 |
| AFAA Group Fitness | $44 | $299 | 8 | (Included) | $343 |
| Yoga | 200+ hours of training / $3,000+ Total | ||||
| Pilates | 600+ hours of training / $5,000+ Total | ||||
Now let”™s take a look at Indoor Cycling Certifications*:
| Name | Workshop | Hours | Exam | Total | |
| Stage5 Cycling |
$275 | 14 | $75 | $350 | |
| Spinning | $295 | 8 | NONE | $295 | |
| Schwinn** | $225 | 8 | NONE | $225 | |
| Keiser | ? | 6 | NONE | ? | |
| RPM | - No Information Found - | ||||
| Lemond | $225 | 8 | NONE | $225 | |
| C.O.R.E. | $350 | 14 | Unclear | $350+ | |
| Heart Zones |
$249 | 3 | NONE | $249 | |
| CycleOps Power | - No Information Found - | ||||
*Based on information found on company”™s website and email correspondence. Workbooks included.
**Schwinn now has a 2-day workshop, but only offered in Europe.
Who Will Stop the Maddness?
It should come as no surprise why indoor cycling instructors are not seen as equals to other certified fitness professionals. Personal trainers and certified cycling coaches spend hundreds of hours in study and practical application while an indoor cycling instructor (usually a person with a great heart and energy) can have no experience, take 1 day of training, with no test, and be considered certified.
Stage5 Cycling has taken a stand (and a huge investment) to bring indoor cycling to the level of other legitimate health and fitness certifications. However, until health clubs and compliance standards follow our example, very little will change. Regardless, we will continue to deliver the very best in workshops and certification for indoor cycling. We thank all of you who believe in our mission and have taken our workshops. And to the thousands of members who take our classes, we are forever committed to bring you Real Cycling, Real Training and Real Results.
You can learn more about Scott and his company Stage5 Cycling here.
Originally posted 2010-01-22 08:20:09.
John is a member on the AFS (Association of Fitness Studios) Advisory Council.
Holding certifications from; Schwinn, Heart Zones, Team ICG and Life Time Fitness, John's held regularly scheduled cycling classes between 1998 and 2015 when he moved to Florida.
When the weather permits, you'll find him riding and leading outdoor groups by himself or with his Tandem partner (wife) Amy.
I haven’t taken the RPM training, but I did take BodyPump instructor training (Les Mills runs both programs.) Preliminary certification required a 3 day, 8 hours per day class. Then within 3 months, you had to send in a video tape of your class for critique. RPM is also unlike other indoor cycling formats in that it is pre-set and pre-choreographed by Les Mills. A new ride is released every 3 months.
It would be great to influance IDC, I hope you will success but it is a big challenge you are taking.
I remind a Personal TRaining certification I have done, it was pay by the gym I am working in so It was ok.
The guy during the workshop just give the answear to the questions of the test and said that theyr certification success is the highest on the market !!!!!!!!!!!!!
So every body can have it.
For a lot of certification you pay for the paper and you have it !?
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!! I get so frustrated at indoor cycling organizations who offer certification courses but fail to teach instructors HOW TO TEACH!
My niche is a turn key approach to guarantee immediate success! After instructors are certified, I spend one week at the facility teaching instructors showmanship skills, how to use voice inflection, burning seamless play lists with exceptional music, marketing the program via printed material, student awareness skills, and establishing the flow of class – arrive early, background music, etc. These skills MAKE or BREAK your program. Having a piece of paper indicating you are a certified instructor does not mean you can teach a class that will motivate, inspire, and create passion in your students. Thank you for voicing my frustration!!! GREAT WORK!!!
This sounds like an amazing cert program. I am Spinning certified and have been for about 15 years. It takes LOTS of experience to teach a safe, effective, fun and inspirational class to people of varying fitness levels. Every day there are new things to learn in our industry as it continues to evolve. I have kept up my CECs and try to stay on top of the industry as much as possible. I also know that I am NOT in the norm. There are so many instructors out there, both group fitness and ICI who get their certs, do the minimum for CECs and call it a day. That’s what hurts our industry in so many ways.
I agree with most of the article – I did my instructor training last June, with Spinning. We got taught about heart rate zones, bike set up and the ethos behind spinning. We didn’t get taught how to teach though, which was what I really wanted.
Contrary to the table above though, we had 2 intensive days worth of teaching – 9 – 5.30, with homework on the first day.
On the flip side, it seemed to me that unless we did something totally crazy, we were going to pass, it was practially a shoe-in.
Then I did my aerobics instructor course which was a week long, intensive course, with a practical exam a few weeks later, a workbook and a written exam. There was so much more to learn, and yet I teach spinning so much more
So on the whole, I do agree that it is easy for anyone to get certified as an instructor. It should be harder and require some kind of practical assessment (well, my teacher did watch me for all of about 5 minutes but that was it!)
Myriadgreen,
are you in Europe? The Spinning Orientation is 8 hours in the US and there is certainly no homework! Pretty much anyone can take it, and everyone *should* pass the exam if they have any kind of brain. But it is 2 days in Europe/Asia (to be honest, I don’t even know if it’s 1 or 2 days in South America or Australia)! During 12 years of teaching these Orientations in North America I always wondered why we didn’t do the longer one in the States – the answer was primarily that North Americans wouldn’t spend the $ or the time, and there are no standards that require or even suggest longer more comprehensive training. IMO the section on Physiology and HR training is waaaay too little.
There were Orientations I walked out of and said to myself “Lord help us if so-and-so is going to be set loose in the Spinning world to teach!” But I had no authority to make that kind of decision. If they passed the exam later, they passed the exam. Only once in 12 years did I ever tell MDA not to certify someone, and that was because he took a 3-hour lunch and missed all the HR info.
What Tom Scotto is doing with Stage5 is pretty amazing. He is taking a personal stand that instructors teaching people to potentially push themselves to high intensities should know a lot more about physiology, biomechanics, coaching and the science of training, which is something I agree with whole-heartedly (and which is why we started ICI)!
As Bonnie mentioned, as someone who stays on top of the industry, she is not the norm. Neither are anyone of you reading this. Because if you are reading this, you believe in your own training and worth as a coach, and you want to continue your education and know more. Bravo!
Now, how do we reach those who don’t care?
I don’t feel we ever will reach those who don’t care…because they don’t care = they’re Amateurs. Now if the club insisted Instructors take on training like Stage5’s as a condition of employment…
Thank you for reprinting this article. I was unaware of the new cycle certification. However, this is all I got out of the article. If you check the facts, much of the data is false. Several of the cycle certifications listed (Rpm, Heart Zones, for example) require either video assessments, written examination, or follow up proof of experience or qualification before a certification is earned. The data about personal trainer certifications is equally weak. And, one missing element in the chart is whether certifications offer or require continuing education or recertification which I believe is critical if instructors are to remain current in the industry.
I applaud what Stage5 is doing. However, I find the article biased and misleading.
i agree with Judy about the “facts” in the article’s chart. I, like Myriadgreen, did a two-day certification program with Spinning, which included “homework” and was followed up by an exam after six months of teaching experience. I realize that MadDog has recently shortened the certification process to one day, but many of us certified by Spinning still remember the longer two-day format and wish they would bring it back! My main comment is that this issue of an overall “accredication” or oversight of certification programs needs to be applied to ALL of the group fitness disciplines, not just indoor cycling! I am a certified personal trainer, aerobics instructor, indoor cycle instructor, and yoga instructor, so I’ve been through a few of these certifications! The ACE personal training cert requires merely that you take and pass a test – no class time or practical demonstrations required to prove that you even know how to safely execute or teach any of the basic strength training exercises! Most aerobic disciplines can be taught after one or two days of workshops where, if there is a test, the information required to pass is pretty much spoon-fed to you. Even most yoga certification allow instructors to begin teaching after just a weekend Level 1 certification with no test. Continuing education requirements and proof of experience are often what sets one program apart from another. So, I think we should all recognize that this is an industry-wide issue and not isolated to indoor cycling.
I am a British Spinning instructor trained with star trac. Our initial certification is a weekend course and then an exam (star 1) to be taken after 4 months experience. You must complete your continuing education to keep your certification, 14 points a year. We have a really strong and supportive master team. I have been teaching spinning for 6 years and only just taken my final star 3 exam, my feeling is the more you know the more you realise there is to know! I too wish we weren’t flooded with a market place of one day trained people and clubs happy to employ them.
My apologies to those above who feel the article was misleading and biased. Anyone who knows me and what Stage5 Cycling is about knows our due diligence. The information about the other certifications was gathered through a combination of researching the respective websites, sending emails to the education departments of each organization and following up with a phone call to confirm what was being presented. Right or wrong, this is what we were able to confirm. If we couldn’t confirm it, we didn’t print it. So again, please accept my apologies if anything was mis-represented.
As John has mentioned, the mere fact you are participating on ICI/Pro puts you outside the norm.
Over the last 2 years, I have traveled around the country delivering our 2-day workshop. With little exception, people from all certification backgrounds would comment that the material we presented was either: (1) never taught or (2) was taught differently (incorrectly).
My emotions were always mixed: happy people were gaining real cycling and training knowledge through our workshops, but saddened that they had spend years teaching without an understanding of real foundational cycling and fitness concepts.
This is changing.
Hi Tom, thanks so much for printing this article. I wanted to say how happy I am that the tides are changing. C.O.R.E is committed to bring about change in the indoor cycling community. As you mentioned most instructors don’t know that what they’re doing is unsafe or shouldn’t be done on a bike. As instructors we have a responbility to our participants. I don’t believe that this is what Johnny G intended when he developed the spinning program. Kudos to you and Jennifer Sage for the great work you do.
I also wanted to make a couple of corrections to the information you gathered about C.O.R.E Cycling. Our IN CLASS hours are 14, however there are between 4-6 more hours of homework. The $350 is all inclusive. Taxes and course materials.
It really IS about the bike isn’t it!