The First Brick

I think the first piece of junk that started my depression heap fell into place shortly after I graduated with a degree in exercise science. I had been working full time through college and had been there for about 8 years. I was making a decent amount of money, but I didn't like my job, my boss, or the hours. Along with my degree I had a certification through the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM).

While trying to get a personal training job I came across a couple setbacks. One was the problem of getting a job that would reliably replace my income. The reality of trying to get enough to make it a lateral move was a little disheartening. A second setback came while interviewing for a position at a chain gym. The pay would have been something I could work with, and it would have cut my commute from half an hour to about 5 minutes. It sounded promising, but that changed with the interview.

First a little background. As far as certifications for personal trainers go, my ACSM certification was probably at worst the second most respected certification available (the CSCS certification being the best). It requires the applicant to at least be enrolled as a senior in a 4 year degree in a related field. There was both a written and practical examination administered by professionals or professors in the field.

The guy conducting the interview had no degree, but he had a personal training certification. Granted, classroom instruction does not equate to real world experience,  but I had a strong foundation of core knowledge. I was working for a company that manufactured dietary supplements, and they had a publishing arm that put out a bodybuilding magazine. I was familiar with their "party line", and had even weighed some of the claims against scientific journals addressing them as part of my schooling. The real limitation I had was actually working with clients. I had the tools. The interviewer basically quizzed me on his pet lifts and equipment that I would likely never use (I don't see a lot of value in the Smith Machine), and then told me that I would need to get a particular certification to work there.

Now never mind that the gym in question has a published policy that they don't prefer one certification over another. The certification he demanded was a garbage one. The only requirement for testing is that you purchase their set of books as part of the testing fee. That fee was not insubstantial. It was $600 in 2004. I would be paying for a bunch of books that had information I already had in ACSM books. There was no established mechanism for just paying a fee to take the test and get the certification. I had already taken anatomy labs with cadavers. I had taken physiology labs and exercise physiology labs. I had collected data and used it to calculate absolute and relative VO2 max, both in university classes and as part of the ACSM testing. I had a clinical level of understanding, and a guy who gained his education through what amounts to a mail order certification course is telling me my certification is crap.

Largely due to the fact that I already had a job that reliably paid about as good, I decided to not pursue personal training. I could see the writing on the wall. The guy would have been my boss. He didn't know enough about the field to know just how significant my qualifications were. That or he knew they were exceptional and worked to establish his own superiority over me. With my time and experience with companies and supervisors, I am more inclined to believe the former. I do five the latter a bit of weight when I think of his tone. There was almost an air of condescending.

I did have another interview at about the same time, but it was at a gym that paid significantly less. They loved my qualifications, and I loved the gym, but they couldn't offer more. It was more or less a job for someone who was where I was at when I tested for the ACSM certification. They were looking for someone who was in a program. It would have been the kind of position that if I had a year or two there, I would have been interviewing for the chain guy's job, not to be his peon.

Long story short, I was just out of school with excellent qualifications, and I had an experience that left me a little jaded. I was expecting, and probably rightly so by all accounts, any personal training positions would have me jumping through unnecessary hoops for a boss who couldn't follow me if I started to really talk about training effect and physiological adaptations. I would probably bring up something that was just demonstrated in the literature to have that information shot down in favor of gym rat philosophy. It isn't like this experience is unique, but I think this is the first domino that set off 10 years of depression.