Group Fitness Certifation...Done.

Update - I passed :) missed 9 questions on the written test so I made a 91. Here's my certificate!

Saturday, April 13, 2013, I took the AFAA Group Fitness Certification. I spent a good deal of time studying and preparing for the two part exams: written and practical. I've already told you about the pre-certification jitters, fears, and thoughts.

I've learned that anything really worth pursuing will sometimes be uncomfortable, scary, and hard. That's ok.

“ But God doesn’t call us to be comfortable. He calls us to trust Him so completely that we are unafraid to put ourselves in situations where we will be in trouble if He doesn’t come through. "
— Francis Chan

Well God is always with me. He is especially visible when I am following his path for me. I know God created and designed me just the way he wants me. He put a passion in my heart for health and fitness so that I can use it as a tool to share his love and transforming power with others.

I'm a planner... as I mentioned before I had been studying for a good month. I also like to confirm parking, location, and travel distance (since I knew I would be driving up that morning) to insure I am early. Well it's a good thing I like to confirm details because the certification had changed locations. It was originally scheduled to happen at Georgia State's Campus but was moved to Georgia Tech...

Here's how the exam day went.... (I didn't take one picture from the entire trip... weird for me, so I'll do my best to describe in words ;))

Woke up at 5:30 Saturday morning. I'm a morning person (esp after a trip to Starbucks) so the early wake up didn't bother me. I was also very excited but had a wonderful peace and calm about the experience. (Thank you Lord)

My mom traveled with me. We arrived in Atlanta about 8:15. There was a 5k race going on at Georgia Tech. Had I known prior... I probably would have run it. Off the tangent... I parked where the GPS told me the building was and then roamed for about 20 minutes trying to locate the actual facility. I arrived at the campus rec center (It was beautiful, awesome, huge, epic - I would totally go to Georgia Tech just for that awesome facility). The group was assembling at the front, so I grabbed my paperwork and worked on that.

After completing the waiver, showing my ID and CPR card, I was ready to go. We hiked up some stairs and arrived at the area where we would spend the day. Like I said, awesome facility. We were in one of their group fitness rooms.

We started about 9:15 with introductions. Our instructor for the day was Yota. She was awesome. There were 17 of us going through the class. I had read on another blog to meet your peers, so I made sure to speak and mingle (and learn) from those around me. Here's my favorite thing about the people in the group, everyone is different. Oh and we're all "just normal people" College students, some seeking a second career, a dancer, a guy getting ready to go into the marines. Some were from small towns and some from the city. Only two out of 17 had ever taught group fitness before (I didn't count Run for God as teaching group fitness but I did share the experience with some of the participants)

On from the people, we started class by identifying all the major muscles and joints in our body and the action they perform (flexion, extension, adduction, abduction) It was a great run through! She weaved in some of the study guide material into the review from the beginning. She did a really great job reviewing information that would help for both the practical and written exams.

Next we reviewed the AFAA 5 questions (in detail - multiple times...really important):

1.  What is the purpose of this exercise?
2. Are you doing that effectively?
3. Does this exercise cause any safety concerns?
4. Can you maintain proper alignment and form for the duration of this exercise?
5. For whom is this exercise appropriate or inappropriate?

Then we discussed proper form and alignment. This was our first chance to practice speaking to a small group. We had to share proper form for different positions, standing, seated, on your back, hands and knees.

After alignment we started "practicing" for the practical exam. Seriously we went over ever single thing for the practical test. If you can remember what you did during the "practice round" you should be fine on the test.

Two things to mention about the practice;
1. There are mirrors all around the room. If you mess up... look at a friend who is doing right :)
2. I don't normally like to volunteer to be a guinea pig... but when given a chance to practice for the individual presentation... I took it. Super glad I did too because I bombed the practice round. I decided to teach squats and tried to keep them on a beat... epic fail. But I learned from that mistake and aced it during the testing!

So I'll skip talking about the rest of the practice and studying for the written test and talk about the testing.
The test is broken into two parts: Practical and written.

The Practical exam. The practical exam has 3 parts: Cardio section, strength and stretching section, and an individual presentation. Here's how it went.

We were lined up in 4 lines. I was given number 6 so I was in the second line on the far side of the room from where I had been all day.

Our first part is Cardio. We have to perform 3 minutes of warm up, 5 minutes of an elevated cardio section, and the 2-3 minutes of a cool down.

For the warm up, I marched, step touched, low grape vined, low hamstring curls just basically kept it low, easy, and comfortable. For the cardio section, you basically just turn up the intensity, jog, grapevine, jump n jacks, through in some punches. I just thought about all the basic steps (from taking group fitness classes) I could repeat over and over and I just repeated them over and over. Then we started to lower the intestity down and cool down. I basically just repeated marches, step touches, and slowed down as the music did. Then that section was over.

Second section. Strength and Stretching. Here's what I did: (remember we practiced all of this before)

Pectorals – supine chest fly, chest press, stretch: standing, clasp hands behind the lower back

Upper back (Trapezius, rhomboids , latissimus dorsi): bent over row, reverse posterior fly, stretch: standing, hands in front, clasp hands with palms facing away from you

Shoulders – deltoids: front raises, side raises, stretch: one hand across your chest

Arms (biceps, triceps): bicep curls, overhead tricep extensions, stretch: overhead tricep stretch

Hip abductors and adductors: side lying leg abduction, side lying leg adduction, stretch: seated butterfly

Glutes and/or tibialis anterior: squat, hands and knees rear leg raise, stretch: seated one ankle on opposite knee

Quadriceps or front of leg: squat, lunge, stretch: standing quad stretch

Hamstrings and/or gastrocnemius/soleus: standing calf raises, standing rear hamstring curls, standing hamstring stretch

Adominals: standard crunch, oblique crunch , stretch: lying flat on back

Erector Spinae: prone position alternating opposite leg/arm raises, prone upper body lift, stretch: cat stretch

 Finally it was time for the individual presentation. I told you I bombed it the first round... but I rocked it during the exam. I taught squats. Here's the gist of what I said:

"Hi my name is Charity and today we are going to learn how to do variations of a squat. Squats are a great lower body exercise. Before we learn how to squat, let's get our bodies in good standing alignment. Be sure you head is in line with your shoulders, roll your shoulders back and down, chest lifted, abs engaged. Your pelvis should be in neutral alignment, not to far front, or too far back. Slightly bend you knees and check that your feet are about hips distance apart."

"Great job, Let's get started. To begin, we going to place our hands on our thighs and sit back into a baby squat. Not to far down, just a comfortable top half squat. Great. Now if this is too simple for you, lift your hands off your thighs and sink deeper into the squat. Imagine your bottom sitting back and down into a chair. (then we did that for a few seconds)"

"finally, if you want an even deeper challenge at the bottom of the squat, you can spring out of the squat into a jump in the air. (and we did a few of those"

Then time was called. and the practical test was over! Everyone in the class had to go through the practical teaching part. Then we broke apart for the written test.

The written test is a 100 multiple choice test. It has some matching of muscle and joint groups. Lots of knowledge questions about anatomy, group design, special considerations, safety, etc. I felt like I did a good job on this. It took me about 35 minutes to finish the written exam. We had an hour to complete it and then the day was over. I left about 4:15. It wasn't schedule to end until 6, so I made a little shopping trip out of the extra time.

Overall, it was a fun, energizing, and encouraging day. I have to wait 4-6 weeks for the official results, but I feel confident that I passed. I'll be sure to post an update when I receive the results.

Big take away - Imagine the things we could accomplish if we quieted the fear and just tried!