NASM Career Kickstarter - Begin Your Career in Fitness Today!

What You'll Learn

CES instructing client to do a military press

With the Career Kickstarter bundle, you will launch your personal training career with the ultimate advantage. Set yourself apart from other trainers by combining NASM's three most powerful courses and the power of the NASM EDGE app at one low price.

Begin your journey with NASM’s Certified Personal Trainer (NASM-CPT) Guided Study program. This certification will lay the foundation every trainer needs to accurately assess and build customized workouts using NASM’s world-renowned OPT™ Model. As part of your NASM-CPT program, you'll be able to leverage the full power of the NASM EDGE app to study for the exam, manage clients, and even train them online.

After becoming certified, jump straight into the Corrective Exercise Specialization Self-Study program. As a Corrective Exercise Specialist, you’ll get to the root of what causes injury for each client. Help clients move properly through custom workouts and stop lower back pain, knee issues, muscle soreness, and more before it occurs.

And finally, NASM’s Certified Nutrition Coach (NASM-CNC) will teach you everything you need to know about what your clients put into their bodies and strategies on how to help them commit to healthy diets long term. The Nutrition Certification can be taken alongside your NASM-CPT, as it does not require any prior experience to begin. Plus, with the NASM EDGE app, you’ll be able to provide clients with next-level nutrition feedback and advice that aligns with their fitness goals thanks to our Calorie and Macronutrient Calculators.

When you kickstart your career with NASM, you’re setting yourself up for a lifetime of success!

Kick
Starter

Certified Personal Trainer (CPT)

Foundational certification every trainer needs to accurately assess & build customized workouts using NASM's proprietary OPT™ Model.

Corrective Exercise Specialization (CES)

Learn to identify little dysfunctions before they become big issues. Reduce injury risk with individualized workout programs.

Certified Nutrition Coach (CNC)

Design individualized nutrition coaching for your clients. Learn strategies to help them commit to healthy diets long term.

What's Included?

Certified Personal Trainer (CPT) - Guided Study

The NASM-CPT Guided Study program is designed with you in mind. Our most popular CPT program includes the option to participate in a flexible course with unlimited access to NASM fitness expert instructors. You can also qualify for a job as a personal trainer in as few as 4 weeks. Additionally, included with the course is a Job Guarantee, hardcopy textbook, high-end learning videos, audio chapter summaries, an exam retest, and more!

Corrective Exercise Specialization (CES) - Self-Study

As a Corrective Exercise Specialist, you’ll recognize clients’ movement imbalances (no matter how slight) and correct them before they develop into established movement patterns. You’ll learn how to create programs that minimize muscle soreness, reduce injuries to the lower back, increase knee mobility, and more for every client.

Nutrition Coach

Certified Nutrition Coach (CNC)

As an NASM-CNC, you will tap into our leading online nutrition courses to learn the facts about hot topics like: proteins, carbs, macronutrients, and popular diets. Plus, you will learn the reasons behind dietary patterns and the behavioral change strategies to optimize them. This course is delivered in our immersive online platform and includes an entirely digital textbook, high-quality videos, infographics, and more.

Combine 3 Powerful Courses for 1 Low Price!

Increase your earning potential by offering a more holistic fitness and health skillset
Reach a wider group of potential clients
Start your fitness career off right with the knowledge to fully address your clients' fitness and nutritional needs

Program more efficient and effective workouts
See results faster by creating a more personalized fitness plan for your clients
Earn enough Continuing Education Units (CEUs) to recertify your Trainer Certification

FAQs

Do I have to renew these qualifications?

NASM's Certified Personal Trainer (CPT) and Certified Nutrition Coach (CNC) are both certifications, which means you must recertify every two years.

On the contrary, the Corrective Exercise Specialization (CES) is a specialization, not a certification, which means it does not need to be renewed. Once you pass your CES final exam, your CES specialization certificate never expires.

What are Continuing Education Units (CEUs)?

In order to recertify, CPTs are required to earn 2.0 Continuing Education Units (CEUs) every two years. Both the Corrective Exercise Specialization and the Nutrition Coach Certification are worth 1.9 CEUs, meaning that after completing these courses you would already have more than enough CEUs to recertify!

How long will I have to complete the courses?

You will have 180 days from the date of enrollment to take the NASM-CPT exam, and you'll have access to the course content for 5 years. An extension for the exam can be purchased by contacting NASM Member Services. You can access the NASM-VCS and NASM-CNC course content for five years, and the exam for 365 days after purchase.

The NASM-CES exam and content can be accessed for 1 year following the purchase date. Each course is typically completed in just 8-12 weeks. Extensions are available for each course for an additional fee.

What is the Optimum Performance Training™ Model?

The OPT™ model is our 5-phase training model that starts with Stabilization and ends with Power. The NASM-CPT program utilizes the Optimum Performance framework to ensure that all NASM-CPTs are well-versed in our training methods. Read here to learn more about the OPT™ Model.

What is the Corrective Exercise Continuum (CEx)?

The Corrective Exercise Continuum (CEx) is the foundation for the entire Corrective Exercise Specialization (CES). It is a 4-step process for assessing and correcting human movement for clients. The 4 steps are talked about more in depth in our guide to the CEx.

How are the final exams administered?

Certified Personal Trainer (CPT) is an NCCA accredited certification, meaning you must pass a live proctored exam, which can be administered online or in-person. On the contrary, the Corrective Exercise Specialization (CES) and Certified Nutrition Coach (CNC) final exams are administered online and can be taken from the comfort of your own home, or wherever you prefer to take tests.

What if I do not pass the NASM-CPT final exam?

Don't fret! A free retest is included as part of the NASM-CPT Guided Study program. For more details, please refer to your Candidate Handbook.

WHY CHOOSE NASM?

For over 30 years, NASM has been providing fitness professionals with the instruction and knowledge they need to succeed and help their clients reach their physical and dietary goals. That experience has made our Personal Trainer Certification the gold standard in the industry and our Nutrition Certification the fastest growing in the market. With over 500,000 enrollments and counting over three decades, we know how to develop long-lasting fitness professionals.

Our personal trainer, nutrition and corrective exercise programs are the most up-to-date programs in the fitness industry. Each is evidence-based and backed by the most thorough and comprehensive research from the most trusted experts in their fields.

We understand you lead a busy life. That’s why our digital learning approach allows you to study wherever and whenever you want. Our courses offer dynamic and interactive content that helps provide a better understanding of key principles and provides better retention of the information covered in the material.

Trainer Testimonials

"I could probably say that I owe my career and where I'm at today to the Corrective Exercise Specialization . By implementing the assessments, programming, and solutions that I learned through the CES program, it allowed me to work with a wide variety of clients that I might not have been able to work with and help achieve their goals otherwise."

Tony Ambler-Wright

MS, NASM Master Instructor

"There's a lot of different certification companies out there, but there's only one NASM. In terms of research and being the foremost leader in the fitness industry, no one can compare."

Nolan Hyland

NASM Master Trainer, NASM-CPT, NASM-MMACS

"You can do all the right things physically, and if you're not right nutritionally, it's a pretty uphill battle from there. Nutrition is also really key because, diet and exercise, those are the two components to being healthy."

James Llamas

NASM-CPT, NASM-CES, NASM-WLS, NASM-MMACS

"I know when I first started training with the CES, that's when my business picked up and I started getting a lot more clients and a lot of people that I wouldn't have normally seen. I wanted to train a lot of the athletic folks, and it's been amazing that even with elite athletes that I've trained, I do more of corrective exercise with them than probably almost anything else."

Rick Richey

Co-Founder at RēCOVER, owner of Independent Training Spot and NASM Master Instructor

"I'm very passionate about the Corrective Exercise Specialist because it's something that helped propel my career. In 2006 that's when I was exposed to the NASM corrective exercise specialization. I went through the course and it really transformed my business as a trainer. I became a lot busier because I knew I could work with a wider variety of clients. But on a personal level it helped me. I wasn't moving that great. I was in my early 30s, and I had some pain in my hip and also my shoulders from lifting heavy. And by following the protocols in the program I felt better. I became very passionate about corrective exercise, and I help teach other people how to get this as well."

Mike Fantagrassi

Sr. Director Product Development, NASM

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