Investigation motive
With the implementation of the national fitness policy and the public’s concern about health problems, more people began to walk into gyms. Where there is demand, there is a market, and gyms around citizens’ places of residence have mushroomed everywhere. However, as the fitness market becomes more and more popular, many problems are gradually exposed, among which the professional problem of fitness instructors is the most reflected by the public. How to identify the qualification of fitness instructor? How to standardize and effectively supervise the fitness market? Around these problems, the reporter of Legal Daily conducted an investigation on the fitness market in Beijing.
□ Legal Daily reporter Shuai Biao
□ Legal Daily reporter Lian Yingting
At 7 o’clock every night, the members who come to the gym crowded the small gym and sweated on all kinds of equipment, while a coach stared at the members’ movements.
This is a chain gym located in Beijing’s North Fourth Ring Road. Jing He worked out in this gym, but after two weeks of exercise, Jing He decided not to go here again.
Jing He, who has many years’ experience in horse racing and fitness, found the problem without practicing here for several times. "The coaches here are unprofessional." Jing He told the Legal Daily reporter bluntly, "I found that many members’ actions were wrong, but the coaches didn’t correct them, and even some coaches’ actions were wrong. It is too dangerous to exercise like this. "
In recent years, the popularity of the fitness market has made many people smell business opportunities. Not only gyms can be seen everywhere, but also some fitness instructor training institutions have emerged. However, whether it is a gym or a coach training institution, its professionalism is worrying.
According to the investigation by the reporter of Legal Daily, most of these coach training institutions have short training time and low gold content in their certificates. In addition, the threshold for fitness coaches is low and there is no uniform standard for qualification certificates, which leads to uneven levels of coaches in the domestic fitness industry, chaotic fitness coach qualification examinations and lack of supervision.
Fitness instructor qualification training
You can pass the exam by paying.
On the morning of September 19th, the reporter of Legal Daily went to a gym in Wangjing, Beijing, which was in a relatively prosperous area and medium-sized. After entering the gym, the reporter found that the fitness equipment here is different from the traditional fitness equipment.
Manager Wu Jiao told the reporter that this store belongs to foreign countries, which is different from the route taken by ordinary gyms in China. "All our technical systems are imported from the United States."
The reporter saw in this gym that a whiteboard records the daily training contents and achievements of members, and the coach gives lectures to members intensively every day. This form is rare.
As for the teaching staff, Wu Jiao told reporters that the coaches here are all certificates issued by foreign countries, and all coaches have to undergo all the training in the technical system before they can take up their posts. If you want to get this kind of primary certificate issued abroad, you only need to train for two days and then take the exam, and the rest of the time is self-study. It is more difficult to get a higher level certificate. First, you have to pass the English test, and second, the professional training exam is also real.
According to the reporter’s investigation, the qualification certificates of fitness instructors mainly include Asian Fitness Certificate, National Fitness Instructor Professional Qualification Certificate, American Fitness Certificate, CSCS Fitness Instructor Certificate and other certificates issued by domestic fitness colleges. Among them, the National Physical Fitness Association (NSCA) registered physical fitness training experts (CSCS) certification pass rate is very low.
At present, domestic fitness instructors generally have two certificates, one is the national fitness instructor professional qualification certificate issued by the Vocational Skills Center of the State Sports General Administration, and the other is the Asian physical fitness certificate.
An industry insider told reporters that the Asian Physical Fitness Certificate is the easiest to obtain, so most fitness instructors have this certificate. The National Fitness Coach Professional Qualification Certificate is jointly made by the State Sports Bureau and non-governmental organizations. In fact, non-governmental organizations borrow the signboard of the Sports Bureau.
Wang Weida, who works as a fitness instructor, told the Legal Daily reporter that the national fitness instructor’s professional qualification certificate is not a hard indicator. However, in order to attract members to buy classes, many gyms will encourage coaches to do more research, making more and more coach training institutions cooperate with gyms.
The process of this kind of textual research is to pay the training institution a fee of about 3,000 yuan to 4,000 yuan, train for about one week, and then take the exam.
Wang Weida said: "This kind of exam is easy to pass. Even if you fail, you can make up the exam for free. Nowadays, the demand for fitness instructors is in short supply, so many training institutions can let you live for money, which is beneficial to both sides. If the training fails for half a day, the money is equal to nothing, so as long as you pay, you have to let them pass. "
According to Bao Ke, a fitness and bodybuilding teacher in Beijing Sport University, there are not many professional coach training institutions. Many training institutions want to seize this opportunity to make a fortune, so they will train and issue certificates as soon as possible.
"Now there are many certificates that are more interesting, such as qualification certificate and training certificate. The qualification certificate means that you passed the exam through training, and the training certificate means that you participated in the training." Burke said.
The teaching staff is uneven
How much is the main business of coaching?
According to the reporter’s investigation, at present, there is no rigid requirement in the fitness industry that you must hold a certificate before you can take up your post. Therefore, some people without professional background can take up their posts after short-term training. The threshold of fitness industry is too low, which gives many non-professionals the opportunity to enter.
Leo, a bodybuilding student, told the reporter of Legal Daily, "When we are training in the gym, we often see many unprofessional coaches instructing members to make some wrong moves, which will lead to muscle injury in the long run. The so-called coaches have never studied systematic courses at all, and even some gyms will post the qualifications in the coach’s resume on the wall in order to attract members to buy courses. There are all kinds of certificates, which are actually fictitious. "
"In fact, many gyms lack professional coaches. I brought 48 bodybuilding graduates this year, and only 4 of them chose to work in the gym, but there are many gyms that I want this year. At present, the gym mainly depends on sales performance, not that the salary you get with good skills is relatively high. In the final analysis, it depends on how to make money for the gym, which also leads some more professional fitness instructors to choose this line. " Bao Ke said that in the gym, selling courses has become the coach’s main business. As long as the courses are sold more and can help the gym make money, nothing else is important. It turns out that every gym has a tour coach, who will guide all members for free to attract customers to buy his private lessons. Now, coaches don’t want to make a tour, but sell more private lessons, giving less and less guidance to members unless you are willing to pay a higher price for private lessons. Therefore, many gym coaches are now looking at money.
Jing He also told reporters that once, when she was exercising, she saw the coaches in the gym receiving training. "When I listened carefully, I didn’t train professional knowledge at all, but taught them how to sell private lessons.".
Bao Ke also mentioned that at present, there is no good evaluation mechanism for the qualifications of coaches in China, which also leads to uneven levels of fitness coaches.
"Now the national fitness is advocated, and the fitness market is also hot, but from a practical point of view, every member can really benefit very little, and the gyms that really do this can be said to be rare." Burke said.
Regarding the reasons for this kind of problem, Bao Ke believes that there is no special regulatory body in China, and the fitness market is basically market-oriented.
Coach qualification standards to be unified
Training institutions need to strengthen supervision.
In November, 2015, the Career Development Report of Fitness Coaches in China released by the Vocational Skills Appraisal Guidance Center of the State General Administration of Sport stated that in the private education industry, 52% of the "newcomers" who have been employed for one to three years have professional background, and the remaining 48% have no professional background.
Guo Yong, a bodybuilding coach of the national team and a lecturer in bodybuilding major at Beijing Sport University, told the Legal Daily reporter that professional background mainly refers to sports-related background, such as students from sports institutes and sports majors, not necessarily specialized in fitness.
In addition to professional background, those who have been promoted from different channels to coaches hold different certificates. At present, there are no uniform norms and standards for the qualification of fitness instructors in China.
"I think it is difficult for the fitness instructor qualification certificate to reach a unified standard, and it is also difficult to achieve effective supervision." Bao Ke said that the fitness instructor grade examination in the Human Resources Center of the General Administration of Sport is relatively formal. However, in order to standardize and effectively supervise, I personally think that the gym needs to cooperate first, that is, you can’t work without a qualification certificate; Secondly, improve the member identification ability; Finally, the industrial and commercial department should assess how many teachers and abilities there are in the gym, instead of having a business license and a venue to open a gym.
Wu Jiao believes that we should start from the source, that is, the operator. Operators must attach importance to coaches first, and train coaches from all aspects, instead of letting coaches be salespeople. Now many coaches basically sell classes after going to the gym; Secondly, for coaches, we should pay more attention to the evaluation of members or the performance of teaching. If we only look at how many classes have been sold, the professionalism of the coaches themselves will not improve. In addition, there is nothing wrong with letting go of the threshold. The key is how to train these coaches after entering, which is a very key link.
Guo Yong believes that the chaos in the fitness market is a normal phenomenon, and all industries have such a process, which gradually moves from immaturity to maturity, from non-standardization to standardization, and from professionalism to professionalism.
"I think that the qualifications of fitness instructors in the future are diversified, and fitness instructors are a skill. It is impossible to force the qualification examination at present. Moreover, it cannot be said that the qualification certificates issued by some institutions are not good. I think the training of fitness instructors is much better than before, and there will definitely be more and more training institutions in the future. In the end, who can stay depends on the market. " Guo Yong said.
Cartography/Gao Yue
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