Wednesday, November 5, 2008

I Aced Ace!



I PASSED MY TEST WITH FLYING COLORS YESTERDAY! Now I can officially be a "Group Fitness Instructor," if I so choose.

____________________________________________________

In another note, I had already determined the month of November might be a little difficult on my marriage. So far, Emily is up 1 (Eagles beat Seahawks). Now, if only BYU can pull off victory against Utah.

Can you believe it's November? I can't believe my flowers lasted almost an entire six months, but judging by the snow that's currently falling outside, I think the petunias have bloomed their last bloom.

I can't wait for Thanksgiving and then Christmas. After that, spring can't come soon enough! It has only been a few days (Saturday) since my last hike, but I'm already going through withdrawals. Oh winter weather, you're so crazy.

Good luck to President elect Obama. He's gonna need it. I guess we won't be seeing Sarah Palin on SNL anymore. :(

Have a great day everyone!

5 comments:

J.M. DeBord said...

Hi Emily, I'm taking the ACE test this Saturday, sitting here pouring over my instructor manual, and I was wondering if you can tell me what to focus on. Specifically, how much anatomy like insertion points, bones and names names of muscles. Anything you can recommend would be great. I'll be notified if you post something in response. Best wishes....
PS- I already teach Pilates and yoga, I have to get ACE certification for my job.

LadyEm said...

Hey groovywriter,

The best preparation for the test is your experience teaching yoga and pilates (also my experience). You need to know basic anatomy and physiology, but don't stress over too many details (for example, I didn't bother memorizing the four muscles of the quad, but I did make sure I had familiarity with the names of muscles, joints, bones, etc., so I could at least identify major groups and locations). Make sure you know movements like flexion, extension, lateral, etc. Spend time on "groups with special needs" like senior citizens, or people with asthma, diabetes, etc. I was surprised by how many questions were on senior citizens and various modifications for groups of differing levels. This is the breakdown of the test:
http://www.acefitness.org/getcertified/aboutexam_gfi.aspx.

GOOD LUCK! I felt overprepared having studied the text, flashcards, etc. and yet, there were questions I wasn't sure I could have studied for. Virtually all the questions are application, so instead of asking a question like: identify this muscle; it's more like joe is doing this exercise wrong, what does he need to do to modify it, and then something like, how should you tell him to modify it, etc. All in all, it's not too bad. Let me know how it goes.

Brittany said...

Congratulations on passing your test! What exactly does a test like that entail?

J.M. DeBord said...

Thanks for the advice, it helped. Every version of the test is different; mine had little about seniors and a lot more about step and water classes. Kinda disappointed me, found spelling errors, misplaced words, asinine questions that had little to do with what I studied. I had almost no questions about planes of movement or muscle performance, and much more about hypothetical scenarios I'll never find myself in. Nothing about yoga or Pilates. Seems like we always get the short of the stick in this industry. I'd sure love for ACE to recognize that there's more to the fitness world than step classes. Anyway, I won't get my results for a while because I took the paper test. They wanted $40 more to take it on a computer. I only need the cert for work and I already have the job, so I'm not in any hurry, though oddly I find myself a little worried. I missed a few easy questions, I found out later, and had a few that I just said, huh? Something about a highly choreographed cardio routine that was like reading a Microsoft manual. My eyes glazed over....
Thanks again!

LadyEm said...

Groovywriter, if you read this, I'm totally with you on your experience with the test. I knew beforehand that I would hate at least half of the questions...I just tried not to do too much hating during the test and try to answer as straightforward as possible. Anyway, I hope you did well! That's great that you're already employed; I have an opportunity for yoga in January, so I'm excited. All the best.