Sports Injury Prevention and Corrective Training Certification

Sports injury prevention and corrective training certification is essentially a practical qualification that "understands the body, can avoid pitfalls, and can solve ordinary people's sports discomforts." It is neither a gold-plated IQ tax used for premiums in the fitness circle, nor a "universal certificate" that can cure all sports injuries. Its core value is to help fitness practitioners and senior sports enthusiasts establish a complete set of logic from "risk identification" to "movement modification." Don't expect to directly work as a clinical rehabilitation practitioner after obtaining the certificate. The boundaries of these two professions are far apart.

Last month I had a reunion dinner with a regular runner. Lao Zhou, who was sitting next to me, had been running for 3 and a half years. He had been suffering from recurring knee pain for almost a year. An MRI showed that the meniscus was not indicated for surgery. He also ran seven or eight times in the rehabilitation department. It was fine to just stop running. It would happen as soon as he picked it up. Last year, he was too busy to take the NASM-CES (National Academy of Sports Medicine Corrective Training Certification) test. He followed the textbook and did hip abduction activation for two weeks, and changed the landing angle of his running posture. He just finished the Wuxi Marathon last month. Not only did he do PB for 3 minutes, but he also didn't suffer from knee pain.

The certifications that are commonly reported on the market now actually vary widely, and there is no absolute "best" one. An organization that is a provider of functional movement screening (FMS) believes in "evaluate first and then train". If your movement pattern score is below the passing line, you will never be allowed to engage in heavy weight special training. The essence is to fix your shortcomings first and then talk about improvement. ； NASM's CES system is more flexible and tends to integrate corrective actions into the warm-up and inter-set intervals of daily training. It does not require a special one or two months for a separate "recovery period". It is more suitable for ordinary fitness enthusiasts and group class coaches. ； The corrective training certification launched by the Science and Training Bureau of the General Administration of Sport of China will be more in line with the musculoskeletal characteristics of the Chinese people - for example, Asians generally have tight hip flexors and weaker arch strength than Europeans and Americans. The evaluation standards will not directly copy the Western scale, and the probability of making mistakes is lower.

When I was preparing for the CES exam two years ago, I happened to have a stuck squat weight for almost half a year. Every time I squatted to 90kg, my right hip was inexplicably unable to exert force and was always crooked. After following the assessment process in the textbook, I found out that it was a problem caused by sitting for a long time. The right hamstring muscle was tense and caused the pelvis to tilt forward slightly, and the force exerted on both sides was completely asymmetrical. I rolled the foam roller for a week and added 3 sets of single-leg deadlifts to activate each warm-up. Within two weeks, I was able to squat 100kg very stably. It was much more effective than before when I randomly added sets and rushed the weight.

Don’t think that getting this certificate will solve all problems. I have seen many coaches who have just received the certificate. When a student complains about knee pain, he will directly adjust the movements without asking whether there is any organic injury. You must first clarify the boundaries: Corrective training can always cover motor dysfunction without structural damage - such as squatting with knee buckles, upper body shoulder presses that always snap, ankle pain after running for a long time, and the kind that go to the hospital to take a film and there is nothing wrong. This is its scope of application. If the meniscus is torn, the ligaments are severed, or the lumbar process compresses the nerves, please see a clinical rehabilitation practitioner first, and don't delay the condition by practicing blindly.

Recently, when browsing fitness forums, I always see people saying that this kind of certification is like cutting leeks, but in fact, it cannot be killed at once. There are indeed many pheasant institutions offering "three-day crash courses" that cost thousands of dollars. They don't even understand basic skeletal anatomy. In the end, you can get a certificate by going through the motions. Of course, this kind of training is useless after learning. Apart from being printed on a business card to fool laymen, it has no actual value at all. If you really want to learn, you have to choose a certification that requires you to complete a certain number of practical case hours and have on-site skills assessment. After completing the theoretical exam, you have to be able to actually evaluate others and come up with adjustment plans. Only then can you learn something from yourself.

To put it bluntly, no matter which organization issues the certification, it is essentially just a stepping stone to get started. If you really want to be able to master the skills of preventing injuries and correcting movements, you still need to study more cases and think more about it. After all, everyone's physical condition is different. Some people are born with poor hip mobility, and some have movement compensation from old injuries. How can the standardized solutions in the exam question bank cover them all? People who really know how to practice, even if they don't have a certificate, can help their friends around them solve minor problems such as running pain or squatting crookedly. If you only have a certificate and can't use it, then it's really a waste of money.