Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A review of the BOOK, December 20, 2008
I took the ace certification test and passed my first time, but it was a long and painful process.
As a biology major and fitness enthusiast I utterly detest this book. Ill break it down by chapter:
Chapter 1 Exercise Physiology: A fairly good chapter, straight forward, except it does a poor job of explaining the physiology of the heart.
4/5
Chapter 2 Human Anatomy: This is mainly about bones and the muscles they attach to. It also includes some information about about the movements of the appendages and the terms for the specific movements. I believe some of the information to be poorly explained and some of it to be debatable. No reference to the saddle joint? And its not all there when talking about connective tissue either.
3/5
Chapter 3 Biomechanics: This is more about the movements of joints. Some explained well enough, others terrible explained.
3/5
Chapter 4 Nutrition: Glancing through, no immediate problems are evident. It does focus alot on the mypyramid.gov, which I dont really care for. Ill give this chapter the benefit of the doubt (it needs it).
5/5
Chapter 5 Health Screening: A bog problem with this chapter is that parts will be confusing, especially under medications. Other than the medicaitons is some fairly straight forward.
4/5
Chapter 6 Evaluation: Talks about oxygen capacity ETC which it does a poor job of explaining throughout the book (Absolute VO2 Max vs Relative). It shows you how to take a heart rate with your fingers, and so on. Has the different tests to see respiratory fitness. Also has stretching and strength tests. A very useless chart and at least a couple poorly described tests
"hold the left leg down with your right hand to stabilize the pelvis, and use your left hand to passively raise the right leg to an angle of 80 to 85 degrees." At least that one was crystal clear......
3/5
Chapter 7 Cardiovascular fitness: My main problem is this chapter is WAY too long (40 pages). Im not looking over it all again because it was painful enough the first time. I get the idea.
2/5
Chapter 8 Muscular strength and Endurance: To my surprise (and joy) this actually covered what is necessarily.
5/5
Chapter 9 Program design: I would give this 3 out of 5 stars on information alone.... until we get to the exercises. There are a handful of very general exercises that wont keep too many people in shape.
2/5
Chapter 10 Flexibility: Flexibility is never something ive cared about, but after this chapter I did find it rather interesting. Fairly straightforward, a couple obscure things, but overall, very strong.
5/5
Chapter 11 Programming for a healthy adult: Short. Re-covers some stuff. Nothing wrong, but fairly useless. Again, benefit of the doubt.
4/5
Chapter 12 Special Population Concerns: Strong enough chapter, useful information.
5/5
Chapter 13 Principles of adherence: Kinda a crap chapter. Tells you how to encourage your clients to adhere.
Dress right, be dedicated, plan ahead, be sensitive, be a role model, etc. Unfortunately, this is not common sense to some.....
3/5
Chapter 14 Communication: Again, kinda a crap chapter. More of the same, similar to 13.
3/5
Chapter 15 Behavior change: And yet again, similar to 13 and 14; practical.... if your a moron.
3/5
*Note: Im being nice in my grading in the past three chapters. I cant grade down too much just because the information is rudimentary*
Note: You will notice in almost every picture theres person to person contact. Yet the book emphasizes "dont touch your client"
16/17 injuries and emergency procedure: Interesting, but most of which is innately useless.
3/5
3/5
Chapter 18 Legal: Like flexibility, I didn't really care. But the chapter was written well enough and made me become interested.
I just scanned through the book for this review. It has several problems and quite a few contradictions. Unfortunately most slip my memory as I try to forget this book. I remember that smooth muscle wasnt covered and they alluded that it didnt exist. I remember alot of problems were in the study guide, it was particularly distasteful how they explained muscle contraction through the hydrolysis of ATP.
So who should get this book?
If you want to get it to be a trainer, by all means do so. I became a trainer just for fum (I value quality knowledge). Unfortunately, with my background in science and fitness I noticed a lot of errors. Much of this may be due to the fact the chapters are written by different people (dangerous). Most of the errors I can't remember, but I had written down over a page. Not enough people seemed to get their book from amazon ($200!!!), so I never got around to publishing them on Amazon.
Also, I do not believe many of the questions on the ACE test are relevant to becoming a quality personal trainer. Make sure to use the practice test that comes with the book ( 8
Although, I can not for the life of me imagine that theres not a better Certification program for the enthusiasts. If not, we may all be doomed. I would not recommend anyone with a basic fitness knowledge to an ace professional based on the information in this book.
If you do get ace certified and want to do fitness training, make sure to check out the male and female body builder bibles, as well as strength training anatomy, the anatomy of stretching, and yoga anatomy.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
used for more than new?!!!, February 21, 2008
Great book, but trying to sell it for more than what it costs new, from the actual ACE website?! Give me a break.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Buy it from ACE! It's only $55. Don't be stupid!, February 10, 2007
This is a rip. It's cheaper on the ACE website.
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