NESTA Exam tips
by Jane
(Vernon, BC)
I'm booked in to take the exam at the end of the month. I got a big text book to learn and not just the videos. I thought if you can learn it all from the video why are there books!
I have a really hard time with learning written information but am very good with the practical side of things, do you have any tips for me to help learn all the information. There are a lot of big words and terminology and it's scary to me. I want to do this more than anything but am scared I won't pass. Is the exam easy or hard?
I PASSED! My NESTA Exam Tips
by Goddess
(CA)
I passed my NESTA exam yesterday! And I know I wouldn't have been able to pass it if it wasn't for the online exam prep course (the one on this site). I luckily found it 2 weeks before the test and since then I've been studying its material.
What I liked about the prep course:
*Some questions were questions on the exam
*Practicing taking tests on the computer helped a lot
*The questions helped me figure out what I still needed to focus on and review
About the NESTA exam
There were no fill-in-the-blanks, only multiple choice questions. There is a calculator on the computer you can use. They give you scratch paper to write notes on and do calculations on for the test, you can't bring your own. You can't bring water, watch, etc into the exam room.
Other things that helped me pass the exam:
Watching the videos (included in the NESTA course). I watched as many as I could the coming days before the exam to refresh my memory
Know your formulas! I wondered if I needed to know the Karvonen equation, and yes, there it was. (but on my test, there are different test versions, I only had to know the Karvonen equation.)
There was at least one question from each chapter but chapters I would especially focus on are the ones on Program Design and Program Instruction (Lesson 14 and Lesson 15). For instance, they gave real life scenarios. Ex. They give a client's profile, name, age, weight, goals, health history, now what program would be best?
Know macrocycles, mesocycles and microcycles and what happens in each.
Know the muscles on Ch 3, For ex. I got a question on the muscles on the rotator cuff (teres minor, subscapularis, infraspinatus, supraspinatus) know how muscles are spelled, they try to trick you by giving similar spellings.
Really know Chapters 3, 9-13 (and the one on Biomechanics too, and plantar/dorsi flexion, the degrees, the 4 actions of the scapula...)
Other tips:
I'm an auditory learner, so I recorded questions on the prep course with their answers on a cassette recorder and listened to them. I did the prep course quizes, read and understood the explanations that came with them.
What I did was I recorded the terms and their meanings/explanations onto a tape recorder and listened to them over and over again (visualizing them as I listened).
For muscles, insertions, origins, etc I put them into tables. I listed each muscle and listed their origins, insertions (I used only the first letters, so T for Tibialis Anterior, so I can visually see what's what all in 1 page)
Rosemary essential oil wakes you up (better than caffeine for me). It focused my brain without any jittery feeling. If you can't sleep the night before, Lavender essential oil helps. Eat something, just a little something that will pump glucose to your brain, brain activity eats a lot of glucose and if you're stuck, take deep breaths also for the brain.
The exam isn't extremely hard (if you studied, sorry, must study for this one), there were at least 7 common sense questions.
You can contact Nesta support with questions on the course material too. (I have been emailing Nesta with questions like, would you explain this particular concentric phase that occurs when performing squats? And they do answer and quickly.)
Good luck!
NESTA certification is not easy
by Vionna
I am 19 years old and received my NESTA personal trainer certification last week. The test does require a lot of knowledge and critical thinking. I was able to pass the exam successfully on my fourth try. I do recommend it for other's who like to study with DVD's.
Just Completed the NESTA exam
by Crystal
(California)
Although I put a lot of time into studying tha materials, I barely passed the exam. The CD-rom manual does not do a very good job explaining exercise applications and so I found myself doing my own research about the same topic online. It helped a lot.
Even though, I really like this organization. They focus a lot on the science of personal training which really puts it all together and helps you understand why it is that you have to do what you do to get a positive outcome with working out. I truly would recommend the NESTA certification!
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