And welcome back to the Wellness Paradox podcast . I'm so grateful that you can join us on this journey towards greater human flourishing . This is our fifth episode in the special series , in collaboration with the ACSM , on the September-October themed issue of the Health Fitness Journal on professionalization and advocacy .
As always , I'm your host , michael Stack , an exercise physiologist by training and a health educator and a health entrepreneur by trade , and I'm fascinated by a phenomena I call the wellness paradox . This paradox , as I view it , is the trust , interaction and communication gap that exists between exercise professionals and our medical community .
This podcast is all about closing off of that gap by disseminating the latest , most evidence-based and most engaging information in the health sciences . And , as I mentioned , as a part of this podcast series , we're diving into the themed issue of the September-October Health Fitness Journal on Professionalization and Advocacy .
One of the critically important topics that we talked about in that issue was the role of programmatic accreditation , certification and career advancement .
In this conversation with the lead author of that article , ben Thompson , we're going to dive into some things that I think many of you have heard of and thought of before , like certification , and then something else , like programmatic accreditation , that you probably haven't thought a lot about but you're actually going to find in this discussion and the article is
absolutely foundational to the professionalization effort and , more importantly , the trust that other healthcare providers and the broader public has with our field . I think you'll find this conversation with Ben very enlightening . He really dives into programmatic accreditation in a way that is understandable , both in terms of its practical implications and its importance .
Any information we'd like to share with you from this episode can be found on the show notes page . That's by going to wellnessparadoxpodcom . Forward slash , episode ACSM5 . Again , that's forward slash , episode ACSM 5 . Please enjoy this conversation with Ben Thompson .
Today we're delighted to be joined by one of the lead authors from the article in the ACSM-themed issue on professionalization and advocacy , Ben Thompson . Ben , thank you so much for joining us .
Well , thank you for having me , Mike . I appreciate it .
It's wonderful to talk about this important topic excited to dive into this , because I think certification gets talked about a lot in our field , programmatic accreditation a little bit less so , particularly outside of academia . So we're going to dive into some of these topics in this discussion that you and your co-authors wrote in the article .
But before we get into that , why don't you give our audience a little bit of an idea of your background , just to provide some context ?
Sure , it's not that exciting , but I did undergrad at Northern Colorado with a great professor , dr Carol Schneider , where we did cancer rehab . I then did my master's at Central Michigan University . In between there I did some worksite wellness working with Johnson Johnson .
It was at Central Michigan when I was with Dr Paul Visek that I really figured out that I really enjoyed the teaching part of our profession . So I continued on to the University of Toledo with Barry Sherman where I got my PhD in exercise physiology . I really figured out during my PhD that research isn't my strongest suit .
So when I was looking for a job in academics I really wanted one that had a focus in education and teaching . So thankfully my first you know job out here at Metropolitan State University of Denver is that it's a teaching position .
And so you know , that's really what I'm here for is , you know , moving our profession forward by educating the students who would hopefully then educate the population and , you know , and so on . But during my time here at MSU Denver I've done a lot of other things outside within the profession , you know . So I'm a certified professional .
So I've been certified since a while ago through ACSM , through a few name changes , but I'm a certified exercise physiologist .
You know , I really became involved with certification and learning more about kind of what goes on when I became a committee member for ACSM's Committee on Certification of Registry Boards the CCRB that's in charge of their certification and I subsequently became chair of that committee and one of the big changes that we made for good or bad while I was that chair
was we really spearheaded the name change of that certification from health fitness specialist to exercise physiologist . So if anybody hates that change , sorry . We really did it to really kind of move the profession forward and make it sound more like a . You know , it's a legitimate certification , it's not just like some other type of certification .
So that was where I first really got into certification . Then I became involved with accreditation . So in 2012 , I became a member of the Committee on Accreditation for the Exercise Sciences .
So they are the committee that makes recommendations to the accrediting organization CAHIP the Commission on Accreditation for Allied Health Education Programs for awarding accreditation for undergrad and graduate exercise science programs . So I continued on that . I became chair of that in 2018 , and I'm still the chair of that committee and we've grown significantly .
We're seeing a lot more programs become accredited . Now I've also become an advisory member for the US Registry of Exercise Professionals . So that's another really important part and it's in this topical area and in this topic of the journal about the importance of certification but also registry . So I'm an advisory member to that .
I've worked with the International Confederation of Sport and Exercise Sciences to kind of develop international standards for the exercise profession . So that's been really exciting too . But really my focus now a lot is on the accreditation piece . So that's sorry a lot , but that's kind of where I am now and where I've come from .
Awesome , yeah , very , very deep knowledge in this area and we're going to dive into some of those topics . I will say for one , I'm not one of those people that will give you any pushback on the term exercise physio . I think that was a great change .
Much like you , I've been through many name changes with that certification over the years and this one really does distinguish it . So no pushback here . But you mentioned a lot of things accreditation , certification , registry . Registry is not something we're going to talk about in this discussion . That's another discussion .
As a part of the themed issue , we're going to focus mostly on the article that you and your co-authors wrote , entitled Role of Programmatic Accreditation , certification and Career Advancement , and you wrote that with one of my colleagues from the University of Michigan , dr Laura Richardson , and then Francis Narek from the ACSM and Ben .
There's so much to this topic and I feel like a lot of people that are listening to this conversation and reading the article are probably just hearing about this stuff for the first time because they're the frontline exercise professionals . So what do you feel were the most important topics covered in your article ?
And maybe almost you know from a hierarchical perspective , like you know , what do you fix first , and then we can kind of move forward from there .
Yeah , no great question , and I think you already kind of almost you know hit upon what the really important things are . So part of the big problem with our profession is recognition , right .
So people don't understand , you know , the knowledge and the experience at all who the exercise professional can work with based on their certification and their education athletic training , registered dietitian , those type of things have followed and used certain steps to gain kind of this . You know , understanding of this is what they do .
And so the first one is accreditation , right , so coming from a program that teaches specific things , not necessarily the same way as every program , but meets all these criteria , so accreditation of a program , some type of national certification or licensure exam , so like for us a certification through ACSM .
And then the third part is maintaining some type of continuing education , so maintaining competency in the field .
And I think those are the and that's why the title of our article is that those are the three kind of really big things and that's where we have to start , so we don't need to like reinvent the wheel with you know how to become recognized by the public or by you know insurance companies or things like that recognized by the public or by you know , insurance
companies or things like that . There are established professionals that have followed this model and are recognized . So that's kind of . Really , what we're laying out is like , okay , other programs and model or places have done it . This is what we need to do and why we need to do it basically .
Yeah , I think that's such a great point , and I've heard the analogy used to the nursing profession as an example . In fact , I think Francis uses this analogy very well . Could you imagine what it would be like if every nursing school in the country had a completely different academic curriculum ? But to a great extent that's what exists in exercise science .
I teach at University of Michigan . I also taught at Eastern Michigan University , literally separated by 15 , 20 miles and interstate highway . The curriculums were a little different . You were at Central , it's a little different , toledo a little different .
And so when I think of that and I said this in my issue introduction column I think one of the fundamental issues that that causes is it's a recognition issue , but even more fundamentally than that , it's a trust issue . Other allied health providers , I think , struggle to trust exercise professionals broadly because they're not sure what they're exactly learning .
And , truth be told , on some level , with the way it's structured right now without accreditation , we're not really sure what everyone is learning . And , truth be told , on some level , with the way it's structured right now without accreditation , we're not really sure what everyone is learning .
So let's double click on the accreditation part of this and just explain on a high level . What programmatic accreditation means ?
Right and you're right .
I think that is the important thing is to make other people understand what we do and that , like if you get a graduate from my program or if you get a graduate from Central Michigan's program , they are going to have the same knowledge , the same skills because they're coming from an accredited program and that's really the important thing of accreditation .
So you know , it's really kind of making an even playing field , right ? So the way that accreditation works programmatic accreditation works is we have a certain number of sponsoring organizations .
So ACSM is one of those sponsoring organizations , but so is ACE and NASM and other organizations , and we look at their certifications that are preparing the professional for entry level into the workforce and so , based on all those different organizations , we create just like ACSM has , like the job task analysis we have certain competencies that in a program at a
university they have to demonstrate that they meet and do each of these competencies within the program . So each student is learning the same material . And that's really the important thing is that everybody coming out of my program has the same experience as somebody coming out from another institution in the back up . Not necessarily the same experience , but the same .
They've been taught the same things Could be in different ways , but they've all met those accreditation competencies .
Basically , I'd like to take a quick break from today's episode to tell you about a great offer from the American College of Sport Medicine . Until October 21st 2024 , the ACSM is offering a $30 discount on their Alliance membership .
This is a membership that's crafted specifically for health and fitness professionals , and getting this membership will give you access to all the articles in the themed issue on professionalization and advocacy that we're talking about in this podcast series , as well as a whole host of other member benefits .
To take advantage of this discount , go to acsmorg forward , slash , join . That's acsmorg forward , slash , join and enter in the discount code alliance , save 30 . Again , this is valid only through October , the 21st 2024 . So go to acsmorg forward , slash , join and enter in the discount code allianceVE30 . Now back to today's episode .
Yeah , so to be clear for the audience , programmatic accreditation is done at the academic institution level . So , as example , in the School of Kinesiology at the University of Michigan , that is where that programmatic accreditation is happening . This is not something the individual professional is having to get .
Right , yeah , it occurs at the level of the program at the institution and it's not like and it's not institutional accreditation either . So , like , my university is accredited by another accrediting body that looks at different universities and that's totally different . So that's university accreditation .
We're looking at accreditation of the specific exercise program for undergrads or exercise physiology for graduate programs , or , in an associate's degree , the personal fitness training .
Got it , Got it , and so I know and you mentioned this , and this is a very good thing programmatic accreditation is growing and although the audience that's listening to this , it's unlikely that they are going to be directly involved in programmatic accreditation . What does a university have to demonstrate at just a high level to get programmatic accreditation ?
Right .
So the first thing that they do is they have to express interest in the accreditation , and so we , as the co-AES , provide them with a document that has all these specific markers that they have to meet that they have sufficient lab space , that they have sufficient equipment to teach these specific competencies , that they have sufficient lab space , that they have
sufficient equipment to teach these specific competencies that we have listed for either the undergrad or the associates or the master's program . Once they go through and they see in their curriculum so they don't have to create new curriculum usually Most often within a program's curriculum they teach these different things , so it can be matched wherever , you know .
Once they have demonstrated that they meet , through their curriculum , all these competencies , the COA then does a in-person site visit where they send two visitors .
They go through and basically just verify what they've done in this process called a self-study , and after that self-study they get evaluated by the COA and then , based on what we found , we make a recommendation to CAEP , which is the actual accrediting body , whether or not this program has earned initial accreditation or if there are places that they still need to
work at before they can gain that initial accreditation . So we do initial and then we follow up with programs yearly .
They have to submit annual reports and then , usually after five or ten years , we have another intensive site visit that we're starting to do virtually now , basically again just checking to make sure that the curriculum is still meeting all the competencies and they're still doing all the things that we're asking them to do .
Got it and this all seems quite logical . You start with the job tasks that the individual has to do and you essentially map those or work backwards to the curriculum that teaches those things , and then you verify to make sure all of those things exist which you know to your point . I do think most of the universities out there are teaching these things .
It's just , it is just creating kind of that , that uniformity around it . Yeah , exactly . So to talk about uniformity or maybe to some extent , you know , kind of lack thereof , at least from a perceptual standpoint , we can move to certification . Right , you know , certification , you know , does become a little bit of an alphabet soup at some points in time .
I feel like , you know , we've already done this a couple of times in this conversation and you know , I mean , if you Google personal trainer certification , I don't I don't know how many you're going to get , but it's , it's in the , in the hundreds , maybe not the thousands , but the hundreds . So certification has always kind of been one of those fraught areas .
You know somebody , I'm a certified trainer . I think our listeners to this podcast and the readers of the journal know that there's a big difference between the ACSM , the ACE , the NSCA certified professional and the random weekend virtual workshop certified professional .
So talk about the role of certification as you view it from your perspective and the perspective of this article .
Yeah , no , that's a great point . And you know , just like with programs are accredited , certifications are accredited too . So it's another basically like checks and balances .
With that certification , this organization looks and is like , okay , you know , this is what the organization is creating their certification for , this is actually what they're testing it on and what they're testing is appropriate for that exercise professional .
So like ACSM , ace , nsca , those have accredited certifications and so you know , if my student takes an ACSM certification and then one of your students takes an ACSM certification , they'll have the same experience and the same knowledge . So employers will should kind of understand that information .
So it's just like programmatic accreditation is kind of making sure everybody knows what they're getting when they hire that person .
Right , and then this is obviously now we're talking . Now this is on the individual level . So this kind of progresses in , and different fields have it in different I dietitian , or for a physician , it's just kind of our field's version of it .
So I'm going to ask you the tricky question here Do you feel for our field to get the trust that it needs and the reputation that it needs in healthcare ? Do you feel like certification is enough with the way it's structured , or is it a step further ? Is it licensure ? I mean , is it not ? Feel free to give your opinion , free from CREP or OAS or ACSF .
I'm always curious about this conversation , because you hear it as much as I do . We need licensure , we don't need licensure . What's your perspective ?
really think certification alone . If we establish this process and make it known that we have accreditation , we have certification , we have continuing education , I think that will be enough for us to become recognized in a qualified health provider .
People do bring up licensure a lot and I think licensure , I think to some extent can almost be limiting in regards to what the professional can do and what they can do in different states , because it would have to be licensure per state and so having a certification that's national and is portable you know you can go to different countries and still be considered
an exercise professional certified I think is a really powerful and important thing . You know , I almost think requiring licensure for the exercise profession would to some extent be a disservice and limit the number of people that would become exercise professionals .
I don't know if that's the same view that a physician or somebody in the medical field would have , but that's kind of like what I've been seeing in my experiences over the years .
Yeah , you handled that very well and it is a tricky question to answer and from my perspective , I agree with that .
I think you know licensure is , and I think we've seen this in many different professions the dietetics profession , the nursing profession right now , particularly with their labor shortage , this is really causing some complexity and it's just more regulation and oversight that I think we can learn from some of these other professions that have it and say , hey , if we
don't need this , why add that extra layer in ? So I think that's a good point and I think , broadly speaking , I even think the federal government seems to be wanting to move away from licensure because of military families and people moving around . It does limit mobility .
So I think we hear about it at first and it sounds good , but then you start to dive into the bureaucracy and you say maybe this isn't the way to go .
Yeah , and I think with licensure it would impact accreditation . I think we would go more from we are currently an outcomes-based accreditation so we say , okay , these are the competencies that we want your program to meet . A program can meet those competencies any way they want .
I think with licensure , licensure may cause programmatic accreditation to become more of a process space where it says , okay , to be able to teach this curriculum , you have to have X number of faculty and you have to do X , y and Z .
And I think that would also become very limiting for exercise science programs , because that's one of the cool things about our profession is , and you have to do X , y and Z .
And I think that would also become very limiting for exercise science programs , because that's one of the cool things about our profession is it's all over the place and there's a lot of different paths that we can take and there's a lot of different experiences at different institutions and I really think it would limit kind of the experience that a student would
get at an institution .
Yeah , I'm so glad you mentioned that , that , because this is a nuanced distinction of programmatic accreditation outcomes versus process-based . To your point . You know , process-based accreditation is not just faculty , it's you know how many tables do you have to do something on ?
I mean it gets that granular and yeah , I mean it's challenging enough to get academia to move on things . I mean you know that because it's the world you live in . I only partially live in it . But then you start to add the layer of it being process-based .
But in there what you said also was you know there's so many different paths , you know that we can take . And the last topic that you and your co-authors talked about was career advancement . So just kind of frame that up briefly as we bring our conversation to a close .
We've got program is accredited , you're certified , you're out there in the field , you're trying to advance your career . So how did you guys frame that piece up in the article ?
Yeah . So that last really important part is kind of the continued education . So again , another really cool thing about our field is it's changing . It's not a stagnant profession or one that things change very slow . There's always new .
You know types of workouts or equipment or you know modalities and stuff that are coming out and you know to be an effective and successful exercise professional you need to keep up with those potentially trends , right and changes and you do that through continuing education .
So you know you have this kind of base certification but basically you're building upon that base certification with all this additional education that you're doing on your own , whether it's going to conferences . You know reading journal articles or you know whatever it's a way to put . You know more feathers in your cap , basically .
So you have a greater experience when you're creating that exercise prescription for the individual right . You have that knowledge . You have that experience from you know this other area that you got beyond what your education initially was yeah , awesome , and I think we often forget about that .
I think , particularly people who you know have been in the field for a while . You just sort of think , okay , well , it's the end of the three-year period , I better make sure all this is entered in the website . But it is such a great opportunity .
And now , with there being so many virtual opportunities , I mean I remember back 20 years ago when I started in the field , like CECs , where you go to a conference and you fly there .
Now you could virtually get all of your CECs sitting at your computer and it's just there's so many great opportunities to take advantage of where the field is going in the future . And that's really . I liked how you guys framed up almost the life cycle in your article .
It starts with hey , how are we sure that what you're learning at an academic level is appropriate ? And then how do we verify that with an individual certification , and then how do you ensure that you're advancing your knowledge over the course of your career ? So you really took the full professional life cycle .
And , ben , like I've told everyone in this podcast series , you're not going to get all the great information just by listening to this conversation . So we're going to link up the article in the show notes page . Make sure you read the article , engage with the content .
It allows you to dive a little bit deeper and to understand this , because this is a huge part of where our field is going and that's why we included it , you know , in this themed issue . So , before I get you out of here with the last question , where can people go if they want to find out more about you or the work you're doing ?
Yeah , that's a good question . So you know , probably if you go to usrepsorg that's the registry of exercise professionals there's some information about me there . But , more importantly , you get to see , you know US Reps does more than just have a registry of you registry of certified exercise professionals . There's a lot of other great things that they do .
Another place that you can look at is on kheporg . That's our accrediting body . So it has more information about the accreditation process , why it's important , how it's important in the health field and things like that . So that's another really good place to find additional information Beyond that .
I'm not too , much out there , so those are the two probably most important places to take a look at things Awesome .
We were talking about that before we came on the air . I said lucky you . I wish that more of us could be like that .
We'll link up to both of those in the show notes page and everyone should be very aware of the registry from episode three that we did in this series , where we actually talked about the registry and the national exercise referral framework , and I think it's important for everyone to realize that's listening , is this professionalization effort .
Everything is tied together and there's a rhyme and a reason that everything is involved and so , while you could read any one article in the issue or listen to any one podcast in the series to really understand the whole ecosystem of what's happening , it's important to try to consume all the content .
So , ben , you've been very helpful in helping us understand this . I think the audience is really going to like that understanding of programmatic accreditation because I think it is very important but not very often talked about .
Yeah , it's the yeah to kind of sweep it under the rug . It's the accreditation , but it's an important piece .
Absolutely so , before I get you out of here , last question I'm ending the podcast on in this series is , I think , an important piece , absolutely so , before I get you out of here , last question I'm ending the podcast on in this series is , I think , an important one , and it's .
If you could give one piece of advice to our listeners that you feel they should be focusing on to advance and elevate our profession , what would it be ?
Mm-hmm , I have two answers . So it probably depends , I think , who's listening . You know , if it's a practitioner that's listening for me , I think the one kind of take-home is educate .
So educate your colleagues , educate your administration or , you know , your employers about the importance of not necessarily accreditation but the importance of , like the whole process of finding people that come from accredited programs , that hold these certifications , that have this kind of , you know , rigorous background to make sure that when they are creating exercise
programs for somebody or doing whatever they are in their job , they're doing it correctly and they're doing it safely for people . So that's kind of what I would say for the practitioner , for the kind of the general population .
If you get many of those , I would kind of say you know , do a little bit of research to find out if your exercise professional has a certification that's accredited , that it you know it has that third-party accreditation and you know it has certain criteria that that professional has to meet .
I think that's probably one of the most important things that you know that the general public can do when they're looking for an exercise professional .
Yeah , great point . Buyer , beware on that kind of thing . Ben Thompson , this has been great . Thank you so much for joining us on the Wellness Paradox . Yep . Thank you , mike . I appreciate it . Well , I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Ben as much as I did . If you found it insightful and informative , please do share with your friends and colleagues .
Those shares make a big difference , particularly in this professionalization effort we're undergoing . Any information we'd like to share with you from today's episode can be found on the showSM 5 . That's forward slash episode ACSM 5 .
Please be on the lookout for the next episode in this podcast series when it drops next Monday , and don't forget to subscribe through your favorite podcast platform . Until we chat again next week , please be well .