Sometimes the anticipation for something can be way worse than the actual thing itself, right?
Overall the experience was really, really good. They honestly set everything up where if you are paying attention during the workshop and you did your study guide, you should be good to go. Nothing really comes as a surprise to you during the day. I can only speak on my particular class and the facilitator that I had, but that was my experience.
My prepping for the workshop was totally crazy because I received my textbook so late. I only got it 20 days before the day of the workshop and in the midst of that I was getting ready for surgery and took a 4 day vacation to Miami. So I literally had about 10 days total to study for the exam. Don't do that! Haha. There is a great 30 day study schedule in the study guide to keep you on track and give you the best chance. The week leading up to the workshop was filled with no sleep....late, late nights, early mornings, and cramming everything that I could. That's no the way I prefer to study. Because, sadly, I felt like I didn't get to enjoy learning a lot of the stuff that I'm super passionate about. It was just a manic cram session and I regretted doing that to myself. So if I can offer one piece of advice, it would definitely be to study the textbook with the study guide for at least 30 days before the day of certification. If you have a good understanding already about muscles and joints and the like you'll have a little bit of an edge. I had an understanding of some of the larger muscle groups, but didn't know some of the smaller ones that were required, so I spent a lot of time studying my Muscle Man!
The day of certification was an early, early morning. The workshop didn't actually start until 9:00, but I wanted to get one last cram session in so I was at a Starbucks near the workshop location at 6AM for some final studying! I met up with my study partner and friend who was taking the workshop with me. It was great to have someone there that day that I knew. I knew it would be a long, full day so I packed a bunch of snacks to have by my side as well as lots of water!
We got the Scantron for the written exam
at the beginning of the day.
Me and Jason getting ready for a fun-filled day!
Our facilitator was so awesome! Great energy and really knew her stuff. One thing I had read in some reviews of workshops was that the facilitator went through the entire study guide with you to make sure that you knew everything that was on the written test. Well, ours didn't do that. She said specifically that her job was not to go through the study guide, line by line, but to review what we should have already been studying and to make sure that we had lots of time to move around and cover the items that would be required in the practical portion of the exam.
We used the first part of the day to cover what would be essential to the exams, both practical and written. She covered a lot of the muscle groups and we started talking about different exercises that we could do for those muscle groups - basically prepping us for what we'd be doing later in the practical part of the exam. I found this very helpful because we basically started getting prepared for later from the very beginning of the day.
I had about 40 people in my class because it was an Apex weekend and the classes tend to be a little more crowded during Apex (Side note - if you can find a workshop during the Apex weekend, do it! It saves you a bunch of money!) This was kind of nice because when we did things as a group you didn't feel like you were the center of attention because you were in a group of other people. We all know how it is...even if you feel really confident in something, if you aren't certain about what's going to happen then it's nice to blend in with the crowd, right?! Lol. So right before lunch we all stood up and we basically went through the ENTIRE group practical part of the afternoon exam. This was so helpful because it allowed you to decide what you were going to do during this portion of the practical exam. (I'll get into exactly what the group practical and the individual practical exams looked like later in this post). We also did a practice run of our cardio routine for the practical. Again, this was something that was going to be done in a group, so it took a bit of the pressure off. You basically had to demonstrate a warm up, the main cardio section, and a cool down. Even if you've never taught a group fitness class, if you've done one you should be able to come up with something for this fairly easy. I decided to go with a Turbokick-style workout for mine. So I basically practiced what I would do for my warmup section, my main cardio section, and the cool down.
Lunch break was an hour. I brought my lunch because I knew that I wanted to use that time to study a little bit more for the written and also to finally solidify what I was going to do for my individual presentation of the practical. I really needed that downtime for lunch just to recollect myself and get it together. Haha. Once lunch was over I really felt ready to tackle it!
After lunch we got right back into the material. We went over a few more items in the study guide that are a little more difficult to understand so that we could have any questions answered that we might need to have answered and then we practiced again what we were going to do for our practical section of the test.
This was it! It was time! The practical section was going to come first and then the written test. They lined us up in lines going across the room that we were in and everyone got a number. The numbers determined which order you would go in for the individual demonstration. I wanted to be near the front just to get it over with.... Out of 42 people, I was number 36. Really?! Lol. I was in the last row. But at least I was next to my friend who was there with me.
Here's how the group section of the practical worked:
1.Choreography & Routine/Group Practical
Music would play for a total of 6 minutes. You had 2 minutes of warmup, 3 minutes of the actual meat of your routine, and then 1 minute for cool-down. The facilitator would shout out when you were changing sections. Once you come up with what you're going to do, it was easy. The warmup was just warming up the muscles that you'd be using during the routine and then the cool down is basically just doing everything from your warm up backwards.
I did Turbokick, so mine was something like this:
Marching in place for about 15 seconds, then start with some low front kicks. Move onto some light, low punching (front, side to side, hook, and uppercut), and then last some back kicks. The idea behind the warmup is that everything needs to be low impact and un-intense. If they see you going all out on intensity then you would be marked down. So once the facilitator shouted out that we were moving into the routine of the workout, I just upped the intensity of everything without really changing the moves too much. Instead of just marching in place, I increased those to knee raises and then to high knees. Then the punches became more intense. The kicks were full kicks. Then she announced that we were moving into the cool down section. Here I was still and punching, but at a lower level. Everything is sped up, so clearly you're cooling down at a much quicker rate than you would in an actual class. The idea is just so demonstrate that you know what an appropriate warmup, workout, and cool down should look like.
And that was it. Next came the group practical of the muscle groups
2. Muscle group demonstration/Group Practical
To explain: in the group section of the practical exam you have to demonstrate 2 exercises and a stretch for each muscle group as they are called out by the facilitator. You're graded individually by the AFAA evaluators walking around, but you're doing it as a group. In our workshop how it worked was that you do 10 reps of one exercise and then move onto your next exercise and do 10 reps of that one. You just do this over and over again until you are told to demonstrate your stretch, then you hold whatever stretch you chose.
This is what I did:
Pectorals: Chest Press/Pushup, Open Up Chse
Traps/Rhomboids/Lats (back muscle group): Bent over row/Back Fly, Round Back
Delts (shoulders): Shoulder Press/Lat Raises (shrugs), Arms Across Chest
Bicep/Tricep: Bicep Curl/Tricep Extension, Arm Overhead and Bent back behind for tricep stretch
Hip Abductors/Adductors: Lateral Leg Raise/Side Lying Inner Leg Lift, Lunge to Side
Glues: Plié Squat/Lunge, Lay on back and hug knees to chest
Quads and/or Shin (tibialis anterior): Squats/Toe Lifts, Standing Quad Stretch
Hamstrings/Calves: Lunges, Calf Raises, Sit Back Hamstring Stretch
Rectus Abdominus: Basic Crunch, Lay on Tummy and up on Elbows
Erector Spinae: Alternate Arm Leg Raises in Supine position, child's pose
A lot of the exercises everyone is doing, and that's totally ok. Although you can look around a get ideas from other people if your mind goes blank, you really don't have time to. The fact that you basically do this entire section while you're reviewing everything really helps.
3. Individual Presentation
This is, undoubtedly, the most intimidating part of the day. Lol. But, it's also very important to be comfortable with being up front on your own with lots of people staring at you as you will be doing this as a group fitness instructor.
How this worked was that we went through everyone's numbers one by one. Whoever the presenter was had to show 3 levels of the exercise: basic, intermediate, and advanced. Once the facilitator felt that she'd seen what she needed she said thank you and you were done. There were A LOT of squats, pushups, and crunches in this section. A lot!
I decided to be a little bit different and demonstrate the Russian Twist. I was actually the only one that did the Russian Twist. I thought about pushups, but with my shoulder being unpredictable and the fact that I was heading into surgery 4 days after this, I didn't want to flare it up. But I was happy that I picked something that nobody else picked.
Russian Twist:
Basic: Sit with legs straight out and twist side to side with hands in front as if you're holding a ball
Intermediate: Sit with legs bent and heels on the floor and twist side to side with hands in front as if you're holding a ball
Advanced: Lift heels up off the ground from intermediate position and balance on butt and twist side to side with hands in front as if you're holding a ball.
Once this part was over it was like a huge sigh of relief. Lol. All that was left was the written.
Jason doing his individual presentation during
the practical part of the exam.
As far as the written is concerned, as long as you studied the study guide you will feel confident as you go through the test. A few of the questions are tricky with the wording, but I felt confident in my answers. The only questions that I did kind of struggle with were the questions concerning other formats that I don't intend to teach: aqua, mat classes, and spinning. I suggest paying attention to those questions as you're doing the study guide. I kind of glossed over them thinking that I didn't need to retain that since those aren't formats I have any intention on teaching, but I should have paid more attention. I might miss those ones. However, on the written, you can miss 20 questions, which is pretty good, so I feel pretty confident in my performance on the written exam.
It's currently been a little over 4 weeks since my workshop. The standard time to receive results is 4-6 weeks. However, we were told that since it was an Apex weekend and the Apex events are happening all over the country, to allow more like 6-8 weeks for the results. So I am currently waiting for my results. I check the mailbox everyday like a crazy person hoping to see something from AFAA in there.
I hope this review was comprehensive and helpful. This was a great experience. The workshop is well organized, the AFAA reps are really good, and it lays a great foundation to be a group fitness instructor. I can't wait until I done with this recovery and I can start teaching!!
If you have any questions for me about my experience please feel free to leave a comment below!
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