Preparing for the ACSM Health/Fitness Instructor Certification Examination [Paperback]

Edit 4/19/05 - My review below was for the FIRST edition of this book, published in 1997. I just discovered today that there's a second edition, published in 2004. I see that Amazon put this review with the new (second) edition. I don't know whether the errors mentioned below were corrected in the second edition. Thus, please only take this review to apply to the first edition. ~Groovy Vegan

This book is study guide for ACSM's Health/Fitness Instructor (HFI) certification exam, considered the "gold standard" certification for personal trainers. I'm quite familiar with this book, because I used it as a study aid in my HFI exam study group. The bulk of this guide is practice multiple choice questions, organized in categories found on the exam: functional anatomy, exercise physiology, emergency procedures/safety, etc. The authors developed these questions from the same references ACSM used to construct the exam. For each multiple choice question, Isaacs and Pohlman provide the "correct answer" and the reference + page number from which they developed the question.

Unfortunately, this book is a poor execution of a good idea. Although it has some positive qualities, such as an explanation of how the ACSM exam works, the reasons not to buy outweigh the reasons to buy.

Reasons not to buy in order of importance:

(1) The book is full of errors. Two dedicated HFI students checked EVERY reference of every question. Many of the questions in this book give the wrong answer and in other cases, all the answers are correct or the authors' choice is highly debatable. About 20 to 25% of my book is marked up with corrections. The error rate is too high to be acceptable.

(2) Some of the material is out of date. In 1998 when this book was published, ACSM's primary exam reference was "ACSM's Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription, 5th edition," 1995. ACSM now uses the 6th edition, year 2000, and has revised the exam accordingly.

(3) This is an independent book, not produced by ACSM, as the authors state on the copyright page. That is not necessarily a bad thing, given that Human Kinetics generally produces quality material. But all things being equal, I would prefer a study guide prepared by the certification agency that constructed the exam.

Please note that the book is a study guide for the written portion of the exam only. They give an overview of the practical portion and tell where to find the study information, such as the correct bike test protocols. But this book does not provide the detailed information necessary to pass the bike test nor the other practical stations.

Due to the 3 reasons above, I recommend that you don't buy this book. The HFI exam is too important and expensive to take your chances studying from so much incorrect information.

Just don't expect the same questions on the test. I found that some areas that were emphasized in this book (and ACSM's own book) were not as emphasized in the test and some other areas would have been more helpful. But I loved being able to self test with TONS of questions.