PFIT & The NBFE

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The National Board of Fitness Examiners (NBFE) is a not-for-profit organization founded in 2003 to fulfill two distinct needs, as well as address a series of ancillary requirements.

First, the NBFE will address and define a series of prescribed "scopes of practice" for fitness professionals, similar to the model common in other allied health professions.
The second need that the NBFE will address is determining the "standards of practice" for each of these roles and assessing fitness professionals based on those standards. The standards will be articulated as formal statements of skills and knowledge that are directly associated with specific roles in the fitness industry. Examinations will be generated by the Board and administered in partnership with a leading international testing organization.

These individual competency exams conducted by a national board are based upon the model used by the medical field since 1915, when the National Board of Medical Examiners was formed. Today, National Board exams are the benchmark for individual competency evaluation and are used by virtually all of the medical and allied health professions. Additionally, the NBFE hopes to work with all fifty states and assist with licensing of fitness professionals and in establishing the state-licensing model nationwide.

Lobbying for health insurance reimbursement, primarily because healthier policy holders result in reduced costs, is a critical part of the NBFE plan. Furthermore, it is acknowledged that personal trainer liability insurance providers are at less risk with qualified fitness professionals than with non-qualified individuals.

The NBFE plans to tirelessly lobby doctors and chiropractors, as well as the provider organizations that oversee them, to begin writing prescriptions for exercise. This will no doubt dramatically improve public health and also spur tremendous growth for the health clubs and individual fitness professionals.

The NBFE anticipates that the first national board examinations will take place in the first quarter of 2005. As part of the rollout, the NBFE will work closely with certification organizations - whether as part of the advisory committees or as discrete entities - so that the certified personal trainers currently working in the industry will be prepared for the National Board examination in a realistic time frame. Only training offered by affiliate-approved certification organizations will allow one to sit for the National Board exam.

Professional Fitness Instructor Training (PFIT), has been accepted as an affiliate provider for the NBFE. Graduates of the PFIT training program are eligible to sit for the NBFE Personal Fitness Training Examination coming in the Spring of 2006.

For more information on the National Board of Fitness Examiners, visit their web site at www.nbfe.org, You may also download our announcement regarding the NBFE and PFIT here.

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