what's up guys jeff from sword of health here and today we'll be going over what you need to study in order to pass your nasm certified personal trainer exam we'll be covering some very important things that will appear on the big test we'll be diving into posture analysis physical assessments overactive and under active muscles and a whole bunch of other things too we'll be referencing a study guide throughout today's video in that guide is free for all of you to download at this link in the video description all i ask for in return for the free guide and for the information presented in today's video is that you like the video and subscribe to the channel if you haven't done so already this is the best way to support this channel and this channel is a free resource for all fitness professionals thank you for that support everyone it's very appreciated now on to the rest of the video so first things first i am not affiliated with nasm in any way i'm certified through them as well as many other organizations but that's the only connection that i have with the company also this is a part two video i released the part 1 video very recently so make sure you check out part 1 in addition to this video to get the full picture if you're starting here with part 2 that should be fine just go make sure to watch part 1 after you finish this one anyways moving along now we're kicking off today's video with the kinetic chain checkpoints you do need to memorize these things since they are likely to appear on the final exam and these kinetic chain checkpoints are the things that you'll be focusing on in the upcoming posture analysis and also the upcoming assessment so if you're analyzing a person's posture or if you're doing a dynamic assessment with a person you'll be looking in to see what that person's feet and ankles are doing you'll be looking at their knees and seeing what their knees are doing you'll be seeing what their lumbo pelvic hip complex is doing this is basically just the hips you'll be looking to see what their shoulders are doing and then you'll also be keeping tabs on what that person's head and neck are doing as well anyway something that's certain to come up at some point on your exam are postural deviations basically you'll be looking at a client's posture they'll have a few things going on and you'll have to identify what some of those things are we have this exaggerated lordotic posture or lumbar lordosis we're all supposed to have a lordotic curve in our lower backs but it's a little bit exaggerated here which can definitely cause some problems this overly lordotic posture the one that looks like you're sticking your butt out for instagram this is referred to as lower cross syndrome again make sure you know this is lower cross syndrome nasm likes that terminology quite a bit so essentially when we're dealing with a client whose lordotic curve is too great which we can kind of see in this picture that lord dota curve's a little too great we're all supposed to have a small curve there but not that much the sentence here is a little bit too redundant but it is true the lumbar extensors and the hip flexors they are too tight and short on the other hand your hip extensors which would be things like your glutes and your hamstrings and your core muscles well those are all lengthened and weakened if my back is too arched like this well you can kind of see basically my abdominal muscles are in a constantly stretched out state and they can't really be too strong from that position so again from an exaggerated lordotic curve here my abs are pretty much going to be weak by default what also happens here is as this lordotic curve increases these muscles kind of just gets stuck shortened which is also not good so they're locked tight and short and then these hamstring and glute muscles on the opposite side of the body they're lengthened a little bit too long and they are tight so they're tight and over lengthened so i would definitely make sure to memorize this stuff right here the hip flexors and lumbar extensors they're too tight and they're too short when you're dealing with an exaggerated lordotic curve and your hip extensors which really are the muscles on the opposite side of the body the glutes and the hamstrings they are also tight but they're tight because they're over lengthened and they're weakened and again if we go back up to here it all makes sense that that would be the case so make sure you understand again which muscles are too tight which ones are also too tight but too tight because they're lengthened and make sure you understand why those muscles are that way so next up we're going to be talking about this kyphotic posture and this one is also super common just like fluorodotic posture both of these two are very likely to appear on your exam by the way i should mention here that an overly kyphotic posture is very often referred to as upper cross syndrome by nasm again this rounded forward kyphotic posture is upper cross syndrome make sure you know that anyway in this kyphotic posture the anterior chest shoulder muscles lats and neck extensors are all too tight and shortened the rhomboids lower and mid traps and neck flexors are all lengthened and weak and of course if we're looking at someone who has too great of a kyphotic curve it pretty much looks like this this hunchback or this dowager's hump thing doesn't really matter what you call it it goes by many names not only is it not the best to look at but unfortunately it does cause some biomechanical problems oftentimes as well and i think the easiest way to remember this is basically if i am too kyphotic kind of like this well basically all of the muscles on the front side of my body which the pecs are the most obvious ones well they are too tight and shortened and you can kind of see that on me right here right now like they're they're all bunched up right here in my pecs and the opposite is true of most of those back muscles like my rhomboids for instance the rhomboids their whole job is to pull my shoulder and my arm back right retraction of the shoulder blade so if i'm constantly here well basically my rhomboids and my lower and mid traps they're just over stretched this way all the time and they can't really be strong from that over stretched position so they are weak and over stretched whereas my pecs they are too tight as well but instead of being over stretched they're actually kind of just stuck in this shortened position definitely make sure you have a good understanding of an overly lordotic posture in an overly kyphotic posture by the way these two things can happen at the same time in fact they usually do happen at the same time so also be aware of that next up we have anterior pelvic tilt and this usually occurs alongside a lordotic posture as well as kyphosis and it kind of is what i just explained to all of you guys before so as you can see this dude's pelvis tilts forward a little bit too much you can kind of see this angle here tilting too forward toward his anterior or his front as opposed to this guy whose pelvis is more or less straight anterior pelvic tilt is very very closely associated with an overly lordotic posture it's also associated with kyphosis again all of these things oftentimes happen at the same time but as you can see this guy's lordotic curve is just it's way too excessive and because of that some of these muscles in his low back are too short and tight his abdominal muscles are long taut and weakened like we said before and like we also said before with the lordotic posture the muscles his hip flexors on the front side of his leg they are too short and tight his hamstrings and his glutes they're long taut and weakened and a lot of this is just due to poor lifestyle choices this guy is probably sitting way too much not moving around nearly enough and because of that certain muscles just aren't getting used enough there's also forward head posture and the overactive muscles here are the cervical spine extensors the upper traps and the levator scapulae and as you can see again this dude's head is just too far forward so i would actually memorize which muscles are overactive here yes that's right i did say memorize and as far as under active muscles go well if we go back to kyphosis again kyphosis and forward head posture typically happen at the same time so the underactive muscles are pretty much gonna be the same and you almost certainly will get a question or two where you have to identify what a person has going on posture wise so be able to pick out if a person has a lordotic or a kyphotic posture because they're probably going to give you a person who only has one or the other you're very unlikely to have to identify someone with swayback or flatback or scoliosis postures they're likely just going to be thrown in to distract you so really make sure you understand lordotic and kyphotic postures just look these ones over generally in the book understand them don't memorize them and also really make sure that you understand anterior pelvic tilt and forward head posture as well because both of those things are important and they're very much related to those two postures that we just talked about now that we've covered a whole bunch of that different background information we're going to be diving into a whole bunch of different assessments you should understand some assessments like the overhead squat in detail whereas some other assessments the left test for example you really only need to understand those at a more surface level and without wasting any time jumping right into the overhead squat typically this is the first movement assessment done the overhead squat assesses dynamic posture core stability and neuromuscular control and it is a good way to spot muscle imbalances such as knee valgus which we're going to talk much more about that one very soon limited ankle mobility etc a little more information on the overhead squat and you don't have to memorize any of this stuff but we're just going to be going over basically how you would set this up you're going to start off with the client standing on a flat and stable surface their feet should be shoulder-width apart and they should be pointing straight ahead the feet and ankles should be in a neutral position and the assessment should be performed with shoes off to better view the client's foot and ankle complex and the client should have their elbows fully extended with their arms completely overhead in terms of depth for the overhead squat your client should attempt to be squatting to parallel where the femur being that big upper leg bone is parallel with the ground that being said a lot of clients won't be able to achieve that depth and in that case you can reduce it if necessary the client will perform roughly five reps while the trainer views from the front and from the side this number here can vary a little bit if necessary and you do want to view from the front and from the side just so you can see what's going on from multiple angles okay so when we're viewing the overhead squat from the anterior or the front we're looking at the feet and the ankles and we're also looking at the knees if your client were to actually perform this movement perfectly their feet should stay straight ahead as they're performing their reps also if your client were performing their reps perfectly their knees should track straight forward over the second and third toes we do also want to view the overhead squat from the side or the lateral viewpoint and from that lateral viewpoint we're going to be viewing the lumbo pelvic hip complex the hips and we're going to be viewing the shoulders from the side as well now we're going to be going over some examples of where a client does an overhead squat but they don't do the movement exactly perfectly aka overactive and under active muscles you don't necessarily have to memorize everything we're about to go over but you should understand pretty much everything i'm explaining so if you have a client doing an overhead squat and their feet are turning out kind of like what you can see right here the overactive muscles in this case would be the gastrocnemius and the soleus and these muscles exist on the back side of your calf and the hamstring muscles would also be overactive in this instance as well the under active muscles would be the tibialis muscles the anterior and posterior and these are basically the muscles on the front side of your shin then the glutes would also be under active in this situation as well you're going to notice that the glutes are going to be under active in a lot of the upcoming movement pattern discrepancies also just as a rule of thumb for all the upcoming examples if muscles are overactive generally speaking that means we want to stretch them out or loosen them and if muscles are under active generally speaking that means we want to strengthen them so now let's talk about a client who's doing the overhead squat assessment and their knees cave in kind of like this in that case the overactive muscles would be the tfl the tensor fasciae latae and the adductors the tfl is a muscle that's right above the it band it kind of sits on the side of the hip there and the adductors those are the muscles that kind of bring the leg back towards the body also a lot of the time the tfl opposes the glute muscles so you'll notice that if the tfl is overactive essentially the glutes they're going to be under active so yeah if the knees are caving in the glutes are going to be under active as well as the anterior and posterior tibialis now if a client's low back arches when they're doing their overhead squat which would look something a little bit like this some of their overactive muscles would likely be their hip flexors their lumbar extensors and their lats when it comes to muscles that would be under active in this case we have glute max we have the hamstrings and we have the abdominals and again you don't necessarily need to memorize all of this stuff something that's useful to know is that if muscles on one side of the body are overactive then in all likelihood muscles on the opposite side of the body those are going to be under active and we can see that here with the hip flexors being overactive and the hamstrings being under active same thing here with the abdominals being under active and the lumbar extensor is being overactive now if a client is doing an overhead squat and they're leaning way too far forward it's a little bit of a funky picture right there really you can only see her upper body but yeah she's leaning too far forward as she's doing the overhead squat again overactive would be the hip flexors the gastroc and soleus the calf muscles overactive would also be the core muscles at least the outermost core muscles the rectus abdominis and the external obliques and then when it comes to the underactive muscles again we have the glute max and we have the hamstrings and then we also do have the lumbar extensors in this case too and the last of these overactive and under active slides for the overhead squat is when the arms fall forward and when it comes to the overactive muscles we're thinking about the lats the pecs and teres major which that is a shoulder muscle and pretty much all of that stuff should make sense when we're thinking back to our upper and lower cross syndrome examples that we discussed earlier in today's video and they kind of should make sense for all of these other patterns as well so make sure you understand all of that because that will help you understand these overactive and under active muscles next up we have the single leg squat assessment and you won't be doing this one with all clients it is somewhat advanced so if you're concerned that your client will be able to balance on one leg um this would not be the assessment for them to some extent how deep you go here does depend on the client it's also kind of hard to tell from this picture but you're only squatting down to about 60 degrees of range of motion at the knee so it's not like it's a 90 degree angle where it would be for the previous overhead squat so again you're not going down quite as far as before with that previous assessment anyways for the single leg squat there is strong inter and intra raider reliability meaning that this test is easy to repeat and get similar results whether it's you repeating the test multiple times or multiple trainers doing the test we only need to worry about an anterior view or a view of the front side of the body for this one up to five reps will be completed for both sides this number can vary a little bit person to person the client squats as deep as possible while maintaining balance and returns to the starting position anyways the single leg squat continued the client stands on a flat stable surface with hands on their hips and their eyes focus forward the client lifts one foot approximately six inches off of the floor the foot the ankle and the knee should be in a neutral straight ahead position the only overactive and under active thing we have to think about here is the knee kind of caving inwards it's a little bit tough to see in this picture but her knee is just kind of caving inwards a little bit towards the other side and if we're thinking about the overactive muscles in this case the adductors again that make sense because the knee is being added too much back towards the midline of the body the tfl is typically going to be a problem in situations like this and if we go down here we can see that the glute max and glute medius those are going to be under active because again they kind of just oppose that tfl so if the tfl is overactive you know that these two are almost always going to be under active and just like in a lot of other cases the anterior and posterior tib are also under active here as well in our part one video on passing your cpt exam we talked about someone who is squatting and leaning too far forward another faulty squat pattern they could ask you about is when a client is squatting but their legs are kind of buckling together like we can see in this picture right here there's a few things going on here but if you see this pop up in any form on the test you know the main reason for this happening is that the adductors are too strong and tight relative to the abductors basically the glutes mainly glute medius is too weak in this situation and this makes sense when you think about it because the adductors in your leg would be the things that are adding your leg back to your body in the abductors would be the things that are the muscles that are moving your leg away from the body so if your adductors are too tight again the muscles adding the leg back to the body relative to your ab doctors your abductors well you're yeah your knee is just going to cave in like that so this all makes sense if you think about it that way this is also commonly referred to as knee valgus or knock knees and asm has a few different names for this you're going to have questions about knees caving in on the test so let's talk about it we've already talked about knees caving in in a few different instances we already talked about that before with the overhead squat with the single leg squat and we just talked about it a little bit more nasm actually has a term for it or a name for it it's called pes planus distortion syndrome and it will almost certainly come up on your test in one form or another so with this distortion syndrome at the ankle you're going to see a collapsed arch at the knee joint you're going to see those knock knees which you can kind of see right here and they're a little bit internally rotated this is usually the most obvious thing and it's usually how this is initially found and then at the hip you're going to see extra adduction again those legs being added to the body a little too much like we just talked about and we're going to see internal rotation as well well i guess we just can't escape these overactive and underactive muscles for better or worse this is a huge part of your test again not everything is necessary to memorize but if you understand how this stuff works well enough you'll be able to pick it up on a multiple choice question and that is really what is essential here like we just kind of said a few times now the adductors are going to be overactive in that situation gastroc and soleus those calf muscles also going to be overactive and the hip flexors are typically going to be overactive in this situation as well well since the gastroc and soleus were overactive we can make a safe bet that the tibialis muscles the muscles on the opposite side they're going to be under active and we kind of see the same thing with the hip flexors they oftentimes oppose hamstrings and glute muscles and that's kind of what we see right here so next up we're going to be talking about the pushing and pulling assessments for both of these two assessments the client should be standing in a narrow split stance the client should be doing about 10 reps with challenge but we're not looking for exhaustion and with both of these two assessments we're viewing things from the side so we're looking at the lumbo pelvic hip complex the shoulders the cervical spine we're kind of like that upper back neck area and the head so looking at this slide i wanted to be clear that these two assessments are very similar and the compensation patterns that we're going to go over for these two assessments are very similar as well and here we are looking at the setup for the pushing assessment here you can see alexis and she's pushing two cables right ahead here she's in a split stance so this is what it would look like doing a pushing assessment and a pulling assessment again is pretty much the same exact thing except this time we're pulling again we're doing roughly 10 reps and we're kind of just seeing how our client moves during those 10 reps again whether they are pushing or pulling and like we said before the weight here is not meant to be that heavy a little bit of challenge should be there but we're not looking for exhaustion so back to our overactive and under active muscles in this case you can see alexis head is just a little bit too far forward beyond her shoulders here so the overactive muscles in this case would be the levator scapula which that muscle's job is to elevate the scapula pushing everything up and usually a little bit forward we also have the scm the sternocleidomastoid which is a neck muscle so again that's overactive we also have these cervical spine extensors all of those things again being over active when someone's head is too far forward during either of these two assessments and then for underactive we have the deep cervical flexors and that should be no surprise because they oppose these cervical spine extensors so if we're doing a pushing or a pulling assessment and someone's shoulders are too high or there scapula is too high the overactive muscles typically are going to be the levator scapulae again elevating the scapula too much and the upper traps and then for underactive we have the lower traps they're usually going to be under active and oftentimes the traps are the upper traps are going to be overactive so always keep that in mind with all these different patterns and our last compensation pattern for both the pushing and pulling assessment is when you have a low back arch which we can kind of see a little bit of the low back arch right here on a lexus and none of these overactive muscles should be too surprising at this point we have the hip flexors which really the tfl the psoas and the rectus femoris are the main ones that we're thinking about there we also have the lumbar extensors and anytime we have too great of a lordotic curve back here we can pretty much bank on these muscles here being under active so in this case the under active muscles are glute max glute medius and the abdominals and again that's going to happen pretty much any time that we have too great of a lordotic curve right here in the lower back let's look at a possible exam question related to this stuff what is overactive if the shoulder is elevated and the head is too far forward during this pull assessment and i'm going to give you some options as to what the overactive muscles are are they a the lower traps in the lats b the levator scapulae and the cervical spine extensors c the rhomboids and the pecs or d the upper traps and rhomboids and i'm just gonna be back here hanging with my pups for a few seconds while you guys are thinking about the best answer to that question if you chose b the levator scapulae and cervical spine extensors you are correct those were the two most overactive muscles if you have a person doing this so the lower traps in this situation would actually be under active people who have their shoulders kind of hiked up towards their ears all the time they tend to be much more dominant with their upper traps rather than the lower or mid traps the lats actually could be a little bit over active but again this part kind of makes it so that that answer can't be right the pecs would be overactive in this whole situation most likely but the rhomboids would definitely be kind of overstretched so that wouldn't be a great answer there and the upper traps very likely would be too overactive on this person but the rhomboids well they wouldn't be able to do their job with this person too well at all because everything is kind of hiked up and a little too far forward so the best answer even though some of these other answers could kind of make sense is this one right here b and the biggest hint here is the levator scapula well what does the levator scapula do it elevates your scapula so people whose shoulders are just all up here all the time well their levator scapula is definitely going to be overactive like we said the upper traps would be as well so yeah a little bit of a tricky question here but similar to what nasm will throw at you if you know basic muscle functions well then that last question probably wasn't too hard for you if you guys want me to make a video about basic muscle functions and locations let me know down below in a video again the only reason i haven't done that already is because there are lots of other good videos covering that material here on youtube but if you guys want me to tackle it as well uh if enough of you ask for it yeah i'll make it so let me know for some of the upcoming assessments you'll need to take a client's pulse there are two spots you should consider while doing this and those two spots are the carotid artery and the radial artery so the radial artery is on the side of the wrist just a few inches beneath the thumb as you can kind of see in this picture right here which means the carotid artery is on the side of your neck and this one you really don't want to necessarily use to take a client's pulse during an exercise session or during an assessment because one it's just obviously more invasive to touch someone right here and also if you push too hard right here you can cause what's called a vasovegal response which can actually lower the client's heart rate anyway to get a client's heart rate or bpm beats per minute you could take their heart rate for 30 seconds and then multiply that number by two or you could just take it for a full 60 seconds so a normal male this is resting by the way heart rate is between 60 and 70 bpm for females it's 72 to 80. and if a client's heart rate is five beats faster than their typical resting heart rate for a period of days they may be over training and that would be a reason to ease up on training in addition to all of that it's good to know about taking a client's heart rate while they're exercising and asm recommends that you measure a heart rate for 10 seconds and then multiply that heart rate number by six to get bpm or beats per minute luckily now we have a whole bunch of assessments that we don't really have to cover in all that much detail and we're going to kick that off with the max push-up assessment where the client lowers to 90 degrees at the elbow um you can do kneeling push-ups if standard are not possible you have a 60-second time frame or to exhaustion basically as many as you can do and your hands are slightly wider than shoulder width so again we don't need to know every little detail but we should probably have an idea of all these things that we just mentioned next up we have the bench press assessment and this is to estimate one rep max for the bench press you're gonna have your client grasp the barbell with their hands slightly greater than shoulder width apart their low back should be in a neutral position and you want to avoid arching here for the squat strength assessment the client should stand with their feet approximately shoulder-width apart the knees should be in line with the toes and you should start things off with a comfortable weight in those warm-up repetitions now for both the squat and bench press assessments after the warm-up the client completes three reps after that they get a two minute rest and for the bench press you're gonna add 10 to 20 pounds or five to ten percent of the initial load for the squat you're going to add 30 to 40 pounds or 10 to 20 of the initial load and then basically you're just going to repeat those first three steps until you can't add any more weight and then you use the charts in the book to estimate one rep max this is not worth memorizing but it is worth understanding or having a general understanding of how both of these things work just in case they appear on the test a quick side note here when in doubt don't do these assessments with people and don't have your clients do the valsalva maneuver and basically the valsalva maneuver is when you breathe out strongly through your mouth while holding your nose tightly closed and this creates a forceful strain that can trigger your heart to react to go back into normal rhythm again you want to avoid this felsalva maneuver with a whole bunch of different clients and this does sometimes pop up on these personal training exams so just kind of keep that in mind anyway the vertical jump test this is useful with athletes who will be jumping duh it's used to assess lower extremity power and jump height again kind of a duh here you have up to three attempts to get your best score and there are two minutes rest between them and that's because you're jumping up really high and that's pretty intense the most important bit to know here is probably this one it assesses lower extremity power and jump height which i think is fairly obvious given the name of the test similarly we have the long jump test and this is designed to test maximal jump distance and lower extremity horizontal power so you're not getting a running start here basically you're standing behind a line on two legs and then you're just kind of jumping forward far as you can go you get up to three attempts to get your best score and there are two minutes rest between those sets you also have the 40 yard dash and this tests reaction capabilities acceleration and maximal sprinting speed you also have the pro shuttle assessment which assesses acceleration deceleration agility and control both of these assessments are considered advanced i would just make sure i know the difference between the two of them since they sound kind of similar and that could certainly come up on a multiple choice test here and you might have to kind of decide between the two of these in a specific question next up we're talking about vo2 max and this is something you're very unlikely to do with a client as just a regular personal trainer because as you can see it requires some pretty advanced equipment here she's got a mask on as she's running on a treadmill but that being said it is the most valid measurement of aerobic fitness and it is also known as maximal oxygen uptake or peak vo2 this is again not something that will be done with typical clients but you should still know what it is because it could come up in a multiple choice question we also have the ymca three minute step test and that is three minutes of stepping on a 12 inch step to a 96 step per minute cadence within five seconds of completing that three minutes of stepping i'll be taking my client's pulse right at their radial pulse and we'll be doing that so that's how you score this and this is a possibly a good test for a deconditioned clients next up we have the rockport walk test and this is where you're going to be walking for a mile and it's used to predict vo2max it's appropriate for new exercisers it's definitely not as good for fit individuals and it wasn't initially designed to be done on a treadmill but you can do it on a treadmill now so that is good to know we also have the 1.5 mile run test it's best for fitter clients it estimates aerobic fitness levels by scoring the individual's time performance or their heart rate response which is used to estimate vo2 max because the person actually will have to run 1.5 miles again this is best for fitter clients definitely not for everyone a few extra things to cover here we have the talk test which is an informal cardio respiratory assessment where a client's ability to hold a conversation is gauged when they're doing cardio exercise we have vt-1 or ventilatory threshold 1 and that is the point at which the body uses equal amounts of carbs and fats for fuel again 50 50 carbs and fats are being used equally for fuel vt-1 occurs when breathing becomes clearly audible so i'm breathing somewhat heavily with fairly visible signs of rib elevation then we have vt2 or ventilatory threshold 2 this is for individuals with performance-centric goals this level is so intense the client can't verbally respond to a question or they have to respond with a single word answer such as no when it comes to sequencing assessments i think this is really just common sense but i think it's good to go over anyways and this could possibly come up on the test so it's it's definitely worth discussing first off we have pre-participation health screening these would be things like the par q or the health history questionnaire and you'd want to do those first next up you have physiological assessments and those would be things like blood pressure and you'd want to do those pretty early on because a lot of these other things really even body composition because people get kind of nervous for that those things can affect something like blood pressure next up you do body composition assessments and that would be something like maybe skin fold or bioelectrical impedance so that would be done pretty early on before you're doing anything physical next up would be the postural movement assessments which the overhead squat that we just went over that would be an example of something that would go here and you don't really want your clients all that warmed up for those sorts of things you kind of want to assess their natural movement patterns and that means you'd kind of want to do this fairly early on so again that goes right here next up you have the cardio assessments and the three minute step tests would be an example of something that would go here there's also the 1.5 mile run the rockport walk test there's a whole bunch of different ones again those would go here and then the performance assessments would go last and those would be the really intense ones something like a 40 yard dash for example that would go here so throughout studying nasm's materials you are going to see rpe or rating of perceived exertion come up pretty often and there are really two main ways to calculate it essentially you can use a one to ten scale which honestly is a lot easier and to their credit nasm oftentimes recommends this one to ten scale so that is pretty self-explanatory 10 is really hard and one is really easy and again this is rate of perceived exertion so it's how your client is feeling when they're exercising this 6 to 20 scale is used pretty often as well it's still somewhat self-explanatory but it's a little needlessly confusing in some ways so 7 here would be very very light and basically as the number increases well it gets harder so again same idea as the 1 to 10 scale but again we just have these different sets of numbers you don't necessarily need to memorize all of this but you should have a general idea of what an 11 is on this scale fairly light what a 17 is very hard you should have a general idea of where those things fall next up we'll be talking about nutrition a bit oddly enough you probably won't get too many questions on nutrition scope of practice is big in nasm's eyes though your personal trainers not dietitians we don't develop meal plans for clients and we don't do medical nutrition therapy that being said we can do things like help our clients to understand food labels what certain nutrients do in the body etc also we can use the dietary guidelines developed by the government and the recommendations from myplate.gov if there is a question about what you can legally do as a personal trainer nutrition-wise the answer most often will have to do with the us dietary guidelines or myplate.gov it won't be uncommon for a question to come up where the best thing for you to do would be to refer the client to a registered dietitian for example if a client has diabetes and they want to lose weight even if it's something that you could help them with the correct thing to do would be to refer them to a dietitian now all that being said one thing you need to memorize is one gram of protein equals four calories one gram of carbohydrate also equals four calories and then one gram of fat equals nine calories like i said memorize all of this information right here if you're given a question about a food label this information right here is essential to figure it out it's also important to know about micronutrients which vitamins minerals and phytonutrients would fall into that category you also have complete proteins which provide all of the essential amino acids animal and dairy proteins fall into this category again animal and dairy proteins they provide all of the essential amino acids incomplete proteins which are typically going to be plant proteins they're missing one or more amino acids so make sure you know that because it definitely could pop up on the exam so when it comes to macronutrient rda's recommended daily allowance so how much you should be consuming in a day for protein 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight for sedentary adults is what's recommended and if you're very active let's say i'm a bodybuilder or someone who's just lifting weights on a regular basis that amount is going to be higher and that information is in your textbook i don't necessarily think that you need to memorize how much protein each group of people should be eating in fact i know you don't have to do that but you probably should know at the very least what sedentary adults should be eating and then you can kind of guesstimate if someone's highly active that they're going to be eating significantly more than this sedentary person and for carbohydrates it's pretty much exactly the same thing three to five grams per kilogram of body weight for lightly active adults if you're highly active the number that you're going to want to eat is going to be a little bit higher than that and again if you know this baseline number for lightly active adults you can kind of guesstimate in a multiple choice question what it will be just in case they ask you for example what a distance runner should be eating that's a little bit more simple 20 to 35 of total calories should come from fat saturated fats should only make up about 10 or less of total calories as well again that's pretty self-explanatory this information right here could also be relevant to figuring out some multiple choice questions on the test there is 3500 calories in a pound of fat therefore a 500 calorie daily deficit would get you to roughly a pound of fat loss every week now when it comes to fats we have a few different kinds we have monounsaturated fats which these are heart healthy and olive oil avocado peanuts those would be examples of monounsaturated fats there's two different kinds of polyunsaturated fats you have omega-3s and you have omega-6s the omega-3s are heart-healthy and you have fish flaxseed and some dairy that would fall into this category flaxseed comes in the form of ala which fish would come more in the form of epa and dha ala is not quite as well absorbed so just keep that in mind we're talking about polyunsaturated fats or omega-6s they are essential for growth and development you have things like vegetable oil nuts and seeds vegetable oil might not be quite as essential for growth and development but these are important still overall you have saturated fats and the health benefits are unclear like we did say before you do want to limit consumption to 10 or less of total calories and animal fat full fat dairy coconut things like that would be examples of saturated fat then you have trans fats and usually these are going to be artificial in eating a bag of potato chips good chance there's going to be some trans fats in there and usually they're bad so again useful to know that for the test as well all the things on here a little bit less likely to appear on the big test compared to a lot of the postural things that we talked about before but still very good to know and definitely could still appear on the big test in general and actually all this stuff here is pretty important to know fat soluble vitamins a d e and k good to remember that water soluble vitamins basically you can't consume an excess of these at least not not easily anyways you'd pee out any excess because again you can't store these ones in fat unlike these ones which you could consume too much of and that could be a real concern if you do consume too much of these but anyways water soluble vitamins you pee out excess and vitamin c and the b vitamins would be water soluble vitamins major minerals would be calcium phosphorus magnesium sodium potassium chloride sulfur so if it's not one of those it's a trace mineral iron zinc and copper are examples of trace minerals don't bother memorizing them i would only try to remember the major minerals you have monosaccharides and these are simple as in they can't be broken down anymore and we're talking about sugars now by the way glucose fructose and galactose are examples of monosaccharides again simple can't be broken down anymore then you have disaccharides which would be two monosaccharides joined together sucrose maltose and galactose would be examples there and then you have polysaccharides which are longer chains of glucose units glycogen fiber starch would be examples there if we're taking a closer look at this page i think these first two lines here are worth memorizing the rest of this stuff you don't necessarily need to memorize but it could still definitely pop up on the test so i would be able to at least know it well enough so that i could answer a multiple choice question on it if necessary and next up we'll talk a little bit about hydration before exercise you should be consuming 16 ounces of water the morning of the event or the evening before the event and then you'd want to consume another 13 to 20 ounces right before the event starts during exercise you'd want 12 to 16 ounces every 10 to 15 minutes and then a sports drink is recommended for over 90 minutes of exercise and a sports drink would be something that includes things like sodium potassium magnesium basically the electrolytes after exercise you'd be drinking 1.25 times the amount of weight lost that is in sweat of course and you'd want to consume more sodium slash electrolytes sodium is usually the one that needs to be replenished the most so again important to know all of this stuff don't know necessarily that you need to memorize all of these numbers some of them are pretty important for example this 1.25 times the amount of weight lost that one i would definitely memorize the rest of this stuff i would kind of just know it well enough again to answer a multiple choice question and now we'll be just jumping into a whole bunch of other random things that are worth knowing i'll be going pretty rapid fire with some of the information so get ready okay so up next we're talking about bmi or body mass index and bmi is an interesting one we have two different formulas to figure bmi out and before we go any further with bmi just understand that bmi is purely about height and weight bmi has nothing to do with body fat so on the test you may have to calculate someone's bmi and there are two different formulas that you could use to figure that out so you have the first one right here which is kilograms height in meters squared and then you have this other one which there's a conversion factor of 703 and again the formulas are are both right here it doesn't really matter which one you use both are going to get you the right answer now should you memorize these equations that's always an interesting question i don't think you have to there is a very good chance that nasm will give you one of these two formulas to use on the exam that being said they're not really all that complicated so me personally i would just memorize them but if you feel like memorizing either of these two formulas is going to take up too many mental resources as you're studying then i wouldn't memorize them the only thing i would memorize in that case is that a bmi over 25 means you're overweight and one over 30 means you're obese now unlike bmi which had nothing to do with body fat bioelectrical impedance or bia has everything to do with body fat if you have a scale that's telling you your body fat percentage or if you have one of those little handheld things both of those two things are using a technology called bioelectrical impedance and basically they determine your body composition based on the rate at which an electrical current travels through the body body fat or adipose tissue causes greater resistance or impedance than fat free mass or muscle mass and bone and things like that and it slows the rate at which the current travels bioelectrical impedance does require specific testing arrangements though for example if i am dehydrated and i do a bia test i am going to show up as fatter than i actually am because water conducts electricity and i will have less water in my body to conduct that electricity however if i'm over hydrated before i do a bia test i'm going to come up as a leaner than i actually am because again water conducts electricity and i now have extra water in my body so the tests here are only somewhat reliable but because they're simple they are used in lots of different fitness settings anyway moving on here the nervous system has two main components the somatic nervous system and the autonomous nervous system the somatic nervous system is mostly under our control it mostly involves skeletal muscles and things like that again skeletal muscles being something like my my biceps something that i have total control over versus smooth muscles which many of them are internal to our bodies and we don't have direct control over them the autonomous nervous system is automatic as the name would imply meaning it is not under our control and if we take that a little bit further the autonomous nervous system is split into two parts the sympathetic nervous system which controls our fight and flight response and the parasympathetic nervous system which has to do with resting and digesting next up we have muscle fibers type 1 muscle fibers are slow twitch meaning they have better endurance but produce less power then we have type 2 muscle fibers and those are fast twitch and they generate more power but they have less endurance that's supposed to say endurance capabilities so type 2 muscle fibers are fast twitch they are better at generating power but they have less endurance capabilities i will fix that when you guys potentially download this guide and use it on your own we talked about all this stuff a fair amount in the first video but i think it's good to touch base on this stuff again static stretching would be where you're holding a stretch for roughly 30 seconds so if i'm doing this stretch and just holding it for 30 seconds that is a static stretch a dynamic stretch would be a movement pattern designed to mimic the workout so if i come back here and i do a few body weight squats that would be dynamic because it's preparing me for the workout that is about to happen lastly you have ballistic stretching which is repeated bouncing swinging anything really aggressive and kind of to stretch a muscle group that'd be ballistic stretching and you want to avoid this one if something questionable comes up in a session like your client sharing too much information about their divorce the correct thing to do would be to redirect the focus of the conversation back to the workout pretty self-explanatory here but the correct thing to do in almost any situation like this would be to redirect so keep that in mind i think this is just generally good to know in general and this could come up in some form or another on your exam but remember breakfast lunch and dinner it's a good trick to remembering how many vertebrae you have in each of these areas so you have seven cervical vertebrae and seven think seven am that's breakfast next we have the thoracic you have 12 thoracic vertebrae again that's lunch so think like 12 pm lunch and then dinner would be the lumbar you have five lumbar vertebrae and again think like 5 p.m and that would be the lumbar you also have five fused sacral vertebrae here and i don't really have a good way to remember that so you'll just have to kind of remember that but those ones again they're fused together unlike these other ones in these other areas here and then of course at the very bottom you also have the coccyx and we're really only going to talk about this a very small amount but when it comes to business structure i definitely think there are two things that you should understand in particular one you have a sole proprietorship which is a business that is owned by an individual and you have no protection for the owner what nasm is likely to prefer over a sole proprietorship is an llc a limited liability corporation and rightfully so because this provides protection to the business owner llcs are relatively simple to set up compared to something like a small corporation next up we have independent contractors and you're an independent contractor if you are a self-employed person or entity contracted to perform work or provide services to another entity as a non-employee as a result independent contractors must pay their own social security in medicare taxes if i'm a personal trainer renting space in a gym and i'm working for myself no one's giving me hours or anything like that uh basically i'm just an independent contractor i am my own boss and i just happen to be renting space on the other end of the spectrum we have employees and you have employees when the business has the right to direct and control the work performed by the worker this includes hours worked uniforms etc the list goes on now we're going to take a quick look at the sliding filament theory which is how a muscle contracts on a microscopic level understand it but don't memorize it in step one a sarcomere which a sarcomere is a functional unit of a muscle by the way a sarcomere shortens as a result of z lines moving together z lines converge and myosin heads attach to actin filaments pulling the actin filament across the myosin which shortens the fiber now we're going to take a look at the structure of the heart and blood flow it's good to review it but don't kill yourself memorizing everything anyways you have two atria on the top and two ventricles on the bottom and you're likely to have a question on the flow of blood through the heart luckily you don't have to know everything in detail so we kick things off with blood being utilized in the entire body after that the blood is pumped to the right atrium then this blood which is still lacking oxygen is pumped to the right ventricle and then moves from the right ventricle to the lungs in the lungs that blood does get oxygenated and the blood goes to your left atrium then it goes to your left ventricle and then from the left ventricle that blood is pumped to the rest of the body this next bit is simple and it's important so memorize it people are supposed to get 150 minutes of moderate cardio five days a week or vigorous intensity cardio at least three days a week for 75 minutes that's definitely worth knowing as i've heard people have had that question on their exam the upcoming proprioceptively challenging scale is likely to appear on the test in some form or another luckily it's mostly common sense basically you start people here and progress them gradually to here so this is harder than this and this is harder than this you should also memorize this one right here things get harder as you progress them plyometric exercises are optional in the opt model phase is as we discussed in the part one video they're fairly important so let's break them down a bit more the three parts of a plyometric exercise are the eccentric phase which is the deceleration or loading phase basically when i'm lowering into position before jumping and in my jump squat muscles are stretching here then you have the amortization phase which is also called the transition phase and this phase represents the delay between the eccentric phase that we just talked about and the concentric phase so the pause at the bottom of the squat jump represents that here then you have the concentric phase which is the shortening phase and this phase is like releasing a rubber band after it's been stretched it's the part where you lift back off the ground the three stages of the general adaptation syndrome are alarm reaction which is your initial reaction to a stressor which anything can be a stressor literally picking up a dumbbell off of the ground that can be a stressor and your second stage is resistance development which is your body increasing its functional capacity to adapt to the stressor and the third stage is exhaustion if the stressor is intolerable and continuous eventually this will lead to breakdown or injury next up we have the said principle and the set principle is actually really easy the body will adapt to the specific demands that are placed on it that's basically all it is so if i do a ton of bicep curls obviously over time gradually i'm going to get really big biceps your body is really good at adapting to things and that's really all the said principle is about the reason they call the said principle is that it stands for specific adaptation to impose demands which me telling you that may help you remember what it is nasm has a number of different resistance training systems they could ask you about there's the single set system which is performing one set of each exercise there's a multiple set system which is performing a multiple number of sets for each exercise there's the pyramid which is increasing or decreasing weight with each set there are super sets where two exercises are completed back to back with minimal rest there's complex training where you have a multi-joint heavy compound move followed by an explosive movement there's the drop set where you're performing a set to failure then removing a small percentage of the load and then continuing on there's the giant set where you're performing four or more exercises in a rotation with minimal rest there's circuit training where you're doing a series of exercises back to back with minimal rest there are split routines where you're training different parts of the body on separate days you have vertical loading which is strength training starting with the upper body and then working your way down to the lower body exercises you also have horizontal loading which is doing all the sets of an exercise or body part before moving to the next exercise or body part the resistance training system that seems to pop up on exams often is the peripheral heart action system and the peripheral heart action system is basically a variation of circuit training where you alternate between upper body and lower body exercises and training this way could lead to better circulation over time we reviewed the opt model a ton in the part 1 video i told you guys that some stuff was worth memorizing and some stuff only needs to be known well enough to answer multiple choice questions if i were to ask you how many core exercise sets should you do in phase 1 stabilization endurance and the choices i gave you were a one to four b two to three c five or d zero to five what would your answer be and i'll give you guys a few seconds to think about it [Music] the answer is a one to four you should know the opt model well enough to answer questions like that there aren't usually too many special populations questions on the big test that said i've seen a few questions come up on kids the things to know here are kids are able to perform endurance tasks pretty well they also have decreased glycolytic enzymes compared to adults and therefore have a decreased ability to do longer duration high intensity tasks they also have decreased resistance to heat and humidity and environmental extremes there aren't usually too many marketing questions on the test the four ps of marketing do show up once in a while though the four ps of marketing are product price place and promotion know them and what they mean nasm will give you a question or two on them one assessment that i didn't mention before is the left test the left test by the way assesses agility acceleration deceleration and neuromuscular control in this test you have clients sprint between two cones side shuffle and do a bunch of other things now i'm going to throw one last opt thing at you guys because for better or worse it's important for your exam to throw just another random example at you guys you should probably know the best tempo to use in each phase in the stabilization phase i should use a 4-2-1 tempo on a stability ball chest press i'm moving the dumbbells down slowly four seconds down on the eccentric holding for two seconds at the bottom which that would be the isometric point and then pushing that weight back up in one second which would be the concentric phase and if you have no idea what i just explained to you with this random example you need to do a lot more studying next up we're going to talk about blood pressure and a few other somewhat related things taking a client's blood pressure would be an example of an objective measurement or assessment there's no opinions involved it's based on data collection therefore it's objective not subjective and normal blood pressure would be under 120 over under 80. and whenever you're looking at blood pressure the first number or the top number is systolic and the bottom number is diastolic elevated blood pressure would be anything from 120 to 129 and you'd still have to be under 80 with the diastolic number next up you have stage one hypertension hypertension meaning high blood pressure and anything from 130 to 139 being the top number or 80 to 89 being the bottom number that would put you at stage 1 hypertension and then stage 2 hypertension is greater or equal to 140 over again the systolic number being the top number over the diastolic number greater or equal to 90 on the bottom that bottom number again being the diastolic number so it's very likely that you'll be given a blood pressure on the test and you'll have to identify what stage that client is in so yeah this is one of those rare instances where i'm actually going to tell you these are numbers that are probably worth memorizing and while we're on the subject it's common to be asked about two different kinds of blood pressure medications and those would be beta blockers and diuretics so beta blockers lower your heart rate at rest and during exercise and this means a client's heart rate won't raise the same way during exercise when they're on a beta blocker so if you're asked a question about a client who's walking uphill on a treadmill but their heart rate just isn't going up well most likely that person is on a beta blocker next up we have diuretics and these increase the excretion of water from the body through the kidneys and this could increase the likelihood of dehydration and of course that's relevant to us because we make people sweat for a living so make sure you guys remember what beta blockers do and what diuretics do next up we'll be talking a little bit more about diabetes and we'll start with type 1 and these people have to inject insulin they are insulin dependent and people usually develop type 1 diabetes very early either young childhood sometimes in teenage years as well there's also type 2 diabetes and these people are insulin resistant and this one usually comes down to poor lifestyle choices and it's far more common than type 1 diabetes so i said it a whole bunch of times in the part 1 video but i'll say it one last time here don't only rely upon these videos to pass your nasm exam review the nasm textbook watch their videos and do all of their practice quizzes and the practice test itself yes there is a practice test that they provide make sure you do it you should be getting 80 or higher on everything i just mentioned before you even consider taking the final exam also it should be said that the pocket prep application is actually pretty decent for the nasm tests i'd give it something like an 8 out of 10 for nasm prep obviously there is a lot of stuff on there that won't be on the exam but it will definitely help you understand key concepts it's also super convenient to have with you on the go and ultimately that's why i'd recommend it as you can see here i spent quite a bit of time with it the nasm exam is 120 multiple choice questions and you need 70 or higher to pass if you're new to all of this training stuff anatomy physiology assessments the list goes on then don't try to cram for this test give yourself at least a month or two to study you'll see those videos out there where they're titled something like pass your nasm exam in a week well you guys know what they say if it sounds too good to be true it probably is most of you won't be able to pass this exam with a week of studying give yourself a month or two where you're studying for an hour or two almost every single day make sure all of you know the content shown in this part 2 video as well as the recently released part 1 video if you guys have any questions on anything make sure to leave those down below in the comments and i will answer them i want to wish all of you luck on that big test not that any of you watching this far into the video will need it go kick that test and i'll see you on the other side anyways that's all we have for today if you haven't already please consider liking the video and subscribing to the channel because both of those things do help the channel to grow which does allow me to create more free content for all of you thanks for watching everyone and until next time stay sword healthy