so you're in the field of maybe kinesiology or you're interested in exercise and fitness and movement and you're trying to think about a different career in the future so you might be wondering maybe i want to become an exercise physiologist or maybe i want to become a physical therapist so in this video we are going to compare and contrast the differences between exercise physiologists and physical therapists in these five categories so the first one is gonna be job duties the second one is gonna be schooling the cost of schooling the work environment and the salary and job outlook now i wanted to talk about these five main things so that you can gain the knowledge and learn the differences between an exercise physiologist and a physical therapist so that you can make an educated decision as to which career field that you want to get into so we're just going to jump right into it lego all right so exercise physiologist now those of you who don't know what an exercise physiologist is they are the ones that are you might have seen like you know in those videos those people are wearing like those masks and they're biking and then they're blowing into some kind of like a mask or a tube right or maybe they're on a treadmill doing a stress test with a bunch of like ekg lines and monitors on them so exercise physiologists are the ones that administer that type of stuff now of course that's just a little bit of their job duties but i'm just trying to give you a visual as to like what type of person and job we're looking at here now exercise physiologists what they are specialized in is how the body responds to exercise okay physiologically how does our body change when we exercise for example when you run your heart rate goes higher and your breathing increases right that is a physiological response to exercise so exercise physiologists are specialized in that field so that they can make appropriate decisions when helping other people so in general exercise physiologists develop fitness and exercise programs that help patients recover from chronic diseases whether that's cardiovascular diseases or pulmonary or lung diseases and they help with body composition and improve different parts of the body whether that's flexibility or strength now a physical therapist on the other hand can evaluate and diagnose patients with movement disorders or different musculoskeletal now a physical therapist on the other hand can evaluate and diagnose patients with different types of diseases or disorders whether that's movement disorders movement dysfunctions musculoskeletal or neurological dysfunctions and things like that now a physical therapist in the way that they help people is that they treat others with therapeutic exercise neuromuscular re-education manual therapy different scientific agents like ultrasound mechanical traction and ultimately will help a patient return them back to their prior level of function they can also help assist patients and evaluate them if they need different assistive devices like power wheelchairs electric scooters help them with gait training whether they need a axillary crutches right or walkers and things like that as well now physical therapists will not use different diagnostic tests for their treatment whether that's using a metabolic calculator right through maybe a vo2 max test physical therapists don't use elite 12 leak ekgs or anything else like that as well now exercise physiologists can definitely do all those things and they will create a workout program or an ex or an exercise program to help patients recover back to their prior level of function now physical therapists can also create exercise programs but it will be more like a patient will come in and physical therapists will treat them with exercise and be with them on a daily basis to help them to recover as well but this is where exercise physiologists and physical therapists kind of merge a little bit because they both do that same thing where the patient will come in and they'll work with them whether that's through cardiac rehab or exercises so that they can return back to their prior level of function so for an example a doctor might order a stress test for a patient and then ask the exercise physiologist to create a workout program so for them to follow so that they can get back into rehabbing their heart so that's something an exercise physiologist can do so let's talk about schooling now as you know for a physical therapist you need to have a doctorate of physical therapy so that means you have to go through your bachelor's and then your three years of doctorate as well for a total of at least seven years but it might take somewhere between seven to nine years to complete your whole entire schooling career now for an exercise physiologist typically you will only need a bachelor's degree now bachelor's of course it takes it differs for everybody but on average it takes about four years right now in your bachelor's degree you want to be in a major that is related to exercise physiology so this can be kinesiology exercise science you can major in exercise physiology maybe cardiac rehab sports nutrition and all of those different related fields now in order to be a exercise physiologist you need additional certifications now this is not regulated in many places in the united states except several different states but exercise physiologists do not need a license meaning once if you want to apply to become an exercise physiologist all you have to do is apply and if your employer requires you to have some certifications then you can get that but you don't need to sit in for a nationwide licensing exam to become a exercise physiologist now let me talk about a little bit of the extra certifications that might make you a little bit more marketable as an exercise physiologist now of course for the most part most employers will require exercise physiologists to have a basic life support and an advanced life support certification but in addition there are some additional certifications that come from different providers and companies and two there are two main companies that hold certifications in exercise physiology the first one will be american society of exercise physiologists asep and also american college of sports medicine acsf now these two companies will hold certifications for exercise physiologists now american society of exercise physiology will require you just to go through the program and pass the exam and then you get certified in it now you also have to have a bachelor's for this now acsm american college of sports medicine has three different certifications and three different levels that you can go through to have a exercise physiologist certification so the first level is what they call an epc which is a certified exercise physiologist and all you need is a bachelor's for this and just pass the exam then the second level would be a certified clinical exercise physiologist which is a cep and this one you're required to have a bachelor's and four to six hundred hours of supervised clinical experiences okay and then the last level is what they call a registered clinical exercise physiologist which is rcep and you need to have a master's degree in exercise physiology and also 4 to 600 hours of supervised clinical experiences in order to receive the certification now of course with each level you will be more marketable to different employers and of course you can have a higher pay and you can justify that and negotiate that when you're applying as well okay so the cost for schooling now exercise physiologists will only require a bachelor's degree so whatever program you get into it will vary whether it's a public or a private institution right so if you're an in state public school education on average it'll be about 38 000 dollars if you're out of state it'll be an average of 84 000 and if you're a private institution it'll be an average of a hundred and forty thousand dollars for your undergraduate degree but once you get that then you can become an exercise physiologist and of course if your employer requires those extra certifications like i mentioned before then you have to also work for those different certifications and pay for those as well now a physical therapist will require a bachelor's degree which will cost like i mentioned earlier and also a doctorate degree which will cost an average of about a hundred and ten thousand dollars whether it's a private or a public school education of course stay different it's cheaper for a public school but on average it will be a hundred and ten thousand dollars for tuition alone all right so work environments exercise physiologists can work in several different places typically they will work in conjunction with another healthcare professional that went through a higher education whether that's a physician physician assistant different rehab facilities like with physical therapists rehab a occupational therapist rehab or speech therapist rehab so they can work in those places they might work in hospitals or in physician offices in an outpatient place not in the hospital and sometimes they are also i've seen them that they are also working in government places and also like the military as well because the military wants to see hey where is this person at with their exercise what is what are the markers and measurable things that we can check to see how much uh how fit they might be right so exercise physiologists can work in those environments physical therapists can work in a variety of different environments they can typically be broken down into two different categories one is an inpatient and the other is an outpatient now inpatient is going to be somewhere like the hospital skilled nursing facilities or convalescent homes and then outpatients are going to be outside where the patients are more stable that are not in those places and they will have different specialties in those areas whether that be orthopedics pediatrics neurology and all of that kind of stuff physical therapists can also work in home health right they can work as travel physical therapists and travel to different states they could specialize and really hone in on like aquatics therapy hippo therapy where they're working with horses and so much more so there's a lot of opportunity to work in different environments as a physical therapist when compared to a exercise physiologist where you're kind of limited in the places you can work alright so let's talk about money and salary and the job outlook now i got this information from the bureau of labor statistics and from the time that i filmed this video it's from between 2019 to 2029 now exercise physiologists on an average will make a median salary of 49 000 and a job outlook of 11 growth in the next 10 years now physical therapists on the other hand will make an average median salary of 89 000 and a growth of 18 in the next 10 years all right you guys so i hope you guys learned a lot of information between the two different jobs and everything that i covered you can utilize to help make some good decisions in choosing the two different careers now personally when i was an undergrad i actually wanted to choose between these two careers and that was on the top of my list it's like do i want to be an exercise physiologist because i was super passionate with exercise and how the physiological changes happen when we exercise or do i want to become a physical therapist where i can treat people with exercise right so i made the decision to go down the path of physical therapy but if i were to go back and if i didn't want to go through the schooling hey maybe exercise physiology would be a great profession you can always work as an exercise physiologist and then work on the side and do other different jobs like work as a personal trainer group fitness instructor sports coach and things like that and by having that exercise physiology background you can really utilize uh your expertise to help your clients or your athletes increase in their performance as well so if i didn't want to go through all of that schooling for physical therapy i for sure would have done exercise physiology and especially considering the salary and the job outlook of growth of 11 in the next 10 years hey that's a pretty good profession you should get into so i hope this video helped inspire you to make an educated decision when choosing between an exercise physiologist and a physical therapist are you guys so thank you so much for watching this video if you gain value from this video please share this video with the friends so they can gain just as much value and give this video a like if you liked it and comment below if you have any more questions thank you so much for watching this video all the way to the end you guys i thank you and love you so much stay lifting stay aloha god bless you have a great one you guys