Hey ladies and gentlemen, coach Tyler here and welcome to the ultimate study portal for the NSCA CPT exam. In this portal, you will find the full 25 chapter NSCA Study guide, an NSCA Practice test (+ answer key) and NSCA flashcards so that you can learn Borten definitions. Or we get started, bookmark/star this page so that don’t lose it!
Also, definitely check out the team over at Trainer Academy if you want an exam pass guarantee for taking the NSCA. Hands down, they have the best study materials for the NSCA and will cut your overall study time in half. If you want to learn more about them, check out my review here.
The menu at the top of this page will answer any question related to personal training that you have. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to leave me a comment here (I’ll respond within 24 hours). Also, visit the home page for the most recent and popular articles.
My Bitmoji counterpart will be walking you through the NSCA study guide to make sure that you are on track for passing the NSCA exam. Say hello to Tyler-Moji.
NSCA Study material contents: choose your favorite study method below.
- NSCA Study guide for the second edition textbook (25 chapters)
- NSCA practice test for 2019
- NSCA practice test answer key
- NSCA Flashcard bundle
- Additional study tips for passing the NSCA CPT
Before we get started, you will need the official textbook from the NSCA to study for their exam.
The current textbook is called NSCA’s Essentials of Personal Training 2nd ed. Edition. It consists of 25 chapters and is written by Jared W. Coburn and Moh H. Malek.
Refer to the image on this page so that you pick up the correct textbook. I recommend either picking the book up from the NSCA website or from Amazon.
FREE NSCA Study guide: 2nd edition textbook 2019
- Chapter 1: Structure and function of the muscular, nervous, and skeletal systems
- Chapter 2: Cardiorespiratory system and gas exchange
- Chapter 3: Bioenergetics
- Chapter 4: Biomechanics
- Chapter 5: Resistance training adaptations
- Chapter 6: Physiological responses and adaptations to aerobic endurance training
- Chapter 7: Nutrition in the personal training setting
- Chapter 8: Exercise psychology for the personal trainer
- Chapter 9: Client consultation and health appraisal
- Chapter 10: Fitness assessment selection and administration
- Chapter 11: Fitness testing protocols and norms
- Chapter 12: Flexibility, body weight, and stability ball exercises
- Chapter 13: Resistance training exercise techniques
- Chapter 14: Cardiovascular training methods
- Chapter 15: Resistance training program design
- Chapter 16: Aerobic endurance training program design
- Chapter 17: Plyometric and speed training
- Chapter 18: Clients who are preadolescent, older, or pregnant
- Chapter 19: Clients with nutritional and metabolic concerns
- Chapter 20: Clients with cardiovascular and respiratory conditions
- Chapter 21: Clients with orthopedic, injury, and rehabilitation concerns
- Chapter 22: Clients with spinal cord injury, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, and cerebral palsy
- Chapter 23: Resistance training for clients who are athletes
- Chapter 24: Facility and equipment layout and maintenance
- Chapter 25: Legal aspects of personal training
FREE NSCA practice test: 2nd edition textbook 2019
This NSCA practice exam is formatted the exact same way that the real exam will be. NSCA Breaks up there study material into four separate domains. Here are the relative percentages of exam questions for the 4 main categories of study.
- Client Consultation/Assessment: 25%
- Program Planning: 31%
- Techniques of Exercise: 31%
- Safety, Emergency Procedures and Legal Issues: 13%
NSCA Practice tests answer key below ⬇️ (Don’t Peek Until After!) 🙄
NSCA Flashcards for 2nd edition textbook
NSCA Study Tips
The NSCA Study guide that is found on this page was never meant to replace the full 2nd edition of the textbook. It was simply meant to be a supplemental study tool while you are going through the full textbook as I recommend you do.
Here are some additional study tools/tips that I highly recommend you use alongside the free materials on this page.
A premium NSCA study guide
Although the NSCA free study guide located on this page is a great place to start, it is far and away the best study guide out there.
And trust me, I have basically gone through every single study guide available.
Overall, my study guide contains a bunch of information but it doesn’t really guide you in the most surefire way for what to study in order to pass the exam.
If you want a study guide that tells you exactly what you need to study in order to pass the exam, I highly recommend checking out the Trainer Academy study guide here. This study guide really avoids all the fluff from the massive textbook and pinpoints the most important topics to learn to pass the exam in the shortest amount of time. This can also be used as a form of cram guide if you have a deadline coming up.
Much more NSCA practice exams
The NSCA practice exam that I have on this page is only 50 questions long. The full NSCA CPT test consists of 155 questions from all four domains of study.
In order to have a good sense of whether or not you will pass the real NSCA test, I recommend taking at least 3 to 4 full practice exams.
The students of mine that have come back from the exam and told me that they failed it with the ones that never even attempted a full practice test. If they had, they would have realized that they were definitely not prepared for the real thing.
The best NSCA CPT practice exams Were created by the team over at Trainor Academy. Just like there study guide, these practice tests are spot on to what you will see on the real exam once you take it.
If you can pass all four of their practice exams, the real test will be a walk in the park.
Spaced repetition NSCA flashcards
The NSCA Flashcards that are located on this page are definitely a good place to start when it comes to learning definitions from the NSCA textbook.
But overall, my flashcards only consist of 100 in the deck. There are much more than 500 flashcards and definitions that you will need to know.
On top of that, my flashcards are the old-style flashcards. I highly recommend trying out intelligent spaced repetition flashcards. They will significantly reduce your study time and will help you keep all of these definitions in your long-term memory for much longer.
Spaced repetition flashcards work like this: every time that you are shown a flashcard and answer it, you get to rate how easy or difficult it was for you to recall the answer. Over time, your easy cards show up less and less while you are more difficult to remember cards keep on showing up until you master them.
This way, you skip the information you already know and focus only on your weak areas. This significantly reduces your study time as well as will concrete this information in your head with forced repetition.
Once again, Trainer Academy have a fantastic deck of 700 spaced repetition flashcards for the NSCA exam.
NSCA Mnemonics for better memorization
I highly suggest you create your own mnemonics while studying for the NSCA CPT test. These will help turn difficult to learn topics into more fun and digestible stories for you to digest.
I suggest using funny characters such as talking animals, superheroes, dinosaurs etc. in order to make your story and your Mnemonic much more memorable.
Basically, the weirder you can make your story, the more likely you will remember it during the test and beyond.
There you have it ladies and gentlemen, my study portal for the NSCA CPT has come to an end. I suggest going over all of the chapters as many times as you can until you really have all of the information locked down before taking the exam. Good luck with all the studying!
