Update (Sept. 15, 2022)-- The content on this page has been updated to reflect the new edition of the ACSM Certified Personal Trainer Prep Course.

Earn 20.0 CECs with the ACSM Personal Trainer Certification Preparation Course

About the course:

The ACSM Certified Personal Trainer (ACSM-CPT) preparation course was developed from the ground up, focused on a cutting-edge online learning experience. This engaging 20-hour course is designed to support most learning styles that prepares you for a career in personal training beyond the ACSM-CPT certification exam. The ACSM-CPT course includes 19 modules, 453 lessons and more than 200 interactive knowledge checks.  

This ACSM-CPT exam prep course includes audio and PowerPoints, a corresponding online quiz, and a course evaluation. Course costs do not include the cost of the exam or study materials. Additional study will be required for achieving ACSM certification.

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There is no doubt that 2020 was an interesting, challenging and trying year in the face of the pandemic caused by the COVID-19 virus. Despite these challenges, Current Sports Medicine Reports (CSMR) had an excellent year publishing timely, peer-reviewed, clinically relevant information that is useful for busy sports medicine and primary care providers.

Not surprisingly, the article most accessed through the journal’s website and OVID in 2020 was COVID related. “ACSM Call to Action Statement: COVID 19 Considerations for Sports and Physical Activity” written by Keri Denay, MD, FACSM; Rebecca G. Breslow, MD; Meredith N. Turner, MD; David C. Nieman, DrPH, FACSM; William O. Roberts, MD, MS, FACSM; and Thomas M. Best, MD, PhD, FACSM. This article is excellent, and it also highlights ACSM’s global initiative Exercise is Medicine^®. This article is a great summary of the benefits of moderate to vigorous exercise and it highlights the importance of maintaining an active, healthy lifestyle especially during the pandemic. Challenging times require creative thinking and innovative solutions to keep ourselves active and healthy.

The most frequently viewed article in 2020 was “Making a Strong Case for Prioritizing Muscular Fitness in Youth Physical Activity Guidelines,” written by Avery D. Faigenbaum, EdD, FACSM; James P. MacDonald, MD, FACSM; Andrea Stracciolini, MD, FAAP, FACSM; and Tamara Rial Rebullido, PhD. Everyone agrees that getting and keeping kids physically active is important for multiple reasons, but what should that activity include? There has been a lot of focus on aerobic and skill activities as we encourage children to get 60 minutes of moderate vigorous physical activity daily. Dr. Faigenbaum and his co-authors lay out the case for and the importance of muscular fitness in youth physical activity guidelines. In this excellent article, the authors suggest a framework of equal parts aerobic activities, strength activities and skill activities. 

In 2021 CSMR will celebrate its 20th anniversary of publication and we look forward to highlighting the successes over the last 20 years. Beyond our anniversary, 2021 looks to be another great year as CSMR strives to continue to publish articles that make a difference in clinical practice. Planned content for 2021 looks to include the following topics:

• Proposed MSK curriculum in residencies
• Exercise Collapse Associated with Sickle Cell Trait (ECAST)
• Exertional rhabdomyolysis
• Disparities and inequities in youth sports

We are ending 2021 with an edition totally dedicated to mental health issues. Mental health topics have always been popular with the journal’s readership, so the editors decided to pull together this first edition of CSMR totally dedicated to this important topic. It will be great, and we are excited.

We hope you enjoy our content as much as our team enjoys putting it together. If there are topics or authors you would like to see published in CSMR please contact us via email.

Shawn F. Kane, M.D., FACSM, graduated from Gettysburg College with a BS in Biology and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. He attended medical school at the F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) and graduated in 1995. He completed his internship and residency in Family Medicine at Womack Army Medical Center at Fort Bragg, NC, and his Sports Medicine Fellowship at Fort Belvoir, VA. He retired from the U.S. Army in 2018 after having served almost his entire career in the U.S. Army Special Operations Community, including 12 deployments in support of combat operations. He currently serves as an associate professor and physician at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Family Medicine Center. He has been a member of ACSM since 1993 and currently serves as the editor-in-chief for Current Sports Medicine Reports.

The ACSM Certified Professional of the Year award is granted to an outstanding ACSM certified professional to recognize their dedication and exceptional contributions toward enhancing the health and wellness of individuals in their community.

Awarded Benefits:

• Up to $500 in travel assistance
• Complimentary 2021 ACSM International Health & Fitness Summit registration
• Acknowledgment on the ACSM website and in the ACSM's Health & Fitness Journal
• and many more!

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In 2020, Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise_® (MSSE_®) published 304 articles, amounting to 2,690 pages of text. These articles were published out of approximately 1,300 submissions at an acceptance rate of 24.6%. As expected of the American College of Sports Medicine’s (ACSM) flagship journal, the scientific content of these articles was broad-based and representative of the varied interests of ACSM’s membership.

One measure of interest in published articles is the number of times the online version of each paper is viewed. This online content can be viewed either through an institutional subscription to the journal (Ovid) or through the journal website itself. Viewing frequency often varies between these two platforms. I have combined the Ovid and journal website views to develop our top 10 viewed papers of those published in 2020 (disregarding published online ahead of print). Five of the top 10 viewed articles related to resistance/strength training. The most highly viewed article enlisted 19 participants in unilateral leg strength training for 10 weeks followed by 20 weeks of detraining. After the detraining period, the participants performed one resistance exercise session with both legs. Several key regulatory genes and proteins involved in muscular adaptations to resistance exercise gave positive responses in the previously trained leg as compared to the leg that had not been previously trained. These results provide a mechanistic basis for a molecular “muscle memory” in response to training. Two of the resistance training papers related to cancer, indicating the further entry of exercise training considerations into cancer treatment and the overall well-being of cancer patients (in breast cancer patients and in prostate cancer patients). Another of the most viewed papers reported the physiological profile of a 59-year-old world record holder marathoner. Amazingly, this aging athlete had a V̇O_2max of 65.4 ml·kg^-1·min^-1 and ran his marathon pace at 91% of his V̇O_2max!

Social impact of scientific articles is evaluated by the altmetric score, which considers tweets, blogs, Facebook mentions, coverage by news outlets, etc. The most mentions for MSSE_® articles appearing in print in 2020 included papers studying the effects of high intensity sprinting. One article investigated the effect of performing high-intensity training prior to playing a video game. The exercise improved video game performance! Another of these socially impactful papers investigated the effects of interrupting prolonged sitting with 4s sprints. Five sets (4s x 5) of these short sprints performed each hour over 8 hours of sitting lowered the next day's postprandial plasma triglyceride response and increased fat oxidation after a high-fat meal in healthy young adults. This latter article was accepted last April and appeared in print in October.

Regardless of article access and reading and social media mentions, the ultimate scientific impact of research shows up in citations in the scientific literature. To capture this aspect of the journal, my last list below shows the top ten most cited articles that appeared in print in MSSE_® in 2019. Of special note is the fact that seven of the 10 most-cited papers from 2019 are from the series of 14 articles relating reviews by the Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Committee in the June 2019 issue of MSSE_®; I highlighted these articles in last year’s blog about the top articles of 2019. As a reminder, Dr. William Kraus, Immediate Past-President of ACSM, spearheaded submission of that group of papers. Additionally, a contrasting perspectives piece was published last year as well. This one debated whether or not hypoxic training is beneficial in elite athletes with Grégoire Millet and Franck Brocherie taking the pro side versus Christoph Siebenmann and Jerry Dempsey on the con side. It will be interesting to see the citation records of the most viewed and talked about (altmetric rating) articles of 2020 by the end of this year.

Most Viewed Articles of 2020 (Ovid and MSSE website combined)

1. Exercise Induces Different Molecular Responses in Trained and Untrained Human Muscle
2. Contralateral Effects by Unilateral Eccentric versus Concentric Resistance Training
3. Low-Frequency HIIT Improves Body Composition and Aerobic Capacity in Overweight Men
4. Velocity Loss as a Critical Variable Determining the Adaptations to Strength Training
5. Physical Activity and Academic Performance: Genetic and Environmental Associations
6. Physiological Profile of a 59-Year-Old Male World Record Holder Marathoner
7. Casein Ingestion Does Not Increase Muscle Connective Tissue Protein Synthesis Rates
8. Exercise Training Reduces Reward for High-Fat Food in Adults with Overweight/Obesity
9. Reporting of Resistance Training Dose, Adherence, and Tolerance in Exercise Oncology
10. Heavy Resistance Training in Breast Cancer Patients Undergoing Adjuvant Therapy

Articles Appearing in Print in 2020 with Highest Altmetric Score

1. Exercise Improves Video Game Performance: A Win-Win Situation
2. Hourly 4-s Sprints Prevent Impairment of Postprandial Fat Metabolism from Inactivity
3. Leucine Supplementation Has No Further Effect on Training-induced Muscle Adaptations
4. Velocity Loss as a Critical Variable Determining the Adaptations to Strength Training
5. Exercise Induces Different Molecular Responses in Trained and Untrained Human Muscle
6. Temporal Muscle-specific Disuse Atrophy during One Week of Leg Immobilization
7. Power of Words: Influence of Preexercise Information on Hypoalgesia after Exercise-Randomized Controlled Trial
8. Timing of Vaccination after Training: Immune Response and Side Effects in Athletes
9. "Chemotherapy-periodized" Exercise to Accommodate for Cyclical Variation in Fatigue
10. Exercise for Weight Loss: Further Evaluating Energy Compensation with Exercise

L. Bruce Gladden, Ph.D., FACSM, Editor-in-Chief of Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise_®, is a professor in Auburn University’s School of Kinesiology. His work is focused on bioenergetics, and the role of lactate in skeletal muscle and whole-body metabolism. He is the author or co-author of more than 110 refereed research articles and reviews, and his investigative work has attracted research funding from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, NATO and private research foundations. Dr. Gladden has served as president of the southeast chapter of ACSM, a member of the ACSM Board of Trustees and is currently President-Elect of ACSM. He was the recipient of an ACSM Citation Award in 2015 in recognition of his significant contributions to sports medicine and the exercise sciences.

Black History Month began in 1915, when thousands of Black people travelled across America to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the emancipation of slaves and celebrate their accomplishments as free people. Black History Month is important to everyone because it acknowledges the contributions of Black people to American society and American culture as a free people.

This seems wonderful, yet we can’t ignore how our past got us to where we are today. In the U.S. Constitution, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except for punishment of those who are convicted of a crime. Almost immediately, this amendment was exploited. Black people were characterized as less than human and more like animals that needed to be controlled. The slavery industry was replaced by the prison industry.

Unfortunately, that was true in the 1800s and is even truer now. Today we have more Black people under criminal supervision than all of the slaves back in the 1850s. From Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation in the southern U.S. states in the early 20th century to the Stand Your Ground law that threatens Black people who are more frequently perceived as criminals, the laws that uphold racial inequities persist 156 years later.

This month, I especially encourage you to celebrate the freedom of Black people. Celebrate that the treatment of Black people has improved yet acknowledge that the crisis of racial discrimination persists. Why is this everyone’s problem? ACSM members and leaders are dedicated to identifying innovative ways to positively influence science, public health and social justice to help people live longer, healthier lives. Racial discrimination and prejudice threaten each of those areas. This year’s Black History Month theme is The Black Family: Representation, Identity and Diversity. I am pleased to greet you as the first black president of the American College of Sports Medicine, and I invite you to join our ACSM family as we progress to face these challenges together.

I encourage you to view my corresponding video and look for additional Black History Month celebrations throughout February.

NiCole R. Keith, Ph.D., FACSM, serves as a professor in the Department of Kinesiology and the associate dean of faculty affairs in the School of Health & Human Sciences at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), a research scientist at the IU Center for Aging Research and a Regenstrief Institute investigator. She is dedicated to research and programming that increases physical activity participation, improves fitness and positively influences health outcomes while addressing health equity. Last June, Dr. Keith became the 64th president of the American College of Sports Medicine, making history as the first Black president of the organization. Dr. Keith holds a B.S. in Physical Education from Howard University, an M.S. in Exercise Science from the University of Rhode Island, a Ph.D. in Exercise Physiology from the University of Connecticut and an M.S. in Clinical Research from Indiana University.