Why ISSA’s Corrective Exercise Course Stands Out: A Trainer’s Take

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The International Sports Sciences Association (ISSA) is an organization that offers certifications in a variety of fitness industry specialties. You might come across ISSA if you’re looking to become a certified personal trainer (CPT) or if you’re a fitness professional looking to add to your skills.

I’ve had a lot of personal experience taking courses through organizations like ISSA. I’m currently both a CPT and certified nutrition coach through the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM), and I’ve also been certified through the National Federation of Personal Trainers (NFPT). All that to say, I’m familiar with the learning process in this space, and I’ll say this upfront, ISSA has been my favorite program to study with thus far.

In my ISSA Corrective Exercise Specialist review, I’ll walk you through everything you need to know about navigating the course, including the course materials, support systems ISSA offers, continuing education requirements (CEUs) and other aspects of this certification program that can help you decide if this course is the one for you. At the time of writing, I have not taken my exam. I’m scheduled to take it in January, so I will be updating parts of my review accordingly.

ISSA Corrective Exercises Specialist at a Glance

Key features and specs:

• Cost: $799 (frequent discounts available); 12-month, interest-free payment plans available
• Study Material: Audio lectures, digital textbook (print copy available for an additional fee), chapter quizzes, online study guide and workbook, online exercise library and student forum
• Exam Type: Open-book, untimed, online exam
• Length of Course: 10-week guided study plan (can go at your own pace)
• Main Focus: The corrective exercise specialist course teaches you how the body is supposed to move, how to diagnose common reasons for pain and lack of mobility and how to craft a workout plan to help the client get back to optimal mobility
• Average Completion Time: 10 weeks
• Exam Pass Rate: Not listed

Overview of the ISSA Corrective Exercise Certification

In the corrective exercise course, you’ll be studying how the body is supposed to move. That means you’ll learn about muscles, joints, planes of motion and how the body’s systems work together to create movement. After this introduction, you’ll study common imbalances and pain points people experience in the modern world—think about a hunched back or rounded shoulders from sitting at a desk, for example. You’ll learn how to pinpoint problem areas that are limiting mobility and how to design a workout plan to get your clients back to optimal movement.

ISSA’s courses are organized by week. The Corrective Exercise Specialist course is designed to be a 10-week guided study course that fully prepares you for the exam. Each week includes a reading assignment from the textbook and workbook, accompanying audio lectures to reinforce the material, other study materials like a muscle chart (week 1) and a tip for preparing for your exam (for example, week one encourages you to complete a CPR/AED certification which will be required for the exam).

What we like:

• The program design includes audio lectures for each chapter alongside the quizzes and textbook for people who are auditory learners
• The course is designed as a 10-week guided study but can be finished at your own pace within a 12-month period
• Weekly assignments are clearly explained and divided into reading, chapter quizzes with unlimited retakes and audio lectures that reinforce the same concepts from different perspectives
• Active student forum and you are assigned a real person as your “success coach” who can help guide you through the course

What to consider:

• The Corrective Exercise Specialist functions best as a continuing education course rather than as a stand-alone certification
• You need an updated CPR/AED certification to receive your certification
• No practice exam was included in my course

Content

The progress of the course is fairly intuitive, and any practicing fitness professional will recognize the structure. The first section (weeks 1–3) is an overview of basic anatomy—including how bones, muscles, joints and the nervous system work together to get the body moving. The second section (weeks 4–9) explains how to put those concepts into practice with your clients. Week 10 is exam week.

Here is the topic breakdown of the 10-week guided course:

• Week 1: The Skeletal System (Unit 1), Muscle and Fascia (Unit 2)
• Week 2: The Nervous System (Unit 3) and Joint Actions (Unit 4)
• Week 3: Movement (Unit 5)
• Week 4: Preparing for the Client (Unit 6)
• Week 5: Create a Just Right Challenge (Unit 7)
• Week 6: Perform a Single-Joint Movement Analysis (Unit 8) and Perform an Upper-Body Multi-Joint Movement Analysis (Unit 9)
• Week 7: Perform a Lower-Body Multi-Joint Movement Analysis (Unit 10) and Restore Structural Alignment and Stability (Unit 11)
• Week 8: Restore Mobility Through Stability (Unit 12)
• Week 9: Soft Tissue Assessments and Correctives (Unit 13)
• Week 10: Take the Exam

Study Materials

As I said before, the study materials ISSA includes with each course are the best I’ve come across. The digital textbook is easiest to navigate in your web browser, but you can download almost all of the study materials and take them with you offline. The chapter review quizzes also felt less generic than other review quizzes I’ve used for studying. I felt like I was actually preparing for the certification exam rather than checking a box.

However, ISSA also offers an easily accessible digital library of exercises, a common terms glossary with audio, an audio muscle glossary and even a database of research articles and case studies from Pubmed and Medline Plus—all of which are conveniently located in the “Study Aids” section of your student portal.

Final Exam

The ISSA exam for the Corrective Exercise specialization is an open-book, untimed, multiple-choice exam that gives you ultimate flexibility. You can save your progress, close the exam, and come back at a later time without having to start the exam again. ISSA also guarantees that you will get your results back within 24 hours, regardless of which day you take the exam.

The final exam in this course is a 100-question multiple-choice exam with a minimum passing score of 75 percent. I will say again that I haven’t taken this exam yet, but I am scheduled to do so in January 2024. I will update this section of the review after that experience.

Recertification

Like other NCCA-accredited certifications, ISSA requires recertification every two years. There are a few different ways to re-certify through ISSA, but here are the basics:

• Minimum of 20 continuing education units (CEUs) within two years of certification
• Maintain an up-to-date CPR/AED certification
• Submit a renewal application with a renewal fee ($99)

However, there are some exceptions to this process. First, ISSA will drop the $99 fee down to $0 if all of your CEUs were obtained through ISSA (any specialty program counts as a certain amount of CEUs).

Even better, ISSA offers a Certify For Life option. Certify For Life costs $200, and after this one-time payment, you’ll never have to pay the recertification fee. You will also get a $150 credit toward any CEUs ISSA offers and a permanent discount on ISSA specialization courses.

My Experience With the ISSA Corrective Exercise Specialist Course

In a word, my experience with ISSA’s support staff, learning materials and overall experience has been excellent. This online course was very easy to navigate and had significantly more materials per module than other courses I’ve taken.

ISSA’s student platform doesn’t necessarily dazzle you with an amazing user experience, but it is much more intuitive than NASM’s student portal (even on a mobile device), and the course materials are clearly segmented into an easy-to-follow weekly study plan.

But the thing that sets ISSA above the rest, in my opinion, is the audio lectures. Audio is one of the ways I learn the best, and other courses I’ve taken simply lack that study component—I will note that it has been two years since I studied with NFPT and several months since my NASM-CPT course, so this may have changed.

ISSA also offers a student forum (a question board) and a designated success coach, both of which are very active and quick to respond. I’ve experienced good customer support with other organizations, but never anything that was as quick or accessible as ISSA’s support community.

ISSA Corrective Exercise Specialist vs. ISSA CPT Certification

The job market for a person with only a Corrective Exercise Specialist certification is going to be slim. If you are interested in entering the personal training field as a career, I would strongly advise that you become an ISSA Certified Personal Trainer first because the job market for a CPT is a bit larger. These jobs include:

• Self-employed fitness trainer
• Personal trainer at a local or national gym
• Group fitness class instructor
• Coaching through personal training apps
• Health Coaching
• Fitness equipment sales
• Corrective exercise assistant at a chiropractic office

If you can do the Corrective Exercise Specialist certification in addition to the personal trainer certification, great, but if your budget only allows for one, choose the CPT. It is more versatile and will give you more opportunities to enter the industry.

I also think ISSA is one of the best personal training certifications, because it is backed by a job guarantee. There are some requirements on your end, but ISSA will give you a full refund if you don’t find a job within six months of completing the CPT exam. There is no such guarantee for the Corrective Exercise Specialist.

If you're interested in health coaching, check out our ISSA Health Coach Certification review.

Is the ISSA Corrective Specialist Certification Worth It?

Bottom line: yes, I think so. The longer answer is that it depends on your career goals. If you’re already a personal trainer, health coach or otherwise employed in the fitness industry, I wouldn’t say it is absolutely necessary to get a Corrective exercise specialty, but I do think the information will help you help your clients.

If you’re already familiar with the fundamentals of exercise science, much of the information in the first section of the course won’t be new. However, I found the later sections—especially the mobility diagnostic guides—to be very informative. There is also the reality that as jobs become more sedentary and the population ages, client interest in corrective exercise is expected to grow significantly.

ISSA’s Bundle and Save Options

Master Trainer bundle

• Core courses: ISSA CPT and Nutritionist
• Specialty courses: Choose either the Advanced Personal Training specialty, Advanced Strength Training or Advanced Group Training (each specialization includes four specialty courses)
• Additional benefits: Free Certify For Life and T3 HIIT course
• Total cost: $7,190 (on sale at the time of writing for $1,788 total)

Elite Trainer bundle

• Core courses: ISSA CPT and Nutritionist
• Specialty courses: Choose either the Bodybuilding, Online Coach or Performance Enhancement specialties
• Additional benefits: Free CPR/AED certification, Strength and Conditioning course and T3 HIIT course
• Total cost: $5,442 (on sale at the time of writing for $1,188)

Fitness Coach bundle

• Core courses: ISSA CPT
• Specialty courses: Choose from a list of specialties, including Nutritionist, Corrective Exercise, Online Coach, Strength and Conditioning, Bodybuilding, Glute Specialist, Group Exercise or Running Coach
• Additional benefits: Free T3 HIIT course
• Total cost: $3,196 (on sale at the time of writing for $999)

ISSA vs. NASM

I’ve done multiple courses through both ISSA and NASM, and I have to say, both organizations offer great core certifications like personal training certification, nutrition coaching certification and wellness coaching. The actual content of the courses is very similar, but they differ in key ways.

Study materials

I give ISSA the edge in study materials because they have far more resources available to you within the course itself. There are at least a dozen downloads that will help you as you study for the final exam, audio lectures and an easy-to-navigate database of research articles if you want to take a deep dive on some aspect of the course.

In my experience, NASM offered none of these things, or at least they were not easily findable in the student portal. In fact, I’ve been certified through NASM three times now (twice as a CPT and once as a Nutrition Coach), and I’ve had difficulty navigating its student portal each time. In NASM’s defense, it has been almost a full year since I’ve used their student portal, so this may have changed.

Specializations

ISSA and NASM’s specializations are very comparable in price and variety. NASM has expanded its specialization catalog since the first time I was certified several years ago, and both companies have good bundle options that include high-demand specializations alongside the CPT.

In my opinion, the difference between ISSA and NASM specializations boils down to one of personal preference. I like ISSA’s courses better from an experience and learning perspective, and I think ISSA has better bundles.

Related Post: A Trainer’s Review of the NASM-CPT Course

Cost

NASM actually has a cheaper basic option than ISSA. The self-study CPT from NASM starts at $799. ISSA doesn’t seem to offer a comparable option because the only CPT course it offers includes all of the study materials I mentioned above. The ISSA CPT will cost around $1,600, but both companies offer payment plans and run significant discounts periodically throughout the year.

If you're still interested in learning more about these two popular programs, check out our ISSA vs. NASM review. 

ISSA Corrective Exercise Specialist FAQs

Is the ISSA certification respected?

Yes, in my experience, ISSA is one of the top three most recognized certifications in the industry (the other two being NASM and ACE). However, if you have a specific gym or organization you are trying to work for, you may want to check their website for specific requirements. You can pair your ISSA certification with NCCA-accredited exams, which is the highest level of accreditation you can find.

What can you do with a corrective exercise certification?

A corrective exercise certification isn’t necessarily designed to be a stand-alone certification. Even so, I searched job postings on Indeed, LinkedIn and other online job boards to see what was out there. The results were primarily local chiropractic offices and hospitals looking to hire corrective exercise specialists to work with patients in rehab or assist with physical therapy.

What is the difference between a medical exercise specialist and a corrective exercise specialist?

There is a lot of crossover in the practice of medical exercise specialists and corrective exercise specialists. Both are trained to develop exercise programs for clients based on their individual needs. However, medical exercise specialists are trained to help clients who have specific medical disorders—like neurological, metabolic, musculoskeletal or cardiovascular disorders—while corrective exercise specialists are trained to diagnose and treat general physical discomfort.

How fast can you finish the ISSA certification?

ISSA certifications have an organized, guided coursework option. The Corrective Exercise Specialist course is 10 weeks if you follow the guided schedule, for example. However, you can also move at your own pace, as long as you take the exam within 12 months of your purchase.

Final Thoughts and Tips

I’m a huge advocate for continuing education, and if you’re a personal trainer, fitness instructor, or otherwise employed in the fitness industry, I think corrective exercise is going to be an expanding part of the field in the coming years. If you’re looking to switch careers or start a career in the fitness industry, the ISSA Corrective Exercise Specialist is a great additional certification to add to your toolkit, but you may want to start with the ISSA CPT or at least purchase a bundle.

Prices are accurate and items in stock as of publish time.