About
A register, not a review site.
The Credential Standard records what professional fitness credentials actually require, cost and confer, from the official sources, and shows the source for every fact.
What this is
A public reference for strength, conditioning and fitness credentials: who issues each one, whether its accreditation is confirmed in the accreditor’s own directory, what it takes to be eligible, what the exam and renewal involve, what it costs, and which continuing-education courses count toward keeping it.
Today it holds 2,761 credentials and courses from 75 providers, drawn from 3,823 source documents. 357 of those records have been checked against their official sources and marked verified; the rest are labeled pending review.
It does not rank credentials, score them, or name a best one. Which credential is right depends on what you want to do with it, and that judgment is yours.
Why it is built this way
Much of what is written about fitness credentials comes from the organizations that sell them, or from sites that earn a commission when a reader buys one. Either can be accurate, but a reader has no way to tell from the page.
So this register starts from the other end. A fact is recorded only with the official document it came from and the wording it rests on. Where official sources do not state something, the record says unknown. When a fact changes, the earlier value is kept and dated, not overwritten. The methodology sets out the rules in full.
Independence
- No certification provider or accreditor owns, funds or sponsors this register.
- No provider can pay to be listed, verified, ranked, or removed.
- There are no affiliate links, referral commissions or sponsored placements.
- A provider that believes a record is wrong can send the official source, and the correction goes through the same logged process as any other.
How it is paid for
Reading the register is free and needs no account. Every credential record, its sources and its history stay public on every plan.
What is paid for is keeping track: a personal plan for following more credentials, and organization plans for gyms and teams that manage their staff’s credentials against their own standards. The dataset can also be licensed for use in other products.
How records are checked
Automated tools help find official pages and re-check them on a schedule, and they can flag something that has moved. They cannot mark a record verified: that takes a person comparing the record with its sources. Accreditation is marked confirmed only after it is found in the accreditor’s own directory.
Records are still wrong sometimes, and providers change their rules. Confirm anything that matters with the provider before you pay or enroll.
Who runs it
The Credential Standard is operated by JR Strength and Fitness LLC, based in Portland, Oregon. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting for any certification provider or accrediting body named in the register.
Look up a credential before you pay for it.
Browsing the register is free. Plans add tracking, alerts and team tools.