I am ACE certified.
It is NCCA accredited, which is good, as well as nationally recognized.
It has its pros and cons imo. First of all, the cert does not make the trainer, so you can't judge by that. You can be a great trainer with only a minor cert, or a crappy trainer with a bachelor's degree and every cert under the sun.
One thing with ACE, is I feel it does not do a great job of preparing a person for actually training. The text is more in a technical sense and does not really give a practical side on how to really apply any of it. I feel ace does provide a good base of anatomy, nutrition, assessment, etc, but not really how to apply it in the real world.
Some people find the test easy, others hard. The fail rate is quite high (even though a decent chunk of the people taking it hold a degree in a related field), so it must not be too terribly easy if people with health related degrees fail it. However, I think there needs to be much more emphasis put on practical application with a hands on section of the test (to better compliment the case study part of the written test).
Anyway, sorry, that had nothing to do with you wanting to get the materials.
