How to Become a Board-Certified Clinical Specialist in Sports Physical Therapy

Becoming a specialist awarded by the American Board of Physical Therapy Specialties is without a doubt worth your time, especially if you want to work with professional sports teams, elite athletes and so on.

Let's cut to the chase - this is the short-version of how to become certified:

To apply:

- Option 1 - complete a residency program. I didn't do this so I'm not going into any detail with this.

- Option 2 - Complete 2000 hours in the last 10 years, of supervised practice directly in your desired specialty. Since this is sport, this will include any work or volunteering you do for sports teams, treating athletes at your clinic and coverage as a provider at venues.

500 hours must have been completed in the past 3 years and 100 hours must be venue coverage (i.e. high school football games) and 50 of those hours must be with a contact sport. I suggest you volunteer/work for a sports team to gain these hours.

Sports Specialisation also requires these additional certifications prior to applying:

1. Valid and current CPR certification

2. You must submit evidence of current knowledge in national First Responder standards and Emergency Cardiovascular Care. The ABPTS website has links to approved courses that you can take across the nation. 

Applying for eligibility/the exam:

1. Create an account with the APTA if you don’t already have one

2. You take a survey, input your personal information

3. Select your specialty you wish to apply for (i.e. Sports), then input your evidence of hours stipulated above. You then need your supervisor for these hours to sign off on them. If you are self-employed, you don’t need it signed off, however it is still reviewed.

4. You will then be approved to sit the exam (which can take several weeks/months) and you will be sent an email stating that the testing center “PSI” will send you an email when they are ready for you to schedule your exam date. They usually give you about a two-week window of when you are allowed to take the exam. If you don’t see the exam location you desire initially, keep checking every week because sometimes closer ones pop up. Initially, when I was trying to schedule, the closest testing center was over 300 miles away, however after checking each week for several weeks, one in my city opened up and I rescheduled to that location immediately. You are able to reschedule without any fees. 

Studying for the exam:

Studying for this level of an exam, whilst working full-time, whilst also trying to have a social life/family and maintaining an exercise routine/healthy eating habits… wow, yes this is rough. You will be challenged here. I spent every moment when I wasn’t working, doing a workout, cooking or seeing friends, studying. Luckily, most of the content was videos with an instructor plus slides. I also had a three-week international trip mixed into this study period, when I worked for Team USA at the 2025 World Handball Championships in Norway, Denmark and Croatia. On my bus trips I would listen to these lectures.

I used the MedBridge SCS prep course, it's less expensive than the others on the market and I believe were very comprehensive. I also purchased these two books off amazon, recommended to me by a fellow PT also taking the sports exam: https://a.co/d/2pSZkzY and https://a.co/d/2MTdMAe . I had a friend of mine closer to exam day test me by reading these questions out loud and I found that to help a lot. There aren’t many preparation courses for this exam, so you are limited, however less to choose from means less comparing/contrasting so it’s easier to make a decision. From what I have read, all courses are effective.

In the case of MedBridge, they all were approved in Utah for CEUs, so I was totally set for my licensure renewal that year since I had over 120 hours of coursework. They provide certificates of completion for your records.

In total I studied for 5-6 months in the lead up to my exam.

The Exam:

Believe me when I say this - this exam is extraordinarily difficult. I wasn’t exactly the most academic during PT school, so you’ll probably have more confidence than me leading into it! 

Exam structure:

7 hours. You heard me right, 7 hours! 420 minutes, 200 questions. You may be thinking like I did. If the NPTE was 5.5 hours with 250 questions, then this shouldn’t be too bad. Nope, I used EVERY single second I had. These questions challenge you to the point where I questioned if I even knew my profession. The exam is broken up into 4 sections, 90 minutes each. Here is a breakdown of it:

You check into PSI, 30 mins prior to your exam start time. After completing their check-in process, they assign you to a computer, you take a quick random test to ensure you understand how to navigate the system, then you begin your exam.

Section 1 - 90mins, then a 10 minute break. You don’t need to use the whole 10 mins, but I took every second. Each break allows you to use the bathroom.

Section 2 - 90 mins, then a 30 minute break. Bring lunch, you will be hungry by this point. Use this time to relax, breathe, walk around a bit to get your blood flowing again. 3 hours into it, you’ll be feeling it.

Section 3 - 90 mins, then another 10 minute break.  

Section 4 - 90 mins, then it’s over.

Note: Just like in the NPTE, once you submit a section, you CANNOT go back into a previous section to change your answers.

PSI then prints off a sheet of paper that says “SCORE REPORT”. This is NOT your score. You won’t get your result until June. I received my result June 30, the very last day they stipulate they will have your results ready by. On this sheet of paper, they have a segment explaining why the results process takes several months from exam day. 

I can guarantee you I did not walk out of this exam feeling good about it AT ALL. I was just happy to get it over with and wondered how I’d go about studying for it again the next year… in case you know, it didn’t go well!

Exam Results:

Fast forward to June 30 and you receive an email form the ABPTS stating that your exam results are ready. They have you login to your PSI account, the one you used to schedule your exam. You will see your result, “PASS” if you passed the exam, and you can download a copy of your score report. It will tell you what you scored. If you pass, then effective immediately you can start calling yourself a “Board-Certified Clinical Specialist in (Sports) Physical Therapy”! The ABPTS then give you links and information about how to promote yourself, how to advertise your specialty correctly and other things.

The ABPTS also share a link on how to maintain your credential. Your specialty lasts for 10 years, and in order to recertify, there are steps you need to take in order to maintain your specialty status. This is called “Maintenance of Specialty Certification” or “MOSC”, which is how the ABPTS refers to it. I will be undergoing this process starting now, and will share my experience with it sometime after my first three-year submission cycle for the MOSC requirement.

Best of luck!

*ABPTS logo only used for educational purposes only, not to be used as an endorsement or for monetary gain