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Fitness instruction Qualifications and the law (Read 6991 times)

Oldmanmatt

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Does anyone have any clue if there is a legal requirement for a formal qualification, to run/instruct/coach fitness classes (ie Circuit training); in the UK?

danm

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I'd be surprised if the answer is yes. For mountaineering/climbing there is no legal requirement to be qualified, for example - it is based on competence. You could have an MIA, but equally be totally unqualified but with a wealth of relevant experience. The clincher is whether you can persuade your insurer to provide cover.

Sloper

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+1 to the above: I would suggest you'd be mad to provide 'personal trainer' / PTI style beastings without insurance and the insurers may well require some sort of 'ticket'.

Oldmanmatt

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Thank you chaps!

Problems with contractors again...

Plot:

Young eager Business conceives novel way to utilise it's facility during quiet times and hires a professional to run the class at a fixed fee.

Enterprising "Professional" runs class for 3 weeks, steals client list, drops class and invites attendees to a new session in the local park instead.

"Professional" has forgotten that the summer is a short term thing and no-one will be doing sit ups in the mud and rain come October or that it will be dark by the time people finish work; so I do hope the flood lighting isn't too expensive.

Apparently, £25 an hour is robbery and £2 to park a car makes it slavery.

a dense loner

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That's the business world Matt  ;)
What's the figure of 25 ph for?

Sloper

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Thank you chaps!

Problems with contractors again...

Plot:

Young eager Business conceives novel way to utilise it's facility during quiet times and hires a professional to run the class at a fixed fee.

Enterprising "Professional" runs class for 3 weeks, steals client list, drops class and invites attendees to a new session in the local park instead.

"Professional" has forgotten that the summer is a short term thing and no-one will be doing sit ups in the mud and rain come October or that it will be dark by the time people finish work; so I do hope the flood lighting isn't too expensive.

Apparently, £25 an hour is robbery and £2 to park a car makes it slavery.

If you've been ripped off you could always send him a cease & desist and deliver up letter which he could ignore, we can draft it for you for c. £1000.00

Oldmanmatt

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That's the business world Matt  ;)
What's the figure of 25 ph for?


Ha!

Yes, 'tis true. Bloody annoying though.

Ta for the offer Sloper, but the rain will draft the letter for me...

Also, some of the clientele have just twigged that they cannot take their Toddlers to the park and leave them whilst they workout; where we had the facilities to cope.

First of the new sessions will be on Saturday morning and I note the forecast is not good...

Oldmanmatt

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£25 an hour, was what we were paying a qualified Personal Trainer to run our circuit training class.

What I want to do, is run our own class and make it far more climbing based/specific.

a dense loner

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That seemed a pretty good deal to them since you supplied everything else, oh well people get greedy.
When you say climbing based what about introducing a session, or one every so often, of purely antagonist stuff, see what people think?

Dexter

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our local runs a number of classes but then I think jonny who owns it used to be a PT so that may help. That being said I think the principles of what to put into a session shouldnt be too bad right?
if you want more info on what they run check out here
http://www.bouldercentral.co.uk/fitness-classes.html

hamsforlegs

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I haven't experience of running a wall, but used to advise sports facilities on liability issues.

I would just give your insurers a call. They will either cover you to run the activities or insist on having qualified people in place.

Sometimes they will insist that you do the risk assessment yourself to decide whether you have the right kind of experience/skills in-house to deliver the sessions. I've seen people change their approach/opinion after doing this kind of assessment, and it's a not a bad start point to go through the issues systematically (not saying you haven't already done this - attitudes and approaches vary).

Having seen this scenario play out dozens of times, I think you're attitude is right about the guy who walked out of the arrangement. He will probably not keep up the sessions, and in any case you will have figured out a way to deliver something better quite soon.

Can you not find a qualified trainer with a bit of climbing knowledge to help you out?

petejh

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Classic poacher's short term-ism attitude there by your PT subbie. You've got the facilities and access to a steady stream of customers - there are plenty of other PT's. You could always look to your own staff and help develop their skills if any are keen to do PT courses and learn on the job..

Falling Down

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Someone was telling me that the parks in London are getting brassed off with Personal Trainers running "extreme bodyweight fitness etc." classes with hundreds of people and now charge for use of the 'facilities'.

Sloper

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yep, they did that with dog walkers too and imposed, as far as I recall, a requirement for public liability insurance.

 

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