The Life-Changing Power of Regulated Qualifications

Employing certified fitness professionals was recently named as one of the top 10 fitness trends for 2023 based on the annual ACSM Health and Fitness Journal’s worldwide survey. This comes as no surprise considering the unfortunate rise of low-cost, low-quality training that grew throughout the pandemic. Choosing regulated qualifications not only stands for credibility, but it ensures that learners are highly employable and well equipped to help and coach a wide range of clients. For many people, this helps forge a new, potentially life-changing career path.

RACHEL’s STORY

When Rachel was just 18 months old, she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, a condition that affects a person’s ability to move and maintain balance and posture. In 2018, she underwent a life-changing spinal operation to correct a curve and help her mobility.

“I was in a lot of pain after the surgery,” explains Rachel. “I was extremely weak and couldn’t get up. The recovery was quite intense.”

To help her regain her mobility, Rachel did physiotherapy and pool exercise, but it wasn’t until she returned to the gym, one year after her operation, that she started to make real gains in her abilities.

In 2018, Rachel reached out to a trainer to help her build her strength up. “I started going to the gym 2-3 times a week, eventually adding weight training to my routine. Every week, I could see improvement and mentally, I started to feel like myself again. My trainer helped me massively.”

The experience in the gym was so profound that Rachel decided she wanted to help people like herself and become a qualified personal trainer. She reached out to The Fitness Group, a leading UK fitness education provider to start her journey to become a fitness professional.

Working with Active IQ as their awarding organisation, The Fitness Group offers a tailored education experience for students. Originally a local provider in Glasgow, The Fitness Group is now one of the UKs leading training providers offering a range of full-time, part-time or online courses to students across the UK in everything from gym and PT courses to nutrition and sports massage.

Today, Rachel has successfully completed her Level 2 Fitness Instructor qualification and is working toward obtaining her Level 3 personal trainer.

“Training has changed my life so much,” she said. “It’s opened my eye up to possibilities.”

Since working with her trainer, Rachel has made massive gains in her fitness. She can lift 90kgs on her back, has completed a 10km race and even did a fitness photoshoot where she felt strong and confident.

She also has big plans for the future. Rachel recently launched her own online coaching business with her first sessions set to start in March. All 12 spots have been filled, three of which are with clients with cerebral palsy.

“My coach was amazing. He knew what cerebral palsy was and he was able to help me, but he didn’t have firsthand experience like I do,” said Rachel. “I know I can help people like me and inspire them.”

As a dedicated Stevenage Leisure Limited (SLL) centre, Ascent Training offers a variety of fitness, health and leisure courses enabling learners both internally and commercially to improve their skills or develop new ones. A large priority for the centre is ensuring that the professionals delivering their qualifications have access to a range of resources that, not only further their expertise, but also protect their wellbeing. Learning and development is at the heart of what Ascent Training Centre do, ensuring that all decisions made are in the best interest of students and the wider community.

Training Today’s Professionals

Ascent Training Centre is one of the many centres operating within Stevenage Leisure Limited (SLL), one of the UK’s most respected charitable leisure management trusts. All the courses Ascent deliver are designed to help learners develop a successful career in a number of fields, from gym instructors to lifeguards. It is rare for leisure centres to prioritise learning and development like Ascent Training Centre does; their system of simultaneously offering internal/commercial education alongside day-to-day leisure operations allows them to go above and beyond what is expected of a leisure centre. Ascent Leisure Centre makes the education and wellbeing of their tutors a priority by releasing the dates of their courses internally to staff, offering a chance for progression and upskilling which effectively translates over to their students. Ascent Leisure offers subsidised learning opportunities for SLL staff on certain courses to help more people develop their skills, helping more staff members to gain access to new career pathways, which helps to increase staff retention and loyalty.

Learning Together

Ascent Leisure has been working with Active IQ since 2016, offering a number of their market-leading fitness qualifications to people internally and commercially. Ascent Training Centre ensured trainers were upskilled in the Active IQ qualifications so they would be able to efficiently deliver the qualification to learners as well as other trainers. As Corporate Training Manager Sharon Hunter explains,

“Allowing our trainers to have first dibs on the courses helps with staff progression and employee development far more than if we were reliant on an external provider.”

With learners at the heart of what they do, Ascent Leisure and Active IQ are able to adjust the courses offered to meet demands.

“We introduced the Level 2 Swimming Teacher and Level 2 Gym Instructor courses because demand internally was very high” says Sharon.

Since working with Active IQ, Ascent Training Centre has been able to offer a diverse range of qualifications that extend beyond the leisure industry, for example the Health and Safety courses that go out to businesses across the UK allow them to educate and train a number of industries in important sectors.

Active IQ also offers a range of resources and guidance which allows Ascent Leisure to constantly improve on what they deliver. As Sharon Hunter explains,

“We’ve always had a good relationship with Active IQ – they’re always forthcoming with new ideas, help and guidance. We want to expand on the fitness side of our offering and they are helping us to plan and move forward with this.”

A key resource provided by Active IQ is Talent Match whereby you can search for relevant trainers through the qualification you are looking for. To run a course, Ascent Leisure requires a trainer, assessor and IQA so this resource helps them to upskill their staff to be able to deliver the training to more centres.

Mental Health Awareness Training

The most recent Active IQ qualification that has proven popular at Ascent Training Centre is the Level 2 Award in Mental Health Awareness. After a staff member won an Active IQ award, they were given one of three spaces available on the qualification and after realising the impact it could have on staff, Ascent Leisure decided to put most managers and safeguarding officers through the qualification. Sharon Hunter explained,

“The reason we did it was that we noticed after COVID, more people than ever were suffering from mental ill-health. We want to be able to support our staff the best we can, and we felt as though the understanding surrounding mental health was not as good as we’d like it to be.”

The qualification allowed senior staff to be more aware of the signs of mental ill health. It also provided them with resources to offer to their team who were struggling. With the awareness of where to direct people as well as the vocabulary to respond, the managers at Ascent Leisure are now fully equipped to respond to mental health issues which is important as they are the ones most likely to have a member of staff approach them when they are in distress.

“The course was amazing – all of us were so impressed with the quality of the course and how the content was delivered. We now have a great understanding of how we should deliver it going forward” says Sharon.

Ascent Leisure has confirmed they will continue to encourage their trainers across all levels to speak openly about their mental health and seek help if they’re struggling,

“We will be putting a notice up in the staffroom with who has taken the course so trainers know who they can approach if they need to talk” says Sharon.

They will be encouraging trainers across all levels to pursue the qualification so everyone can widen their understanding of mental health and know the resources available for themselves as well as their colleagues.

BodyHack is an award-winning education provider of Active IQ Fitness Qualifications, delivering training in the UAE, Oman and Egypt. Founders Heba Abdel and Yousef ElFakhri used to teach for Active IQ centres in the UK before moving to Dubai in 2012 to set up their own academy.

Being a training provider of Active IQ qualifications for over eight years, both Heba and Yousef have learned a lot over the years that has helped them to grow their academy.

“We have found that learners in this region need deadlines and need to be entertained during lectures to say focused – we like to call it ‘edutainment’. Learners seem to get the most out of face-to-face training, so we always try and make this a priority where possible,” says Heba.

“Pre-enrollment screening is a must to ensure learners that enrol for our classes have actually been training in a gym.”

When choosing an awarding organisation for their academy, Active IQ was an easy decision.

“One of the reasons we chose Active IQ is that we know first-hand from when we were teaching in the UK that their support and quality assurance is second to none,” explains Heba.

“Every year we get inspected and are held accountable which keeps us on our toes and ensures that the students are getting the best possible experience. We receive regular support and contact from the team at Active IQ, and any questions we have are answered within 24 hours.”

The new International Diploma offered by Active IQ will open up many opportunities for students looking to get their diploma.

“For students whose first language isn’t English, the number of assignments and worksheets with UK-specific answers, and require answers to be filled out in English are normally difficult. The International Diploma will incorporate more interactive assessments on the Active IQ platform that will make the training more accessible.”

BodyHack has major plans for the future to continue their expansion and offer a wider range of qualifications.

“Our plan for the next five years is to expand to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, South Korea and South Africa as well as offer more CPDs and Level 4 qualifications.”