The Four Pillars of a Personal Fitness Instructor's Duty of Care

A personal fitness instructor's duty of care is often thought to be only to the clients they work with daily, but this isn't the case at all! Whether you are brand new to the industry or have been working as an instructor for years, here are four crucial pillars to your duties as an instructor and how you conduct yourself at all times.

A moral obligation

Most personal fitness instructors take their careers seriously and sincerely want to help their clients get fit and stay healthy. 

As such, they typically strive to provide exemplary service and support, including providing a safe environment for their clients and themselves. 

The first pillar of a personal fitness instructor's duty of care is that they have a moral obligation to provide their clients with an appropriate level of care, regardless of whether or not there is any legal requirement that they do so.

To be trained

You're not qualified to instruct others until you've been adequately trained. There are several fitness certifications available, and they generally focus on one of two areas: exercise physiology or program design. 

Certification programs can be found online through organizations like ACE (the American Council on Exercise) and AFAA (the Aerobics & Fitness Association of America). These organizations offer instructor-specific certifications that include coursework in anatomy, kinesiology, biomechanics, nutrition, personal training principles, and ethics. 

Both ACE and AFAA also offer specialty certifications for group fitness instructors who want to teach group cycling classes or programs for older adults.

The law

There are risks associated with following your chosen career path in every profession. For fitness professionals, those risks could be anything from exercise-related injuries to health complications caused by too much sun exposure to sexual assault at an event. 

Those aren't all widespread occurrences, but they all have one thing in common: they represent a legal liability for a fitness professional. A well-written personal training contract can help mitigate some of that risk. 

If you take clients through group training sessions or offer private sessions on your own, you must know what you need to include in your contracts and how best to protect yourself.

Scope

Fitness is a subjective word used to describe physical and mental health. Most people think about fitness as looking good in a bathing suit, but it can also help you develop qualities such as agility, strength, endurance, mobility, and balance. 

Keeping your body fit means maintaining overall health and well-being; being physically fit makes you look good on the outside and helps your mind and body function better in every other area of life. 

A personal trainer's duty of care is essential to their job. They must ensure that they are aware of their client's current level of fitness, any injuries or conditions that may affect their training program, and how they will respond if an emergency arises during training. 

A personal trainer needs to know about first aid and CPR if something happens during training.