Personal Trainer

1.1   Occupation professional standard: Personal Trainer

This professional standard outlines the occupation and scope of a Personal Trainer and the essential knowledge, understanding and skills that are needed to perform the role. This standard provides guidance for:

• the development of education products that can be submitted for CIMSPA endorsement
• relevant level descriptors.

This standard can also be a useful tool for employers to curate job descriptions, use as an appraisal tool, help with training needs analysis or for developing career planning frameworks. The Personal Trainer occupation sits in the sport and physical activity sector as part of the exercise and fitness industry. The agreed industry prerequisite to become a Personal Trainer is to have achieved a CIMSPA-endorsed education product or products that evidence required competency statements within this professional standard. This professional standard is underpinned by the principles of inclusive practice, equity, and respect for individual dignity. Personal Trainers are expected to recognise and respond to the diversity of individuals’ backgrounds, lived experiences, and health journeys.

1.2   Endorsed qualification logo

Education products that evidence the competency statements of this CIMSPA professional standard will display this CIMSPA endorsement logo.

2.1   Occupation context

The role of a Personal Trainer is to coach clients (on a one-to-one and small group basis) towards their health and fitness goals through the planning and delivery of creative and personalised exercise programmes and instruction, nutritional advice and overall lifestyle management.

• Personal Trainers will analyse a client’s needs, adapt and modify guidance to motivate clients to positively change their behaviour and improve their overall health and wellbeing by providing specialist, tailored advice within their scope of practice.
• They are aware of when to refer clients to relevant appropriate professionals for specialist information and guidance, for example a physiotherapist, registered dietician or medical specialist.
• A comprehensive understanding of business, finance, sales and marketing is also essential to enable the personal trainer to build and retain a stable client base.
• Personal Trainers are employed by a fitness or leisure centre or, once qualified, can be self-employed and should expect to work hours that may include evenings, weekends and public holidays.
• This occupation exists within a sector that plays an important role in improving the health and wellbeing of the nation, creating opportunities that get more people, more active, more often.
• Personal Trainers will deliver services that reflect inclusive, respectful, and non-discriminatory practice. This includes working with clients of all backgrounds, body types, and lived experiences.

2.2   What those who have evidenced this standard know and can do

Those who have evidenced the professional standard will: UNDERSTAND

• how to programmes and support for a broad range of clients with different needs, in different types of environments, over a period sufficient to show lifestyle, health, and fitness improvements.

HAVE DEMONSTRATED

• competence of providing a programme and support for a client, over a period of time sufficient to show lifestyle improvement.

2.3   Professional status

Individuals who have evidenced all required competency statements in this professional standard will meet the requirements to hold the professional status of:

• Personal Trainer Practitioner

Evidencing competency statements is typically achieved by completing a CIMSPA-endorsed educational product or products. By evidencing this professional standard, it provides the Personal Trainer opportunity for future progression which may enable them to achieve a higher grade of professional status such as:

• Personal Trainer Advanced Practitioner
• Personal Trainer Senior Practitioner

3.1   Product development guidance

CIMSPA education partners developing education products that evidence completion of this professional standard should reference the following guidance: CIMSPA Product Development Guidance [HYPERLINK]

3.2   Education product usage and combinations

This professional standard can be used as follows:

• To create a standalone education product that can be used as evidence to gain practitioner professional status, for example:
• Personal Trainer Qualification
• Combined with additional specialism(s) to form an educational product, for example:
• Occupation: Personal Trainer
• Environment Specialism: Working in the School Environment (Out of Curriculum)
• Population Specialism: Working with Children

This may then open opportunities to gain a higher grade of professional status, for example advanced or senior practitioner.

3.3   Assessment minimums

That they determine the total qualification time for the qualification/unit and outline the minimum requirements for practical assessment. For the role of Personal Trainer, the minimum practical requirements have been outlined as:

• Allowing sufficient time between engaging a client and final assessment needs to show improvements in the client’s lifestyle, health, and fitness.
• For example, to show behaviour change a plan to cover a 12-week period of delivery with a minimum of assessed evidence, six sessions of 30 minutes duration is advised.

3.4   Assessment authenticity

That they stipulate practical assessment must be conducted where practicably possible in a real-world environment – ideally, ‘on the job’ at work. For the role of Personal Trainer this could include a gym, studio, sports hall, outdoors, client’s home or other confined space. Where practicably possible a practical summative assessment should be conducted with real participants. The use of peers for summative practical assessment is not deemed appropriate. Reasonable adjustments can be applied where specific circumstances make this unviable, for example delivery in the prison sector.

3.5   Level descriptors

The table below shows level descriptors and explanations of what can be expected from a learner on completion of an education product evidencing knowledge and skills for employment in the sector occupation of:

• Personal Trainer

These are intended to be directive, rather than prescriptive, to avoid simply reproducing identical language in the education partner’s design approach, without considering the intent and purpose of the education partner’s product and therefore help with benchmarking expected outcomes. For this standard the level descriptor is:

• Technical Group 2 Practitioner (level 3 equivalent)

Further information Education providers seeking CIMSPA endorsement for a product against this occupation professional standard are asked to determine and justify the level of the product they have developed, in line with guidance provided by the level descriptor below. Where a provider is seeking CPD endorsement, covering part of the professional standard with competency assessment included, the same level of assessment rigour must be applied as described in the level descriptors. Evidence of the type and rigor of assessment must be presented as part of CIMSPA’s CPD endorsement process. Please refer to the product development guidance for further information. [HYPERLINK]  

4.1     Key areas

This section outlines the key areas of learning and assessment (knowledge, understanding and skills) that should be contained within any educational product seeking CIMSPA endorsement against this occupation professional standard. There are 10 key areas of knowledge, understanding and skills for the occupation of:

• Personal Trainer

All are interconnected and mandatory. The key areas are:

1. Anatomy, physiology and kinesiology
2. Lifestyle management and client motivation
3. Health and wellbeing
4. Exercise programme design and delivery
5. Exercise technique
6. Nutrition
7. Information technology
8. Professional practice
9. Communication
10. Business acumen

4.2   Assessment coverage

Where examples: “for example” are used in the competency statement tables below this is to provide an overview of the knowledge, understanding and skills most relevant to the role – it is not mandatory to assess learners against 100% of the examples provided. However, sufficient coverage to ensure occupational competence on achievement must be ensured. This will be reviewed as part of the CIMSPA endorsement process.

4.3   Recommended assessment methods

The final column of the learning and assessment requirements tables below shows recommended method(s) of assessment to demonstrate coverage of competency statements. It is not mandatory to use that method of assessment but is recommended and will be checked as part of the endorsement process. Where more than one assessment method is listed this should be treated as and/or. You may want to use multiple assessment methods, or one of the assessment methods – either is acceptable. The use of professional discussion is encouraged, particularly where a learner has shown competency in most but not all the competency statement. For example:

• There are five bullet points listed in a competency statement and four have been achieved by the chosen assessment method.*[vi1] [CA2] [CH3] [CA4]
• For the fifth bullet point the learner would not be expected to retake the whole assessment – a professional discussion, where appropriate, should be used to generate the evidence required.

The list provided is not exhaustive and is not intended to limit assessment innovation. Use of other new and alternative assessment methods where appropriate is encouraged. More detail on recommended assessment methods is shown in the table below. *It is understood exams may have pass thresholds which may mean not all criteria is fully achieved.