Potential PT students often ask, “what is the main thing to look for when choosing a Personal Trainer course?” This is a good question! After all, it is very easy to get caught up in the fancy sales talk you get from some providers or to find the cheapest possible option on the market. However, it is important to see past things like this and look for the key quality marker that will ensure that you are choosing the right Personal Trainer course provider for you. You are probably thinking what is this key quality marker? Let’s discuss more….
CIMSPA
So here is the answer to the above much asked question….by far, the single most important thing we recommend that you look for is CIMSPA approval. It is very important to check that any provider you choose is CIMSPA approved. It can be very misleading researching this as some providers may make reference to CIMSPA on their website despite them having no affiliation to CIMSPA - so it’s very important that you carry out some simple checks yourself. Want to know how? Read on….
Is my provider CIMSPA recognised?
This is the key question! It is highly recommended that you check this out before you choose a course provider not after! (don’t assume or take things for face value – always check!).
The only way that you can check if a provider is CIMSPA approved is to go onto CIMSPA’s official partner directory on their website and look up the provider who you are checking out. (Make sure you search for "Partners" rather than "Members" when looking for a provider on the CIMSPA directory). This is the only way to tell if a provider is officially CIMSPA approved so please do use this tool thoroughly!
Summary
So, there you go, the first and arguably the most important thing to check when looking at what PT course provider to choose. Of course, there are lots of other things to consider, but hopefully now you know an extremely important thing that you need to do before you get too deep in comparisons!
Supporting note:
CIMSPA are the Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport & Physical Activity. They are the main regulatory body for Fitness in the UK. They are responsible for the content of all official Gym & PT qualifications and essentially provide guidance and quality assurance to all awarding bodies and training providers delivering health & fitness courses.