CIMSPA: How are they elevating fitness industry standards – interview with Ben Coomber

“This industry needs regulation!”

“Too many cowboys!”

“£29 and a weekend course and you’re a PT nowadays!”

Ever heard, thought or said something similar to the above? I know I have. It’s no secret that regulation within the health and fitness space has been lacking for a very, very long time, and most of us almost gave up on any hope of the situation improving.

The task has ostensibly been down to REPS in recent years, but after the situation continued to worsen with terrible quality accredited courses springing up left and right, the mantle was passed to The Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity, CIMSPA. These responsibilities came along with rumblings in the government along the lines of “either self-regulate the industry or regulation will be imposed” according to a CIMSPA meeting that Ben and Tom both attended along with other industry stakeholders.

But of course, there are a lot of questions that need to be answered here. Top-down regulation can be good, but only if that regulation is itself well managed and appropriate – we’ve seen ineffective regulation and it’s not hard to see how regulation could be a bad thing if mismanaged, but it goes beyond that.

For a start, why SHOULD fitness professionals bother to sign up to regulation when they’ve been working without it for – in many cases – literally decades?

Well we were offered a chance to ask these questions, and now you can hear exactly what CIMSPA had to say in response!

1. In this Live Interview with Phill Wright from CIMSPA - Ben asks...
2. How are CIMSPA changing the fitness industry for personal trainers & coaches?
3. How do CIMSPA plan to improve our industry standards across the sector?
4. What changes have happened recently since the REPS takeover?
5. What are the 3-5 year plans for CIMSPA?
6. Who regulates CIMSPA, if they are the regulator?
7. How do coaches get involved in feeding back their ideas for the sector, so the standards always evolve from the front line?
8. Where do the insurers play a role in covering trainers vs the qualifications they have?

How do we find out more, and get involved?

If you’re a fitness professional or you’d like to be, then you NEED to hear this. It could be a really positive but highly influential factor in how our industry looks in the coming years 

So scroll down to the bottom of this page to watch it in full

Or click here to listen on Ben Coomber Radio

Once you’ve had a listen, if you want to be a part of the conversation, visit: https://www.cimspa.co.uk/ and join their Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cimspa.strongertogether

About time something like this came along, if you ask us!