Ethical Framework for Personal Training
As a professional personal trainer , I choose to adhere to the following code of ethics:
I will be guided by the best interests of the client and will practice within the scope of my education and knowledge. I will maintain the education and experience necessary to appropriately train clients; will behave in a positive and constructive manner; and will use truth, fairness, and integrity to guide all my professional decisions and relationships.
1. Always be guided by the best interests of the client.
a. Remember that a personal trainer’s primary responsibility is to the client’s safety, health and welfare; never compromise this responsibility for your own self-interest, personal advantage or monetary gain.
b. Recommend products or services only if they will benefit the client’s health and well-being, not because they will benefit you financially or occupationally.
c. If recommending products or services will result in financial gain for you or your employer, be aware that disclosure to the client may be appropriate.
d. Base the number of training sessions on the client’s needs, not your financial requirements.
2. Maintain appropriate professional boundaries.
a. Never exploit—sexually, economically or otherwise—a professional relationship with a supervisor, an employee, a colleague or a client.
b. Respect the client’s right to privacy. A client’s conversations, behavior, results and—if appropriate—identity should be kept confidential.
c. Use physical touching appropriately during training sessions, as a means of correcting alignment and/or focusing a client’s concentration on the targeted area. Immediately discontinue the use of touch at a client’s request or if the client displays signs of discomfort.
d. Focus on the business relationship, not the client’s personal life, except as appropriate.
e. When you are unable to maintain appropriate professional boundaries or to work within the legitimate agenda of the training relationship, whether because of your own attitudes and behaviors or those of the client, either terminate the relationship or refer the client to an appropriate professional, such as another trainer, a medical doctor or a mental health specialist.
3. Maintain the education and experience necessary to appropriately train clients.
a. Continuously strive to keep abreast of the new developments, concepts, and practices essential to providing the highest-quality services to clients.
b. Recognize your limitations in services and techniques, and engage only in activities that fall within the boundaries of your professional credentials and competencies. Refer clients to other professionals for issues that fall beyond the boundaries of a personal fitness trainer’s profession or your current competencies.
c. For health screening, fitness assessment, prudent progression, and exercise technique, follow the standards outlined by professionals in the fields of medicine and health and fitness.
4. Use truth, fairness, and integrity to guide all professional decisions and relationships.
a. In all professional and business relationships, clearly demonstrate and support honesty, integrity, and trustworthiness.
b. Accurately represent your qualifications.
c. In advertising materials, be truthful and fair. When describing personal training services, be guided by the primary obligation of helping the client develop informed judgments, opinions, and choices. Avoid ambiguity, sensationalism, exaggeration, and superficiality.
d. Make your contract language clear and understandable.
e. Administer consistent pricing and procedural policies.
5. Show respect for clients and fellow professionals.
a. Act with integrity in your relationships with colleagues, facility owners and other health professionals to help ensure that each client benefits optimally from all professionals.
b. Never discriminate based on race, creed, color, gender, age, sexual orientation, physical handicap or nationality.
c. When disagreements or conflicts occur, focus on behavior, factual evidence and non-derogatory forms of communication, not on judgmental statements, hearsay, the placing of blame or other destructive responses.
d. Present fitness information completely and accurately in order to help the client make informed decisions.
6. Uphold a professional image through conduct and appearance.
a. Speak and dress in a manner that increases the client’s comfort level.
B: You shall counsel and instruct the client’s diet before starting any exercise program. Before any weight training, personally formulate a target heart rate to optimally burn fat during any cardiovascular activity per the client’s age and current aerobic condition.
C: You shall take personally anything that is said and done by and between both parties. All conversations and information exchanged are confidential. That’s why it’s called personal training. Performed correctly and professionally, the trainer takes the client’s results, self-esteem, appearance, and contentment with their service very personally.
D: You shall not work uncertified (including current CPR/AED qualified), uninsured and unprepared.
E: If necessary, you shall refer clients to a qualified medical professional that is respected and trusted. Trainers are not masseuses, physical therapists, chiropractors, doctors, nor orthopedists. Do not impersonate one!
F: You shall always look the part and profess the lifestyle. Be a lean, strong, healthy enthusiastic, passionate fitness role model for your clients
G: You shall use scientific principles in a safe programming protocol. Failure to keep complete written training records of your client’s efforts for every session is unacceptable.
H: You shall initially and routinely test body fat and reassess strength training results to assure progression. If results are sub-optimal, figure it out and correct it. Furthermore, the trainer should strive to elicit an aesthetic and/or performance-related improvement every session. Mimicking, maintaining, and repeating twice consecutively the same workout, etc. are unacceptable, non- progressive and lazy.
I: You shall, at a minimum, prescreen clients with vitals (blood pressure, resting heart rate), a medical questionnaire and more importantly, current body fat percentage to qualify their readiness to commence.
M: You shall have a contract with policies that protect and clearly instruct both parties what to expect during the term of this collaboration together.
- Personal trainers must NOT “diagnose.” They can receive guidelines from healthcare professionals, follow national consensus guidelines for exercise programming for medical disorders, screen for exercise limitations, identify potential risk factors through screening and refer clients to an appropriate allied health professional or medical practitioner.
- Personal trainers must NOT “prescribe” They can “design” exercise programs and refer clients to an appropriate allied health professional or medical practitioner for an exercise prescription.
- Personal trainers must NOT prescribe diets or recommend specific supplements. They can provide general information on healthy eating, according to the MyPyramid Food Guidance System, and they can refer clients to a dietitian or nutritionist for a specific diet plan.
- Personal trainers must NOT “treat” injury or disease. They can refer clients to an appropriate allied health professional or medical practitioner for treatment, use exercise to help improve overall health and help clients follow physician or therapist advice.
- Personal trainers must NOT “monitor” progress for medically referred clients. They can “document” progress, “report” progress to an appropriate allied health professional or medical practitioner and follow physician, therapist, or dietitian recommendations.
- Personal trainers must NOT “rehabilitate.” They can “design” an exercise program once a client has been released from rehabilitation.
- Personal trainers must NOT “counsel.” They can “coach”, provide general information, and refer clients to a qualified counselor or therapist.
- Personal trainers must NOT work with “patients.” They can work with “clients.”*(ACE)
The Basis For All Referrals
All successful fitness referral systems have a foundation as well. That foundation is a simple 3 step progression:
- Earn
- Ask
- Reward
The first step in this progression is to Earn the referral.
One thing is for certain…
Satisfied Clients Do Not Refer!
It’s not enough to have satisfied clients. You need to go way beyond that. To receive a flood of referrals you must have…
Raving Fans!
This all gets back to providing extraordinary service. You need to earn your referrals. You can’t expect your clients to refer their friends, co-workers and family members to you if you don’t over-deliver on what they’ve purchased from you.
It just won’t happen.
In fact, the most compelling fitness referral system will not persuade unhappy clients to market your personal training business for you. Nobody wants to look bad among their peers.
Your first step is to provide an extraordinary experience. There is nothing more powerful when it comes to personal trainer marketing. A question that Walt Disney used to ask himself all the time, which helped make Disneyland so successful, was…
“How Can We Do What We Do So Well, That Our Customers Can’t Help But Tell Their Friends About Us?”
You want to make the process of doing business with you so extraordinary that clients can’t help but tell their friends.
I’m not just talking about training. I’m talking about the interaction… the human interaction clients have with you and your staff. I’m talking about making the act of doing business itself so extraordinary that it leaves a mark on your client.
It all gets back to the Golden Rule – Treat others as you want to be treated.
Sounds simple, but do you or your staff do it?
How would you treat your clients if you imagined they were family? Would you treat your clients with a different level of respect?
Always approach every transaction in your business as an act of giving… not receiving. Extend yourself over and beyond the client’s expectation levels. This is critical. Extend just enough so your client says “Wow… I wish every business treated me that!”