The last couple of days have been spent traveling the long and frustrating M62 from Manchester to Leeds. I am still always amazed just how long the roadworks on this stretch of motorway have been there, but as always my backlog of podcasts kept me going!

The reason that I was making this hellish journey was to teach a Exercise Referral Course to a great bunch of personal trainers for FIE. The Leeds Exercise Referral group was a small but dedicated bunch, with some great questions and a genuine interest in helping their prospective clients! This is always a great thing to see in those that are new to the industry.

The new exercise referral qualification is great, and a massive improvement on the previous formats that I have taught over the years. This course really helps to get students prepared for the real world of working with special populations.

One of the key questions that I was asked was ‘will the course prepare us for the reality of working with special populations?’ My answer was a non-committal one, in that the course does go a long way to prepare you for working in this highly rewarding area but you need to specialise in one or maximum two conditions and use your foundation level knowledge acquired from the course to increase you depth of knowledge for your desired area of specialty.

This brings me onto an important point in that we as professionals need to keep learning and developing, whatever or area of interest is!

TOM