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YMCAfit launches women-only PT courses to help break down barriers

Based on a recent survey of women within the industry, YMCAfit has created a range of initiatives to improve access for women into fitness and a fitness career.
7 March 2022

In March 2022, we surveyed women who graduated from our fitness courses in the last 5 years to understand the barriers that they have faced within the fitness industry. The survey highlighted that:

  • 73% felt that women might face more barriers to career progression than men in the fitness industry.
  • More than 67% felt that unhelpful gender stereotyping negatively impacted women in fitness.
  • 46% felt there was negative unconscious bias from decision-makers that impacted women's careers in fitness.
  • 84% wanted fitness professionals to have a deeper understanding of female anatomy and physiology and changes through life.
  • 65% thought that lack of self-belief or confidence negatively impacted career progression for women in the fitness industry.

As a charity, we want to help make the fitness industry more inclusive and break down barriers to exercise and into the fitness industry. As a response to what the survey revealed, we dedicated to launch a pioneer Women-only Level 3 Personal Training course and will be working on creating innovative workshops to educate fitness professionals of all genders on how to make fitness more accessible for women throughout all stages of their lives. On top of that, we will be sharing the results with awarding bodies to encourage other training providers to increase women’s health content on their fitness courses.

Erica Smith, Head of YMCAfit said:
“We have been hearing from a number of women that they wouldn’t feel comfortable in a male-dominated PT course or even a mixed environment, so we have created a space to empower these women and help them thrive in their careers.

We believe women deserve fitness professionals who better understand women. Women have different experiences to men because of periods, childbirth, menopause, differing pressures from their families, society, and the media, including gender ideals and stereotypes. This has an impact on their fitness and training, both biologically and psychologically, and we want to address this.”

 

Hannah Whibberley, a YMCAfit tutor who will be teaching on the new course, said:
“It is important to make education more accessible to all women who might be interested in getting into the fitness industry. By running women-only courses, we will be able to encourage more women to join the industry who may not be able to otherwise. To get more women into fitness we need to have a greater number of female instructors, and this course will help achieve that.”

The Women’s Only Level 3 Personal Training course will provide women with everything they need to be a world-class personal trainer, all the content in the usual course, as well as offering additional skills and training to help women thrive in the fitness industry including Ante/postnatal and Older Adults content, which would normally be an extra cost.  

 

Feedback from participants in the first Women-only PT course

Andreia Ferreira, said:
“It was super inspiring to be along other women at different stages of their life and overall together we managed to inspire each other. Maybe it wouldn’t be possible in a mixed group as we felt really comfortable speaking about everything including struggles at different stages of life. At the beginning I felt that I could end up being at a loss, as the real world is mixed and I find it important to see all realities. But I feel what I got was way more rewarding and important to my personal and professional life.”

Clare Ratnavira, said:
"It was awesome, such a great bonding experience. Having spoken to other students and the tutors, it feels like we had more in-depth conversations about the challenges generally for women in fitness….periods, pregnancy, menopause etc…..which were missing in groups where the demographic was very male dominant. I’d definitely be interested in other women-only courses and would definitely recommend it.”

Visit YMCAfit's website for more information on their new women-only course. 

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