Posted on 05 March 2021
A distinct shift towards health and fitness is happening in Saudi Arabia thanks to the Crown Prince and chairman of the Council of Economic and Development Affairs, Mohammad bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, whose Vision 2030 programme includes an ambitious goal to increase public participation in sports and athletic activities.
The support of the new regime has not only encouraged many more women to exercise for their own health: it has also opened up opportunities for Saudi ladies to train as instructors to bring more classes and fitness sessions to local women.
Leading the way to fulfil this opportunity is Tracy Aldereyaane, vice president, Spectrum® Wellness for Women. Seeing a spike in interest among women attending her classes and sessions, Tracy was quick to spot the opportunity to train ladies as instructors to meet the growing demand for ladies-only fitness classes.
“Spectrum Wellness for Women is all about empowering women to engage in fitness and wellness and the recent changes in local legislation saw a surge in demand for our classes,” she said.
“Knowing I couldn’t possibly meet that demand myself, I took the opportunity to train as a trainer to bring more female instructors into our growing market.”
Working with Active IQ
Tracy was keen to gain her professional accreditation as a trainer and training centre from Active IQ as its integrity and standards are of the highest quality. She trained on the Active IQ Professional Career Development programme and gained her accreditation at the start of September 2020 enabling her to train other women to become instructors. She lost no time in recruiting her first cohort of 20 ladies to study the Active IQ Level 2 Certificate in Group Training and was delighted to find 18 of them were Saudi women.
“When I first started training here in Saudi Arabia, instructors were mainly ex-pats from the US, South Africa and Britain,” she added.
“Now I’m seeing Saudi women wanting to train both for their own self-esteem and confidence and to be able to engage other ladies in exercise and fitness. We are breaking new ground here in Saudi Arabia to train and recruit Saudi women instructors. Active IQ’s reputation for first-rate tuition and accreditation has certainly helped gain people’s trust and confidence in our process.”
“It’s been a pleasure to support Tracy who has great vision and is highly engaging in terms of delivering her training sessions,” said Gavin Baxter, business consultant at Active IQ.
“We have good local knowledge of fitness and training in Saudi Arabia and are aware of the new opportunities opening up for fitness in general and women’s fitness in particular. We are delighted to see the great response Tracy has had to her tutoring and look forward to supporting both her and the new wave of instructors who are qualifying under her guidance and starting their new roles.”
Career plans
Fundamental to fulfilling the 2030 health and fitness vision in the Kingdom is for women to gain the necessary skills to build a career in fitness, Tracy believes. Active IQ has worked closely with her to develop resources that support discussions and explore many options – from teaching in the community to starting their own centres. Some from Tracy’s first cohort are already putting their skills to excellent use.
“Without exception, their confidence has grown and where many were very shy at the start of the process, they are now able to teach a class and go out into the community to share their enthusiasm for fitness,” she said.
“One lady really impressed me by setting up classes for women and their daughters to bring the next generation into fitness. That’s very honourable and wonderful to see.”
Change the woman in the household
Tracy firmly believes that women will drive the change to enable the Kingdom to achieve its 2030 fitness vision.
“If you change the woman in the household to lead a healthy lifestyle, this will impact her family and children,” she added.
“This will gradually change the country as women cook better meals, exercise regularly and set the best example. Before too long the whole of society will change. We are right on the leading edge of this. Currently we’re the only ones training women as instructors, trainers and assessors but, before long, others will follow our example which is exciting.”