Posted on 10 May 18
Life Fitness – the global leader in commercial fitness equipment with brands including Hammer Strength, Cybex, Indoor Cycling Group and SCIFIT – has gained Professional Recognition from Active IQ for its Life Fitness Academy.
The Life Fitness Academy CPD courses are offered globally across the group to ensure its staff and external trainer network are highly skilled to deliver meaningful, effective and safe programmes for their customers. Rather than simply looking at the content of this training, Life Fitness is committed to explain the context of each customer’s training programme.
“The exerciser experience is of the utmost importance to us: just knowing how a piece of equipment works and how to use it safely is only part of the service we seek to offer,” says Chris Rock, International Education Manager at Life Fitness. “We believe strongly in the learner striving to understand the ‘why’ in our education and are just as concerned with ‘how’ they take the information and experiences they have with us and how they embed this learning in their own delivery. For us to be effective at the Life Fitness Academy, our trainers need advanced and specific development to be able to deliver a replicable experience to our customers.
“Working with Active IQ, we maintain our standards of ‘what’ we deliver, and this is demonstrated by this latest accreditation which we believe takes our offering to another level,” says Chris. “Once in agreement with Active IQ, we prepared resources for our facility to use during their training to ensure a high standard of educational delivery. We worked closely with the Active IQ Professional Recognition team to create a suite of training tools including learner files, learner manuals, session plans and guidance notes to support our staff’s learning and understanding. Not only has this proved a valuable resource for our UK Academy, it was also part of our global standardisation process.”
Life Fitness sought Professional Recognition from Active IQ and its partner CIMSPA to demonstrate its commitment to standardisation, professionalism and development within the industry. “To be truly effective we believe we need to be aligned with the leading governing bodies in our industry,” Chris explains.
“Professional Recognition brings credibility to businesses and offers greater assurances to their staff, partners and customers,” says Tad Chapman, Business Development Manager for Active IQ. “Life Fitness Academy was already established and had an enviable reputation in the industry but by working with us they updated and improved their training and services, standardised their delivery globally and enhanced the training of their instructors. Professionalism in our industry is increasingly important and by undertaking our Professional Recognition process, Life Fitness has shown itself to be actively working in line with professional standards. Having external verification alongside internal scrutiny brings an added layer of assurance that Life Fitness Academies are delivering a highly professional and effective service.”
“We have an excellent partner in Active IQ,” says Chris. “They were immediately open to discussions and easy to work with. There was great transparency in the process and we were walked through each step, being provided the necessary support and guidance,” he says. “The team was friendly, approachable and professional. Every question we had was answered quickly and with clarity. It was an enjoyable process and we learned a great deal along the way.”