As personal trainers, most of us are about helping people achieve goals that they can’t on their own. There’s no shortage of amazing PTs, gyms, group classes and other fitness options to get fit people, fitter. By fit I don’t just mean gym junkies, I mean anyone that has the physical and intellectual ability to walk into a gym and achieve their goals. Of course, there’s a huge portion of the 26 million people in Australia who don’t currently have the motivation to do this (no matter how much we wish they would), but at least they do have the ABILITY to participate.
So what about people who don’t have the ABILITY?
The 4.3 million Australians with a disability, have extremely limited opportunities or access, meaning most simply can’t engage in physical activity in the fitness industry in a safe and fun manner. This isn’t a small niche, this is 17% of Australia that 99% of the fitness industry doesn’t adequately cater to. And of course there’s many more in other niches such as seniors that the fitness industry has limited offerings for.
The fitness industry has become much more inclusive and diverse over the decades, and I’ve seen more and more personal trainers doing an amazing job in disability fitness. Sadly though, this is the minority of the industry. And in a noisy industry full of body beautiful people and goals flooding social media and mainstream media, it’s no wonder that the people who need our help the most, are the least likely to seek our help.
What can we do?
There’s a lot that any fitness business can do to help people with a disability feel welcome, there’s plenty of good information on this in the disability sector. But just as importantly, you need to publicise that you cater for people living with disabilities and not let that message be drowned out by everything else your potential client sees about the fitness industry. In our case we set up a whole extra brand name Fit Your Ability with its own website and more under our original name Fitness Enhancement Personal Training. Same great PTs, but a name and websites that instantly shows our commitment to training clients with a disability. For yourself, at the very least, add some extra pages with your website talking about the disabilities you can work with.
The NDIS is the key to success!
Being inclusive to people living with disabilities is critical, but the key to getting an influx of people with a disability is the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). We’ve been training clients with disabilities for two decades,
but it had always been a tiny portion of Fitness Enhancement. That is until we became NDIS registered in 2019 shortly after its launch. In summary, and in laymen’s terms, the NDIS is government funding for people living with a disability to become as able bodied as possible and increase quality of life. Funding is predominantly spent with registered providers and/or specialist disability businesses, it’s extremely diverse and complicated as to who can get funding for what. The exciting news for the fitness industry is funding can be spent on personal training where approved! This is the first time that personal training has ever been specifically government funded for anyone at all and is a huge step forwards for both personal trainers and people with a disability who have goals that align with what a personal trainer can do! from the gym.
NDIS registration = Credibility
Being able to say you are NDIS registered is seen as a tick of approval by people with a disability, people working in the disability industry, allied health and the medical industry. For my company, we’ve used the tag line “award-winning personal trainers since 1999” since 2016. Whilst a great line few others can say, it barely gets the attention of allied health. A frustration I know much of the industry shares. Nowadays, when approaching allied health or anyone who has a basic understanding of the NDIS, we use the line “NDIS registered Personal Trainers”. Everyone is pleasantly surprised to hear that a personal trainer is NDIS registered and wants to know more with a view to giving us clients. This doesn’t just get us clients with a disability, it gets us able bodied clients who are scared of starting exercise due to stereotypes. It makes them realise that if we can help someone with a disability, we can surely help an able bodied person no matter what shape they’re in. So if you’re wanting to work with allied health providers, there’s no faster way than being able to tell them you’re NDIS registered.
An untapped market
Disability fitness, in particular for NDIS registered providers, is one of the last untapped niches in the fitness industry. In your local area you’ll likely have a huge variety of gyms specifically catering to all types of goals and all types of able bodied people, but you’re unlikely to find any that proactively promote themselves to people with a disability, or are equipped or skilled to handle many disabilities. Do a Google search and you’ll see a seemingly infinite number of gyms, boot camps, PTs and more. However, search for “NDIS personal trainer”, or even something broader such as “disability fitness” and you’ll likely only find one or two businesses in your area at best that cater to the 17% of Australians with a disability. The market is there, but sadly it’s been neglected, and at the expense of those who need our help the most. This presents an amazing opportunity for those that want to train people with a disability.
It’s not all good news
One of the reasons this is such an untapped market is the registration costs and paperwork. We’re in an extremely unregulated industry with no real mandatory paperwork, in part because we get nothing from the government. The NDIS is a government agency that give $22 billion a year to people with a disability to spend with providers. As a result, you can imagine the paperwork and expense to become registered and stay registered! For us, we have a whole team in our office working on it, including NDIS specialists. NDIS registration simply would not have been possible where my business was 10 years ago, and we were a team of about 30 then. Without the skill sets and budget we simply wouldn’t have been able to register and maintain compliance if the NDIS had existed back then. Of course, 99% of PT businesses are still in this position or even smaller, meaning they simply have to pass up this opportunity.
What about unregistered NDIS providers?
In certain situations, PTs can accept NDIS funding as an unregistered provider. Most commonly PTs will pick up this work if they already have a connection to a friend, family member or support worker of the person with a disability. A trusted and familiar PT that is unregistered is likely a better fit than an NDIS registered PT you don’t know. Other times it simply won’t be possible to find an NDIS registered PT as we’re rare, so the next best option is to find an amazing unregistered PT with experience with disabilities. However, if the participant is NDIA managed, it’s simply not possible for an unregistered provider to accept funding. Despite this it is a better option for the vast majority of PTs than going through the process of their own NDIS registration.
The best of both worlds
Another option is to come under Fitness Enhancement’s and Fit Your Ability’s NDIS registration. Whether working for a franchisee, or purchasing your own exclusive franchise territory, you’ll be able to be an NDIS registered PT. We not only have PT registration, but a variety of other line items meaning that when participants want a PT, but don’t have funding for it, we can accept it from core funding (a collection of much more than common line items) if the goals of the funding align with our diverse range of services. We take care of all the registrations and ongoing compliance and the bulk of paperwork, and we don’t charge anything extra for it!
Whichever direction is right for you, get out there and do your research and let’s work together on the disability industry, seeing the amazing results a personal trainer can get anyone of any ability.
Bio
Scott Hunt founded Fitness Enhancement in 1999. Today it is Australia’s largest Mobile PT company and Australia’s largest NDIS registered PT company. Their PTs service over 2,000 suburbs across 7 cities. Find out more about working or owing a franchise for Fitness Enhancement, and their disability fitness division Fit Your Ability.