Personal Training Terms and Conditions

What are Personal Training Terms and Conditions?

Personal Training Terms and Conditions (Terms) are essential for any personal trainer.

This document governs your client’s engagement of your services and establishes the terms upon which your services are provided.

Personal Training Terms, due to the unique nature of the service provided, requires additional terms to ensure you are adequately protected.  

Don’t leave your business’s legal protection to chance. Contact us to receive reliable legal guidance that’s specifically tailored to your gym or fitness business.

Why are Personal Training Terms and Conditions so important?

These Terms are essential for your fitness or gym business. Without having these in place, you could be exposed to significant liability, especially if your insurance doesn’t cover you in the event you haven’t put in place terms and conditions to protect the business.

Most personal trainers we know operate as sole traders and so it’s even more dangerous from a legal perspective as you and the business are one and the same person!

The Terms are a vitally important document because it protects your business by limiting its liability as much as possible, establishing your rights and your client’s obligations and making it abundantly clear that your clients accept the risks associated with exercising and that they are solely responsible for how they conduct themselves while exercising.

Key Clauses to Consider in Personal Training Terms and Conditions

By having this document in place, it assists in avoiding legal issues and disputes down the track.  Here are the key clauses that should be included in your Terms.

Description of services

You should include a clear description of the range of services you provide, and also make clear any exclusions. This assists in avoiding any confusion or conflicts with clients.

Client obligations

Clients should be aware of their obligations, such as acting in good faith, disclosing any medication they take, any previous injuries, completing any medical questionnaire within a reasonable amount of time and provide accurate and current information, arriving to sessions on time and providing any required notice before rescheduling any sessions.

Payment terms

Do you expect weekly, monthly or yearly payments? Do you provide subscriptions?

You should consider how you wish to be paid for your services and include this in your terms and conditions.

Limiting liability

It’s important to include limiting liability clauses in your terms and conditions, to reduce your liability as much as legally permissible.

You should also note the limitations of liability within the Terms do not exclude rights that may not be excluded by law, including but not limited to, those rights under the Australian Consumer Law.

Cancellations

What is your cancellation policy? Is there a minimum term that clients sign up to? Are any cancellation fees required?

Do you allow clients to re-schedule sessions and on what conditions? Does a certain amount of notice need to be provided? Is payment for sessions forfeited if they fail to attend a session?

These are the kinds of questions you should consider when drafting cancellation terms.

You should also include provisions in the Terms that you may terminate the services if your client breaches your Terms, for example if they fail to pay your fees.

Code of conduct

If you are conducting any group sessions, it’s wise to have a code of conduct included in your terms and conditions to establish what is appropriate behaviour and any conduct that is not tolerated.

Use of images and testimonials

Consider including in your terms that clients agree that you may use any images, such as “before and after” transformation images that they provide you and any testimonials in your promotional and marketing materials.

What are some other legal documents you should have in place?

Medical History questionnaire

This document is important as it ensures that from the outset you are made aware of any medical conditions or injuries of your clients and can assess whether it is appropriate for a particular client to receive personal training and whether to request a sign off from their doctor before they start training.

Disclaimer and Waiver

A Waiver is very important as it states that your clients acknowledge and accept all risks of injury from training and exercise programs and that they essentially waive (give up) any existing right to take legal action against your business. Though, it’s important to note that you can’t contract out of your own negligence.

A Disclaimer is also advantageous to have as it lists all the circumstances that you are not responsible for and the areas that your clients accept sole responsibility for.

Some examples of basic areas for disclaimers for personal trainers include:

1. No representations that you are a health practitioner or registered medical professional.

2. That you don’t practise medicine and do not purport to diagnose or treat medical conditions or diseases but will use your services to propose possibilities for improving their health.

3. The implementation of any physical exercises, following any dietary recommendations you provide to them may have unexpected or unintended consequences, which may vary from person to person, and that they acknowledge that if they perform any recommended exercises and follow any dietary recommendations, they do so at their own risk.

4. Prior to starting any of our recommended physical exercises or implementing our dietary recommendations, they should always consult with their medical practitioner.

5. Any information or exercises provided in our exercise videos are for educational purposes only and does not constitute professional or medical advice. They should always consult with their medical practitioner before beginning any exercises or exercise videos you provide.

These are just a few examples, there are many more…

These documents can be provided to your clients as separate documents or attached to your Personal Training Terms and Conditions.

Privacy Policy

As personal trainers collect a multitude of personal health information from clients, under the Privacy Act 1988, you are legally obligated to have a Privacy Policy, regardless of your turnover.

See our article on Privacy Policies here that provides further details on what should be included.

Further considerations

Holding the appropriate qualifications

In order to trade as a personal trainer in Australia, you must have the required certification, which is a Certificate III in Fitness (SIS30315) and Certificate IV in Fitness (SIS40215). It’s a legal requirement to hold those certificates.

You should note that if you only hold a Certificate III in Fitness you are only permitted to work as a gym floor instructor, which involves instructing on the proper use of gym equipment and you are permitted with work with small groups in the gym.

Insurance

It is highly beneficial to have professional indemnity insurance and public liability insurance to protect your business from possible claims, especially since the nature of your business has risk associated with it.

Professional indemnity insurance covers situations where a client claims that the professional advice or services you provided were negligent or caused them injury or loss. As mentioned above you are liable for any acts of negligence made by you and this cannot be contracted out of.

You should also obtain public liability insurance for any personal injury or property damage suffered by a third-party as a result of you providing your services.

Trade Mark

Obtaining a registered trade mark for your business name and logo is a great way to protect your intellectual property in your business name and ensure that other businesses providing the same services don’t trade under your business name. We offer trademark registration services here.