Preparing to become SS coach

[koreansavage]

In Tom's article about becoming a SS certified coach he says "You can learn about coaching and gain some practice, but effective coaching requires experience. Those that walk in the door with the skills, presence, and background generally stand out early and they are the ones who go on to take the written exam."

I am wondering if there are any legal issues or anything other issues when it comes to coaching trainees without being a certified trainer. Is there any legal risk involved? I want to gain some experience coaching and giving the correct cues. I know sharpening up a good coach's eye will take a long time, so I would like to start somewhat soon so that when I eventually attend the SSS, I have some experience.

Thanks.

[Michael Wolf]

I suggest getting a good local lawyer, who can answer these questions for you in detail. Laws vary by location, and for example, even within the US, there are Federal, State, and possibly city laws to deal with. Brodie can chime in if he sees this and feels like it, but generally asking for specific legal advice requires someone with specific legal expertise.

[koreansavage]

I suggest getting a good local lawyer, who can answer these questions for you in detail. Laws vary by location, and for example, even within the US, there are Federal, State, and possibly city laws to deal with. Brodie can chime in if he sees this and feels like it, but generally asking for specific legal advice requires someone with specific legal expertise.

Ah, I see. I don't plan on earning any money off of it. Hopefully that makes a difference, but if not, I guess I will only help my current friends for mutual benefit. Maybe a friends with benefit barbell training style

[Michael Wolf]

I don't know about that last line, but ya man, I'm not comfortable with dispensing legal advice on a subject I am not a legal expert on. If you want to have a discussion on unmoderated parts of the forum, that's on you.

Are you located in Korea?

[koreansavage]

I don't know about that last line, but ya man, I'm not comfortable with dispensing legal advice on a subject I am not a legal expert on. If you want to have a discussion on unmoderated parts of the forum, that's on you.

Are you located in Korea?

Yeah, I understand. I'm located in California.

[Brodie Butland]

I am wondering if there are any legal issues or anything other issues when it comes to coaching trainees without being a certified trainer. Is there any legal risk involved? I want to gain some experience coaching and giving the correct cues. I know sharpening up a good coach's eye will take a long time, so I would like to start somewhat soon so that when I eventually attend the SSS, I have some experience.

I can't address your specific case for a variety of reasons, but I can at least provide a general take on it that hopefully will be helpful.

So, there are two buckets of legal risk involved. The first are the legal risks asserted with coaching anyone as a general matter ("the rain falls on the certified and the uncertified alike"). The biggest risk, by far, is the potential of a trainee being injured, and that's true whether you're certified or not. The fact that you don't charge is not a legal defense...if you're offering services, even if free, you subject yourself to legal risk unless your particular state has a statutory or common law exception.* Sometimes you see exemptions with pro bono professional services, but I'm not aware of any examples involving fitness training. The other big one is unauthorized practice of other licensed professions...basically when your personal training spills over into another profession's bailiwick that requires a state license (medicine, physical therapy, athletic trainers, and dietetics are the big ones).

These legal risks can be protected against the same way that you would protect against them if you were a certified trainer--waiver, insurance, avoid being stoopid, and avoid doing things that look like the work other professions do.

The second bucket is particular risk you have by not being certified. Although no state requires licensure of personal trainers, a certification is considered a proxy for knowledge (fair or not), and that can mean something in a court of law. A trainer with a reputable certification will likely be seen differently than someone who is doing this for fun.

How can this possibly ding you in practice? Well, even states that are gung-ho on enforcing waivers will not allow a trainee to waive claims for gross negligence, recklessness, or willful misconduct. If you're training someone without having some nifty cert suggesting you know what you're doing, you run the risk that someone with a robe will see you as being completely irresponsible and your wrongdoing as going beyond ordinary negligence as a result. I'm not saying this will happen, and I'm not saying it's fair or proper if it does, but that's the risk.

So is it worth training people given the foregoing? Well, life's all about risk and what you're willing to take, and I can't recommend which way you should go because it's too dependent on what your thoughts and goals are and how much spare change you have. I trained some people before attending the SS Seminar in June 2012, well before I ever started studying legal issues relating to personal training and gym ownership, and I *gasp* didn't have a waiver or insurance at the time. Lots of other SS Coaches and other serious SS acolytes have done the same thing. To my knowledge, no one has been sued for this. Since I can't un-know what I've learned over the last three years, I would do things differently if I were back in my early 2010s self by at least drafting a waiver and trying to get some kind of insurance, since the downside of being the first example can be pretty daunting.

Also consider this: there's no such thing as risk-less activity. Even if you get a lawyer-drafted waiver and have insurance for your fledgling personal training business, a court may still find the waiver unenforceable and the judgment could greatly exceed your insurance cap. You also likely take legal risks every day that you basically ignore. When you invite people over to grill steaks, there's a non-zero chance that they'll be injured in your house (premises liability), that the grill will explode or otherwise burn them (negligence; products liability), that your dog will bite them (negligence), or that you'll feed them bad or undercooked meat and they'll be seriously injured or die from food poisoning (negligence). Despite this, I don't have my house guests sign waivers before entering, even though I could draft a pretty damn airtight one. I also don't have a prenup, despite that I married well above my grade, am the primary breadwinner, and she's bound to figure out she made a mistake eventually.

Point being, don't fret over whether you can eliminate risk entirely...otherwise you'd just stay home all day. Rather, the goal should be to manage risk to a degree that you're comfortable with. For you, this may involve lawyering up and getting a waiver and insurance, it may involve you trying to draft a waiver yourself based on some smart guy's presentation at a conference somewhere (for the love of God, don't just use Google and print one off), or you may be completely comfortable just rolling the dice knowing that the odds of snake eyes in this context is pretty low. But that's a decision only you can make.



*Caveat: I'm assuming here that you're actually treating trainees like clients...just poor-paying ones. If you are training family members only, or just training your lifting buddies, then not only is a lawsuit unlikely, but that resembles something more like doing activities together than a situation where you're offering advice to be accepted.

**None of the foregoing is intended to operate as legal advice or create an attorney-client relationship, and is presented for edumacational and blotivational purposes only.

[Maties Hofstede]

This was a good piece. Interesting and informative. I do giggle everytime I see these waivers and disclaimers, "not intended as legal advice". Americans sure as hell manage to sue (and waiver) for eveything.

[koreansavage]

I can't address your specific case for a variety of reasons, but I can at least provide a general take on it that hopefully will be helpful.

So, there are two buckets of legal risk involved. The first are the legal risks asserted with coaching anyone as a general matter ("the rain falls on the certified and the uncertified alike"). The biggest risk, by far, is the potential of a trainee being injured, and that's true whether you're certified or not. The fact that you don't charge is not a legal defense...if you're offering services, even if free, you subject yourself to legal risk unless your particular state has a statutory or common law exception.* Sometimes you see exemptions with pro bono professional services, but I'm not aware of any examples involving fitness training. The other big one is unauthorized practice of other licensed professions...basically when your personal training spills over into another profession's bailiwick that requires a state license (medicine, physical therapy, athletic trainers, and dietetics are the big ones).

These legal risks can be protected against the same way that you would protect against them if you were a certified trainer--waiver, insurance, avoid being stoopid, and avoid doing things that look like the work other professions do.

The second bucket is particular risk you have by not being certified. Although no state requires licensure of personal trainers, a certification is considered a proxy for knowledge (fair or not), and that can mean something in a court of law. A trainer with a reputable certification will likely be seen differently than someone who is doing this for fun.

How can this possibly ding you in practice? Well, even states that are gung-ho on enforcing waivers will not allow a trainee to waive claims for gross negligence, recklessness, or willful misconduct. If you're training someone without having some nifty cert suggesting you know what you're doing, you run the risk that someone with a robe will see you as being completely irresponsible and your wrongdoing as going beyond ordinary negligence as a result. I'm not saying this will happen, and I'm not saying it's fair or proper if it does, but that's the risk.

So is it worth training people given the foregoing? Well, life's all about risk and what you're willing to take, and I can't recommend which way you should go because it's too dependent on what your thoughts and goals are and how much spare change you have. I trained some people before attending the SS Seminar in June 2012, well before I ever started studying legal issues relating to personal training and gym ownership, and I *gasp* didn't have a waiver or insurance at the time. Lots of other SS Coaches and other serious SS acolytes have done the same thing. To my knowledge, no one has been sued for this. Since I can't un-know what I've learned over the last three years, I would do things differently if I were back in my early 2010s self by at least drafting a waiver and trying to get some kind of insurance, since the downside of being the first example can be pretty daunting.

Also consider this: there's no such thing as risk-less activity. Even if you get a lawyer-drafted waiver and have insurance for your fledgling personal training business, a court may still find the waiver unenforceable and the judgment could greatly exceed your insurance cap. You also likely take legal risks every day that you basically ignore. When you invite people over to grill steaks, there's a non-zero chance that they'll be injured in your house (premises liability), that the grill will explode or otherwise burn them (negligence; products liability), that your dog will bite them (negligence), or that you'll feed them bad or undercooked meat and they'll be seriously injured or die from food poisoning (negligence). Despite this, I don't have my house guests sign waivers before entering, even though I could draft a pretty damn airtight one. I also don't have a prenup, despite that I married well above my grade, am the primary breadwinner, and she's bound to figure out she made a mistake eventually.

Point being, don't fret over whether you can eliminate risk entirely...otherwise you'd just stay home all day. Rather, the goal should be to manage risk to a degree that you're comfortable with. For you, this may involve lawyering up and getting a waiver and insurance, it may involve you trying to draft a waiver yourself based on some smart guy's presentation at a conference somewhere (for the love of God, don't just use Google and print one off), or you may be completely comfortable just rolling the dice knowing that the odds of snake eyes in this context is pretty low. But that's a decision only you can make.



*Caveat: I'm assuming here that you're actually treating trainees like clients...just poor-paying ones. If you are training family members only, or just training your lifting buddies, then not only is a lawsuit unlikely, but that resembles something more like doing activities together than a situation where you're offering advice to be accepted.

**None of the foregoing is intended to operate as legal advice or create an attorney-client relationship, and is presented for edumacational and blotivational purposes only.

Thanks for giving me an in depth run down. You just dropped some serious knowledge. You made a good point about how risk can not be completely eliminated; everything activity in life is a risk... I think I'm just going to roll the dice and train some students. I've gotta get that coach's eye somehow.

[Katherine Bickford]

I trained a handful of folks for free before the seminar, waiver, cert, and insurance free. I made it very clear to them that I was "helping" them what I knew, not "coaching" them (dunno why that was significant to me, but it seemed to make it feel better) and that I was trying to learn to coach better. They were also my friends, so I didn't have to solicit strangers into some kind of arrangement. I made it known that I wanted practice helping people learn the lifts and people came to me. I also had them use the app and read the book. I was present while they did what the app told them to do, and I helped them follow what the book and app said. We paid to have a membership in the same gym, where we all signed the waiver for the gym.

Not sure that ANY of this would have protected me if someone had become injured while trying to perform the lifts the way that I was telling them to, but my FEELS (and the feels of my trainees) were assuaged because there was something else of authority we were following. I literally didn't let them call me coach until I passed, although sometimes they tried to anyway. I was a friend helping out my friends. If you're concerned about legal issues, you may try it this way.

Also, I believe that if you attend a seminar, your Certificate of Attendance qualifies you for insurance through Sports & Fitness Insurance. It says so here: seminar-course | The Aasgaard Company. You could attend a seminar, learn a lot about the method, and then cover your ass for pre-cert coaching by getting insured.

[Brodie Butland]

This was a good piece. Interesting and informative. I do giggle everytime I see these waivers and disclaimers, "not intended as legal advice". Americans sure as hell manage to sue (and waiver) for eveything.

Yeah, it's for professional CYA reasons. You'd be shocked at how some attorneys just started talking to someone loosely, and suddenly got stuck representing them. (And they couldn't even withdraw because the court wouldn't let them.)