Horsham-based female personal trainer, Becky, recently had the opportunity to speak at a fitness event with a difference. She shares her experience here…
Ten years ago, I honestly didn’t know what the inside of a gym looked like. Last weekend, having in the past decade got fit, survived a sarcoma, qualified as a PT during a pandemic, and ultimately given up my office job to coach full-time, I shared my professional knowledge with a room full of people who work in the fitness industry. I’m going to tell you more about that last one…
Fitness Unprofessionals Live 2026
Back in January, I saw an announcement for an event organised by four women, two of whom I’ve followed on social media for a while. If you aren’t aware, unfortunately, the majority of fitness events are still run like it’s 1986, not 2026, and continue to spout old-fashioned messaging about calories and muscle growth and all kinds of disordered behaviours.
The team behind Fitness Unprofessionals is different. They have a huge amount of experience between them, and have walked through the storm of experiencing the traditional fitness mindset, coming out the other side and shaking off the damaging trends in order to promote a very different message. And that’s something I want to be part of.
In addition to four in-depth talks about topics I’m interested in, this event offered the chance for attendees to apply to contribute a short talk of their own. I casually tossed my hat into the ring, and was shocked when it was thrown back at me and I was told to show up wearing it (I didn’t actually have to wear a hat, I just ran with the metaphor there).
And that’s how, the day before International Women’s Day, I walked into a room, took the mic, and told a group of my peers what to do when one of their clients receives a cancer diagnosis.
Key points I made
I only had 10 minutes to speak, and anyone who’s met me knows that I probably could’ve comfortably riffed for about an hour. So this talk had to be properly honed, and there was sadly a lot that I couldn’t get into. The key messages that I wanted to share were:
- For personal trainers to safely work with cancer patients and survivors in the UK, they should hold a current Level 4 cancer exercise certification. As I suspected, awareness of the qualification was low – I think this may relate to how common of an experience cancer is. I shared this information for everyone’s safety…
- Whilst exercise is generally safe for those currently undergoing cancer treatment, there are some important things to be aware of and monitor, including the occurrence of any “red flag” symptoms, what treatment the person is undergoing, and that immediately following surgery, training is an absolute no go
- Exercise has been proven to reduce the risk of recurrence in some types of cancer. We now have strong evidence that this is the case for breast and bowel cancer in particular, which is brilliant news, and will hopefully encourage more people to take up exercise when they are able to
Other things I learned throughout the day
As I mentioned, there were four main talks taking place, and despite the fact that I’ve already done some learning on a couple of the topics featured, I still picked up new information. My favourite things I learned this time are:
- Some osteoporosis medication has to be taken on an empty stomach, and then you can’t lie down for an hour afterwards. This has key implications for exercise, as we generally prefer clients have eaten at least a snack prior to training, and we often do exercises in the gym that involve being horizontal – the message here is to know what your clients are taking so that you can keep them safe!
- Educating clients about the difference between pain and discomfort is really important. This is something that I’ve experienced already in my work, and I was grateful to have it backed up by other experts and some strategies and guidelines to work with. I support a lot of people who are (justifiably) worried about exercise causing pain or damage, and I now have some better ideas of how to help
- A good suggestion for those who struggle with noticing hunger cues, and may therefore “forget to eat” or not find the will to eat is to employ a tactic that we use with exercise too. Encourage people to sit down and take in three bites of food, to see if they can then kick start the impulse to eat; if they don’t want more food after three bites, they can notice this and walk away from the food, but it is worth trying to start eating in order to see if they can then achieve the impulse, particularly if it’s been several hours since they last ate
Fitness events of the future
I’m really pleased to say that my talk was well-received – thank you to everyone who shared their thoughts on it! I’d love to speak to more people about my work – why it’s important to know what you’re doing when it comes to cancer patients and survivors, some specifics in how to guide them, and encouraging them to exercise and enjoy their lives, plus sharing my own story. So if you’re organising an event for which the programme would benefit from this kind of information, please do get in touch.
It’s truly refreshing to experience fitness events that are moving away from promoting a singular body standard, and the type of old-fashioned messaging that is designed to keep people out, rather than broaden access to the sector professionally and in terms of leisure activities and health-promoting behaviours. Many thanks to organisers Chloe, Juliet, Michelle and Sky for giving me a platform to use, and long may we continue changing the game.