Neal Beaumont's fitness career begins at 50
With his 50th birthday approaching, Neal Beaumont felt he needed a new challenge to focus on in his life. When he enrolled with Lifetime he had never even been in a gym until he started the Fitness Instructor course. A year on and Neal is well on the way to establishing his own personal training business.
A Chartered Management Accountant by profession, Neal worked for two multi-national companies before setting up, with some talented and ambitious colleagues, an accountancy training company in 1985. Over the next nine years, the business grew to become the largest in its niche market in the world. The Company was sold in 1995, enabling Neal to pursue a less hectic and more rounded lifestyle.
Having conducted a considerable amount of telephone, email and web research about the different options for gaining a REPs Level 3 qualification, Neal selected Lifetime based on the 'friendly, knowledgeable and ever patient advice given by Jane Jarvis'. Neal explains: "I realise now, having met many other Lifetime students, that Jane's approach to customer care is legendary."
He has completed a number of Lifetime's courses and taken full advantage of the different training options available to fit in around his other commitments and interests. At Level 2, Neal undertook the exercise and fitness knowledge module via home study and did the gym instructor course full time. At Level 3, Neal used the home study materials for the nutrition and weight management component, while the client appraisal and advanced fitness instructor modules were full time, plus a one day business skills element.
On the training, Neal adds: "The emphasis is really on the day to day nitty gritty of the health and fitness business. The gym instructor course was wonderfully hands-on and I had no trouble at all dealing with real clients from my very first day."
Neal continues: "Ben Jones and Mel Poulson are both absolutely outstanding tutors: enthusiastic, knowledgeable, amusing and approachable. The home study option worked very well for me too."
Neal is already using his qualification and putting his new skills to the test. He is currently working part time as an instructor at a gym in Plymouth to gain some more practical experience of dealing with clients, carrying out inductions and designing programmes, as well as getting a better understanding of what life on the gym floor is really like. He is also teaching 'Health for Life' and 'Nutrition for Health' courses at Plymouth College of Further Education to consolidate his theoretical knowledge.
Neal says: "I would recommend Lifetime to anyone, without reservation. These courses have been of fundamental importance to me and have really 'kick started' my career in the fitness industry."
As for the future, Neal's next goal is to hone his personal training skills by working with some trial clients on a no-fee basis. Longer term, he would like to combine his areas of expertise, and one topic he is particularly keen to explore is working with people suffering from work related stress, an increasing problem in both public and private sector organisations, and now second only to back-ache as the main cause of absenteeism in the UK.
