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TRAINFITNESS Update V26-23

Frailty has a reputation as something that happens to your client and that you, as their PT, are largely a bystander to. Recent research however is saying something different. In this week’s article we take a look at what the most recent research tells us about pre-frailty and why pre-frail older clients respond faster to well-designed exercise than almost anyone expects. There is a window of opportunity here that many of us are walking past without realising it.

In This Week's Update:

• Pre-Frail Clients Respond Faster Than You Think
• Train Smarter This Quarter
• Upcoming Course Dates
• More From Our Blog

Get a FREE Exercise for Older Adults Course worth £399 with any PT Diploma. Plus EXTRA £250 off when you pay in full upfront.

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Pre-Frail Clients Respond Faster Than You Think

Picture an older client you have worked with, or one who is currently on your books. They are in their late sixties or seventies, generally well, but you have noticed the things you notice. They get a little slower across the room. They take longer to stand up from a low chair. They are not unwell, they are not housebound, but something has shifted. They are not who they were five years ago.

The clinical word for what you are looking at is pre-frailty. It sits in a recognisable space between robust health and frank frailty, and it has its own diagnostic criteria, its own evidence base and its own set of interventions that work. The reason this is worth our attention is that pre-frailty is the stage at which exercise has the biggest impact. By the time a client is fully frail, the conversation changes and the work usually shifts to a multidisciplinary clinical setting. The pre-frail client is still very much in your scope and responds faster than almost anyone expects.

There has been quite a bit of research into this subject of late. New systematic reviews have refined the intervention picture and a 2024 review of frailty-reversal studies reported that 36% of participants moved from frail to a less frail category through structured exercise alone. The UK has been at the forefront of this field for two decades. Professor Dawn Skelton's group at Glasgow Caledonian University developed the Falls Management Exercise (FaME) programme, which now sits behind the World Falls Guidelines and the NHS RightCare Frailty Toolkit. Pre-frail clients respond, and they respond fast.

Build the Skillset for the Over-60s Boom

If this article has confirmed something you already suspected (that older clients are an under-served market and working with them can be genuinely impactful), the Exercise for Older Adults course is the most direct way to formalise that skillset. It covers the ageing process, pre-frailty and frailty screening, programme design for common age-related conditions and the communication and behaviour-change tools that make a real difference with this client group.

Exercise for Older Adults Course Priced from £349 or £67/month

Get a FREE Exercise for Older Adults Course worth £399 with any PT Diploma. Plus EXTRA £250 off when you pay in full upfront.

Gym Instructor & Personal Trainer Practitioner Diploma Priced from £999 or £104/month

3 to 48 month payment plans from 0% interest available on all courses.

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Train Smarter This Quarter

This week's offers focus on broadening your toolkit for the kinds of clients most likely to walk through the door: older adults, recovering and rehab clients, and those who want functional, real-world fitness. You can also get a free Exercise for Older Adults Course with any PT diploma, and we have a range of CPD courses to extend the practical side of your programming.

Personal Trainer Diplomas

Save an EXTRA £250 on any PT Diploma (Practitioner, Specialist or Master) when you pay in full upfront. Plus every PT enrolment gets a FREE Exercise for Older Adults Course worth £399.

Gym Instructor & Personal Trainer Practitioner Diploma Priced from £999 or £104/month

Nutrition & Exercise Specialist & Master Diplomas™ Priced from £1549 or £150/month

Strength & Conditioning Exercise Specialist & Master Diplomas™ Priced from £1549 or £150/month

Women's Health & Exercise Specialist & Master Diplomas™ Priced from £1549 or £150/month

Already Qualified PTs

Already hold a Level 3 PT qualification? You can also save an EXTRA £250 when you upgrade your existing qualifications to Specialist or Master Diplomas when you pay in full upfront. Anyone who upgrades also gets a free Exercise for Older Adults course worth £399.

Level 3 & 4 Personal Trainer Specialist Diplomas Priced from £700 or £83/month

Level 4 Personal Trainer Master Diplomas Priced from £949 or £100/month

Padwork Training

Padwork is one of the most engaging tools for working on reaction time, coordination and cognitive load with older clients, all of which carry directly into fall prevention. It is also brilliant fun in a 1:1 setting. Save £50 with code CPD20.

Padwork Training Course Priced from £199 or £42/month

5-in-1 CPD Course Bundle

Five CPD qualifications (Olympic Lifting, Kettlebells, Padwork, Suspension Fitness and Advanced Stretching) for the price of two and a half. The single most efficient way to broaden your programming toolkit across multiple modalities. Save £625 with code CPDB50.

CPD Course Bundle Priced from £625 or £104/monthh

Suspension Fitness

Suspension training gives you a low-impact, fully scalable resistance modality that adapts to any client level. Particularly useful for older clients building strength back up without joint loading. Save £50 with code CPD20.

Suspension Fitness Course Priced from £199 or £42/monthh

Exercise for Disabled Clients

With disability affecting roughly 18% of the UK population, the demand for trainers who can deliver inclusive, adapted exercise sessions continues to grow. This course gives you the framework. Save £50 with code EDC10.

Exercise for Disabled Clients Course Priced from £349 or £67/monthh

3 to 48 month payment plans from 0% interest available on all courses.

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Know someone who has been thinking about retraining into fitness? Send them your personal referral link and you will earn 10% of the course value when they enrol, paid to your bank or PayPal. We have already paid out over £40,000 to our partners and signing up takes about a minute. Register here.

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Upcoming Course Dates

We have the following upcoming course start dates:

3 to 48 month payment plans from 0% interest available on all courses.

Contact us on:

Check out all our courses here.

More From Our Blog

Here are some more great articles in our blog:

• Why Some Clients Stick and Others Quietly Disappear
• Mix Strength and Cardio Without Losing
• Power Training for Older Adults
• Exercise as First-Line Treatment for Diabetes
• Motivational Interviewing: The Advanced Coaching Skill Setting Top PTs Apart
• Why Resistance Training is Non-Negotiable During Perimenopause
• The Right and Wrong Way to Study with AI
• The Sleep-Nutrition Connection
• Creatine Beyond Muscles
• Not All Sets Are Created Equal
• What's Shaping Fitness This Year
• The Strength Test That May Predict How Long You Live
• Do Carbs Really Build Muscle?
• The Science of Training for Lifelong Health
• Exercise Through the Ages

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