In order to provide a sustainable service for its customers, the fitness sector needs to ensure all staff and practitioners stay connected to education, training and certification beyond their basic qualifications.

That is the headline finding of a new survey, conducted by EuropeActive, which collected feedback from key stakeholders from the European fitness sector – such as club operators, fitness professionals, training providers, higher education institutes and suppliers.

The Lifelong Learning at a European levelsurvey charted the industry’s opinions on the desired features of a potential future lifelong learning programme, which would be operated by the European Register of Exercise Professionals (EREPS).

The majority of respondents to the survey believe that the new lifelong programme should endorse and approve all continuing education courses – from both accredited and non-accredited training providers.

Other suggestions include the introduction of a regular recertification process for fitness professionals, which would see staff having to update their qualifications periodically – with a time period of between one and two years being identified as “the most attractive”.

Alexis Batrakoulis, member of the EuropeActive’s Professional Standards Committee and project coordinator for the survey, said: “There is strong evidence that a comprehensive and accredited lifelong learning programme is a crucial element of the development of exercise professionals in the European fitness sector.

“In investigating the rationale and most convenient format of a lifelong learning programme, we were provided with some very important findings in relation to how a credible and transparent lifelong learning programme can be a reality under the umbrella of EuropeActive and EREPS in the near future”.

Some of the suggestions coming out of the survey are more radical. One of the proposals was to disable the online EREPS directory profile of those exercise professionals who “systematically do not meet lifelong learning requirements”.

To read more about the Lifelong Learning at a European level survey results, click here for the EuropeActive website.