Work in Health Management or Fitness Management 

Are you suited to a management role? 
Are you dedicated to the health and fitness industry? 
Are you keen to develop your understanding of managing a business?

• Learn about management, marketing and business
• Learn about the Health and Fitness industry
• Combine these skills and discover opportunities for employment and business in Health and Fitness
• 900 hour, self paced practical course

This course creates the key skills needed to work in or manage facilities and services concerned with health or fitness, for example, exercise programs, fitness centres, clubs, gymnasiums, sports complexes, sports administration and swimming pools.

• Suits school leavers (with Year 11 minimum) or mature age students.
• Build a foundation in both management and the health & fitness industry

Modules

Note that each module in the Advanced Certificate Applied Management (Health & Fitness) is a short course in its own right, and may be studied separately.

Study, Learn and Work in the Health and Fitness industry

CORE UNITS Click on each module for more details

Office Practices
Develops basic office skills covering use of equipment, communication systems (telephone, fax, etc) and office procedures such as filing, security, workplace organisations, etc. 

Business Operations

Develops knowledge of basic business operations and procedures (eg. types of businesses, financial management, business analysis, staffing, productivity, etc) and the skills to develop a 12 month business plan.

 

Management

Develops knowledge of management structures, terminology, supervision, recruitment and workplace health and safety.

 

Marketing Foundations.

Develops a broad understanding of marketing and specific skills in writing advertisements, undertaking market research, developing an appropriate marketing plan and selling. 

 

STREAM UNITS

Click on each module below for more detail or scroll down for brief outlines

Module 1: Health & Wellbeing 

This comprehensive foundation course develops an understanding of the nature and scope of human health and wellbeing, and of the health and fitness industry looking at subjects such as nutrition, lifestyle, preventative health, and alternative medicine.  There are 8 lessons in this course:

1. Introduction and Overview
2. Modern Lifestyle Problems
3. Human Nutrition
4. Healthy Eating
5. Stress Management
6. Preventative Health
7. Alternative Medicine
8. Basic First Aid

Module 2: Personal Fitness

This highly practical course helps you to understand what fitness really is, and enables you to develop a balanced fitness program for yourself or for people around you covering topics such as the human body, principals of exercise programming, and weight control. There are 8 lessons in this course:

1. Reasons for Fitness 
2. Understanding your body
3. Testing your fitness
4. Exercises for specific purposes
5. Nutrition and Weight control
6. Endurance and Suppleness
7. Home Medicine and First Aid
8. Designing an Exercise Program

Module 3: Leisure Facility Management I

This comprehensive introductory course focuses on the management and development of recreational facilities (eg. Leisure centres, Swim Centres, Sporting complexes, Gymnasiums, Health clubs etc.) Over 13 lessons, it deals with both day to day management as well as more broad based planning, development and redevelopment. There are 13 lessons in this course:

1. The Scope of Recreation Facility Management 
2. The Nature of Recreation Facility Management
3. Legal Requirements for Construction
4. Planning Construction Work
5. Outdoor Equipment
6. Indoor Equipment
7. Safety Procedures
8. Equipment Needs
9. Purchasing
10. Bookings
11. Contingencies
12. Insurance Issues
13. Managing a Recreation Facility

INDUSTRY PROJECT OR WORK EXPERIENCE

This is the final requirement that you must satisfy before receiving your award.

There are two options available to you to satisfy this requirement:

Alternative 1.

If you work in the industry that you have been studying; you may submit a reference from your employer, in an effort to satisfy this industry (ie. workplace project) requirement; on the basis of RPL (ie. recognition for prior learning), achieved through your current and past work experience.

The reference must indicate that you have skills and an awareness of your industry, which is sufficient for you to work in a position of responsibility.

Alternative 2.

If you do not work in the relevant industry, you need to undertake a project as follows.

Procedure for a Workplace Project

This project is a major part of the course involving the number of hours relevant to the course (see above). Although the course does not contain mandatory work requirements, work experience is seen as highly desirable.

This project is based on applications in the work place and specifically aims to provide the student with the opportunity to apply and integrate skills and knowledge developed through various areas of formal study.

Students will design this project in consultation with a tutor to involve industry based activities in the area of specialized study which they select to follow in the course. The project outcomes may take the form of a written report, folio, visuals or a mixture of forms. Participants with relevant, current or past work experience will be given exemption from this project if they can provide suitable references from employers that show they have already fulfilled the requirements of this project.

For courses that involve more than 100 hours, more than one workplace project topic may be selected. For example, 200 hours may be split into two projects each of 100 hours. This will offer the student better scope to fulfill the needs of their course and to meet the number of hours required. Alternatively, the student may wish to do one large project with a duration of 200 hours.

Students will be assessed on how well they achieve the goals and outcomes they originally set as part of their negotiations with their tutor. During each 100 hours of the project, the students will present three short progress reports. These progress reports will be taken into account when evaluating the final submission. The tutor must be satisfied that the work submitted is original.

If the student wishes to do one large 200 hour report, then only three progressive reports will be needed (however the length of each report will be longer).

The Health and Fitness Industry

Health and Fitness are simply some of many the different words used to describe people being in good condition. There are many different services and products on offer which promise to improve or maintain a state of wellbeing, and any (or all) of these goods and services might be considered to be part of the health and fitness industry. These can include things as variable as medical services through to sport, recreation, food and natural therapies.

The Health and Fitness industry is not a clearly defined industry. It does have many aspects to it, and it does overlap into many different fields. Your perception of the scope of this field may be limited as you commence this course; but on completing the course it should have broadened considerably; and in doing so your prospects for employment should have also broadened.

Scope of the Health and Fitness Industry

The following are just some of the organisations/businesses which might employ people with management skills in the health and fitness industry:

• Recreation Centres
• Gymnasiums
• Swimming Pools
• Sporting Clubs
• Medical Practitioners
• Chiropractors or Naturopaths
• Health Food Shops
• Health food manufacturers

This is a short list as well as Gymnasium or Sports equipment businesses (retailers or manufacturers), Resorts, Hotels, Tourist industry, and Schools.

There are also many different forms of working with the body for better physical fitness. Modalities such as callisthenics, jogging, and weight training were some of the first forms that became popular. Through the years, many other forms have developed such as aerobics, yoga (which has actually been around for centuries), Pilates and then hybrids from each of these such as yogalates, body pump, and water aerobics as well as many other forms of exercising the body.

REASONS FOR FITNESS

Physical fitness is the capability of the heart, blood vessels, lungs and muscles to function at optimal efficiency - Fitness is broader than just this though! A person's mental attitude towards life is another aspect of fitness. Mental stress (pressures from situations at work, home etc.) can affect a person's fitness just as much as malnutrition or a physical injury. Stress is very often related to physical fitness.

A stressed person can have difficulty with muscles etc. tensing or pulling where they should not pull, placing pressure on nerves, bones etc., and leading to other problems. Allergies to foods, dust, even the common bacteria which can occur in everyone's throat can pose problems to a person’s fitness, or complicate already existing problems.

The single most important fact to understand about human fitness is the complexity of the human body, and the fact that this complexity makes fitness a multi-faceted thing. (You will never be fit by just eating right, or just exercising).

In a nutshell, fitness comes only by developing a balanced approach to life in all of the important spheres of life.

Example:

• Eat healthy foods which you are not allergic or sensitive to, which provide all the necessary nutrients in adequate but not excessive amounts
• Exercise all of the parts of the body regularly and adequately
• Know how to relax, to rest the body both physically and mentally.