As we enter a new year, it offers the opportunity to reflect on your endeavours, including your business or personal development portfolio. If you’re looking to expand, compliment or revamp your exercise offering entirely, it’s a good time to strategically consider what to include in your repertoire.
With last year seeing a rise in holistic wellness, it’s an opportune time to brush up on this area of knowledge and think about mindful activities, such as Pilates or yoga, or look at how exercise can offer support for those with poor mental health. Strength training and community fitness such as running clubs and general group exercise activities also continued to rise in popularity.
With these trends and insights in mind, we’ve featured five courses below to kickstart your 2026 and support your continued professional development, wherever you’re at in your career journey. These CPD opportunities comprise of in-person and online learning to help keep your development flexible. Plus, we’ve signposted further relevant resources to allow you to develop and apply your knowledge.
CPD
1. Active IQ Level 3 Diploma in Instructing Pilates Matwork
Provided by The Fitness Education Academy
10 CIMSPA CPD points
If you’re passionate about Pilates and want to help others improve their strength, flexibility, and overall well-being, the Pilates Matwork Diploma is the perfect course to begin your journey as a qualified Pilates instructor. Whether you want to teach in gyms, studios, or privately, this diploma will equip you with the skills to deliver effective and engaging Pilates classes that cater to various fitness levels.
What you’ll learn about:
- Anatomy and physiology for exercise and health
- How to support clients who take part in exercise and physical activity
- Health, safety and welfare in a fitness environment
- Principles of exercise, fitness and health
- Principles of Pilates matwork
- Programming Pilates matwork
- Instructing Pilates matwork
- Optional additional unit: Applying the principles of nutrition to a physical activity programme
2. Les Mills Initial Instructor Training
Provided by Les Mills
10CIMSPA CPD points
Kickstart your teaching journey and build a strong foundation in coaching with Les Mills group exercise classes. Through a mixture of lectures, group discussion, practical workout sessions and teaching practice you will cover the core elements of your programme so you’re ready to teach with confidence from day one.
What you’ll learn about:
- The inside workings of your chosen programme – including workout structure and why moves are performed in specific ways.
- Strategies to easily understand and learn choreography technique know-how so you can perform and evaluate technique correctly.
- Secrets to creating memorable, fun and effective workout experiences.
- Coaching skills that inspire and ensure safety.
- How your unique talents can motivate and change lives.
3. A-Z of Programme Design Strength Training
Provided by FitPro
0.5 CIMSPA CPD Points
Do you coach athletes, anywhere from grassroots level to elite? Do you want to design effective strength programmes for athletic performance and general populations alike?
This short course guides you in designing successful strength programmes that are correctly periodised (structured) to improve your clients’ force/torque-generation capability, making you a sought-after coach in your field.
What you’ll learn:
- The need for strength training within athletic preparation and the athletic benefits of strength training.
- The need to produce large ground reaction forces and joint torques within sports performance.
- The concept of ‘transfer of training effects’ and the need to replicate the biomechanical demands of sport within strength and conditioning.
- A number of squat, hinge, push and pull pattern strength-based training exercises.
- How linear, undulating, summated and concurrent periodisation can be applied to strength training within athletic performance programmes.
- How back off sets and the wave loading method can be applied within strength training.
- How Prilepin strength dose tables, volume load, minimum effective volume and maximum recovery volume can help guide training load selection.
- Han Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome model and how this underpins fundamental periodisation principles
4. British Triathlon Foundation Coach Award
Provided by British Triathlon
10 CIMSPA CPD Points
Introduce individuals to the fundamentals of coaching, providing them with the essential skills and knowledge needed to facilitate basic coaching sessions in triathlon.
The course is designed to help participants develop a foundational understanding of coaching practices and techniques, ensuring they can plan and deliver safe and effective coaching activities under the supervision of a more qualified coach.
What you’ll learn:
- The role of a foundation coach and best practices in coaching with a focus on professional ethics, values, and adherence to legislation.
- The sport of triathlon, including the necessary safety equipment and clothing, and the importance of ensuring participants’ health and safety.
- How to plan, deliver, monitor, and review effective coaching activities while engaging and supporting participants.
- Coaching approaches for children and young people.
- The basic techniques used in swimming, cycling, running, and transitions in triathlon, along with guidance on developing one’s coaching practice.
5. CIMSPA Member Webinar – Cultivating a Healthy Mindset for Exercise & Movement
Provided by CIMSPA
0.5 CIMSPA CPD Points
This webinar features Dan Hancock, founder of Mental Health & Exercise Coaching (MHEC), a 3-star ‘Enhancing’ quality assured CIMSPA training provider partner that specialise in teaching early mental health intervention through exercise.
In this session Dan focuses on various mental health conditions, talking about progressive solutions to support people experiencing poor mental health, and offering guidance for looking after your own mental health whilst supporting others.
To view this webinar, you’ll need to log into your member dashboard and use the link within the ‘My member webinars’ section.
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