Fitness has never been short of famous faces. But sometimes the people who most deserve the spotlight are the ones standing just outside it.
Scroll through social media, browse a magazine rack or look at the people shaping conversations around fitness and health, and visibility can often be driven by celebrity, aesthetics or follower count.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. But it can mean that the people quietly doing some of the most important work in our industry rarely become the story.
The Personal Trainer arriving at 6am for their first client. The coach helping someone walk confidently into a weights area for the first time. The person adapting a programme around cancer treatment, menopause, injury, parenthood or a crisis of confidence. The PT who knows when to push, when to listen and when simply turning up is the victory.
Those were the people YOUR Personal Training wanted to find. Through our recent partnership with Women’s Fitness and Men’s Fitness, two of them are now exactly where we think they belong: on the cover.
Putting real Personal Trainers front and centre
Earlier this year, YOUR Personal Training joined forces with Women’s Fitness and Men’s Fitness to search for the UK’s Personal Trainers of the Year. The theme was Unsung Heroes.
We weren’t looking for the biggest Instagram following. We weren’t searching for the most elaborate workout or the most polished personal brand. We really wanted to hear about impact.
We wanted to find the trainers whose clients talk about them differently. Coaches who have created communities, changed behaviours, rebuilt confidence and helped people discover things they didn’t think they were capable of.
As the UK’s largest self-employed personal training career platform, working with operators across more than 420 gym and leisure sites, we see that work every day. The response to the award still reminded us how much of it is happening, in gyms and leisure centres across the country, largely unrecorded.
And from an incredibly strong field, two winners emerged: Anna Jarvis and Michael Baah.
Now, both appear as cover stars of the current issues of Women’s Fitness and Men’s Fitness, with major editorial features telling their stories inside.
Meet Anna Jarvis: helping women take up space
Bath-based Anna Jarvis, the Women’s Fitness and YOUR Personal Training Personal Trainer of the Year 2026, has spent more than a decade helping people discover what strength can do far beyond changing their bodies.
Her own journey into fitness started later than you might expect. Having struggled with her mental health and lacking confidence in the gym herself, working with a Personal Trainer helped Anna begin to see what she might be capable of.
Anna has built a thriving community around women’s strength training, helping women overcome anxiety around the gym floor and feel confident using resistance machines and free weights. Her community now extends far beyond individual sessions, and the Women’s Strength class concept she developed has been rolled out more widely across Better gyms and leisure centres.
Her philosophy is refreshingly simple: knowledge shouldn’t be gatekept. A brilliant coach should leave people feeling more capable, not more dependent.
Anna summed up the entire purpose of these awards best when she said:
“It’s not about followers, it’s about the difference you make to people’s lives.”
Read Anna Jarvis’s full Women’s Fitness interview
Meet Michael Baah: consistency, connection and continual learning
Our Men’s Fitness and YOUR Personal Training Personal Trainer of the Year, Michael Baah, has a very different story, but many of the same values.
Based in Essex, Michael’s career has taken him from boxing and the Metropolitan Police to coaching Premier League footballers, elite athletes, celebrities and everyday clients.
Yet perhaps the most impressive part of his story isn’t who he has trained, it’s how long people stay.
Michael still works with many of the clients he started coaching more than 15 years ago, which says something a transformation photo never can.
His belief is that great coaching starts with connection. Understand the individual. Earn their trust. Keep the training purposeful. Master the fundamentals rather than chasing whatever happens to be trending online this week.
When one of Michael’s clients was diagnosed with breast cancer, he went away and qualified as an exercise oncology specialist so he could better understand the impact of treatment on her training, fatigue and recovery.
That’s what professionalism in fitness looks like: not pretending to know everything, but caring enough to keep learning.
Read Michael Baah’s full Men’s Fitness interview
More than a magazine partnership
Of course, we’re proud of this partnership.
Seeing Anna and Michael on two national magazine covers is an incredible moment for them, for the teams involved and for YOUR Personal Training.
But if this were simply about putting our logo alongside two respected media brands, it wouldn’t mean nearly as much.
The best brand partnerships should create something none of the partners could create as powerfully alone.
Women’s Fitness and Men’s Fitness brought national platforms and brilliant storytelling. YOUR Personal Training brought its connection to thousands of Personal Trainers, leisure operators and fitness communities across the UK.
Most importantly, PTs and their clients brought the stories.
Together, we’ve been able to take people whose work usually happens one client, one session and one conversation at a time and put them in front of a national audience.
That’s what a good partnership should do: create value beyond the brands involved.
Who gets to be an expert in fitness?
There’s a wider conversation here too.
We live in a world in which anyone can publish a workout, share nutrition advice or build a huge fitness audience. Reach has been democratised. In many ways, that’s exciting.
But qualified Personal Trainers spend years developing their knowledge. A Level 3 qualification recognised by CIMSPA, the professional body for the physical activity sector, covers anatomy, physiology, programme design and behaviour change. Great PTs then continue learning throughout their careers while developing the much harder-to-measure skills of empathy, communication, adaptability and trust.
They work with the reality of people’s lives, not an algorithm’s version of them.
When someone is struggling with confidence, rebuilding after illness, learning to move again or simply trying to make exercise stick for the first time in their life, those skills matter.
Sometimes the most inspirational person in the industry isn’t the person with millions of followers.
They’re the person who helped one person believe in themselves again, then did it again tomorrow. And the next day. And the next.
There are thousands of them working across the UK. Anna and Michael represent them brilliantly.
Could the next one be you?
One of the things both winning stories demonstrate is that there is no single route into Personal Training.
You don’t need to have been the sportiest person at school. You don’t need a huge social media following. And you certainly don’t need to already have everything figured out.
What you do need is curiosity, empathy, a willingness to learn and a genuine desire to help other people progress.
The qualification gives you the foundations. What you build from there can become a career capable of changing hundreds of lives.
If Anna and Michael’s stories have made you think about where your own career goes next, there are two routes in.
If you’re already qualified, YOUR Personal Training places self-employed Personal Trainers across more than 420 gyms and leisure centres in the UK. You keep 100% of what you earn, with mentoring and business support behind you from day one. Have a look at the current personal trainer jobs near you.
If you’re not qualified yet, that career starts with a Level 3, CIMSPA-recognised qualification. YOUR Academy’s PT Career Accelerator takes you from no experience to qualified, with a guaranteed placement with YOUR Personal Training the moment you qualify.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Personal Trainer of the Year award?
The Personal Trainer of the Year award recognises the UK Personal Trainers making the biggest difference to their clients, rather than those with the largest followings. The 2026 award was run by Women's Fitness and Men's Fitness in partnership with YOUR Personal Training on the theme of Unsung Heroes, with trainers nominated for the impact of their coaching on real people. Anna Jarvis, based in Bath, was named the Women's Fitness Personal Trainer of the Year 2026, and Michael Baah, based in Essex, was named the Men's Fitness Personal Trainer of the Year 2026. Both appear as cover stars on the current issues, with full editorial features inside.
What should you look for when choosing a personal trainer?
Judge a Personal Trainer on their qualification, their experience and how long their clients stay with them. A qualified Personal Trainer holds a Level 3 qualification recognised by CIMSPA, the sector's professional body, which covers anatomy, physiology, programme design and behaviour change. Beyond the certificate, the questions worth asking are practical ones: have they worked with people in your situation, whether that is returning from injury, training through menopause or exercising during and after cancer treatment, and how long have their current clients been with them? Client retention is the hardest thing in coaching to fake. Every Personal Trainer listed with YOUR Personal Training is qualified to Level 3 and offers a complimentary first session, so you can judge the fit before committing.
How do you check a personal trainer is properly qualified?
Ask to see their Level 3 personal training qualification and check they are registered with CIMSPA, the professional body for the UK's physical activity sector, which maintains a public directory of registered practitioners. A qualified trainer will tell you without hesitation, and most will volunteer it. Also ask about insurance: a self-employed Personal Trainer should hold their own public liability cover. Social media following, before-and-after photos and gym-brand association are none of them evidence of qualification. Personal Trainers working with YOUR Personal Training are qualified to Level 3, CIMSPA-recognised standard before placement, which is one of the reasons operators across more than 420 UK sites use the network to staff their personal training.
Do you need a sports background to become a personal trainer?
No. You do not need to have played sport, competed, or been the fittest person at school to become a Personal Trainer. The requirement is a Level 3 qualification recognised by CIMSPA, and the traits that separate good trainers from average ones are curiosity, empathy and a willingness to keep learning long after the certificate. Plenty of the best Personal Trainers came to the profession late, and several came to it because a trainer changed something for them first. Anna Jarvis, named Personal Trainer of the Year 2026 by Women's Fitness and YOUR Personal Training, started her own journey struggling with her mental health and lacking confidence in the gym, and now builds that confidence in other women for a living.
What does a Level 3 personal training qualification actually cover?
A Level 3 personal training qualification covers applied anatomy and physiology, programme design, nutrition principles, and the behaviour change and client-management skills that turn a plan into results. It is the qualification that allows you to train clients one to one and to work as a self-employed Personal Trainer, where a Level 2 qualifies you to instruct on a gym floor. CIMSPA, the professional body for the sector, recognises Level 3 as the entry standard for personal training in the UK. Most trainers then build specialisms on top of it over their careers, in areas such as strength coaching, pre and post-natal training, or exercise for people living with cancer.
About the author
Published by Iva Boneva.
Iva Boneva is Marketing Manager at YOUR Personal Training, where she leads the brand's marketing and its technology and product partnerships. She holds a Master's in Communications, Media Practice and Public Relations and a degree in Medical Genetics, combining a background in health science and fitness with hands-on experience across content, video, web and social media.