The Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast
The Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast
Scope of practice..or "Stay in your lane!" Why it matters and why the lines are blurrier than you think
For the first episode of 2026 (YAY!!) I thought it would be a good idea to bring out the "scope of practice" episode I did a while ago.
You're going to get bombarded with ads for mealplans, personal trainers, gyms etc over the next few weeks and it can be very confusing as to who is actually qualified to say what.
There are a tonne of Personal Trainers out there doing specific individual mealplans, and meal plan companies giving exercise advice, and it's important for customers to know why they are not actually the right people to listen to.
So that's what today's episode is about; Who can do what, and why. So that you can exercise, train, diet, rehab etc safely and efficiently :)
Just a reminder that HPNB only has 5 billing cycles!
So this means that you not only get 3 months FREE access, no obligation!
BUT, if you decide you want to do the rest of the program, after only 5 months of paying $10/£8 a month you now get FREE LIFE TIME ACCESS!
This means you can sign up after your first child, use the program and recover and then still have access after giving birth to child 2 and 3!
None of this "pay X amount a year" nonsense, once you've paid..you've paid!
This makes HPNB not just the most efficient and complete post-partum recovery program, it's also BY FAR the best value.
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Hey, welcome to the Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast. With your postnatal expert Peter Lap. That, as always, would be me. This is a podcast for the 4th of January 2026. Yes, indeed. First of the year. And you know, as I say that, it's just kind of snowing outside, which is fun for other people and other number, but not great if you still have to walk the dogs. So, you know, there we are. It's that kind of happy new year, everybody. Hope you're doing well. Peter at healthypostnatal body.com. By the way, before we kick this off, please rate the podcast on Apple. Especially Apple on Spotify is fine, but Apple especially, it's it's I I need more ratings on that. So if you could, it'd be much appreciated. First of the year. And the ads have already started. So we're going to talk about scope of practice a little bit, because there's personal training ads, and there's gym ads, and there's meal prep company ads, and there's ads for trackers and and and watch wearables and all that type of stuff. And I think it's useful to remind you what everybody can and can't do. A lot of people think this is clear-cut, but it's a little bit it's a bit grey. And some of the things out there are blatantly not allowed, and these people are blatantly not qualified to do certain things, and other things I'm like, yeah, okay, you can do this. So you're gonna do a lot over the next few weeks from people saying no, you shouldn't listen to XYZ about XYZ, but when should you listen to someone and when shouldn't you? So without further ado, we're gonna talk about scope of practice. Here we go. Basically, scope of practice means what what can a for instance stick to personal training to begin with. What can a what can a personal trainer do and what can't they do? Right? They talk about this a lot. A lot of people online especially like to pretend that these things are are always crystal clear. And I would argue that they're not necessarily, right? Certain things are, right? Personal trainers, for instance, can't do um individual meal plans. You can give generic eating advice, sure you can, but you can't do specific meal plans. So you can say, uh, I recommend you eat your fruits and your veggies. And, you know, because it's good for you. Right? That's completely fine. If someone comes to you for, I don't know, weight management type thing, or just healthy living and all that sort of stuff, you can say, hey, you know, eating five a day of fruit and veggies is really, really good for you. Right. Um but as soon as your client then goes, Well, I need someone to write down exactly what I'm going to eat, you should be referring them out to a registered dietitian, or in some countries, a nutritionist is always also completely qualified. Um, I I prefer registered dietitian because that's how it works in the UK. Um, someone with a nutrition certificate uh who's done a nutrition course, and I have done a few of them, is still not qualified to um, it's not within their scope of practice to write out individual meal plans and all that type of stuff. Now, that doesn't mean that those people aren't useful, right? Having a nutritional qualification and being a nutritionist and all that type of stuff, those people can add a lot to your um to your health. Right? You go to them, you see them, uh they can say, hey, you know, this is been eating five a day is is is very beneficial. They can help you with your eating habits. Let me put it that way. They can they can steer you in the right direction, they can guide you, and you can give them your food diaries if you're that way inclined and all that type of stuff, and they can steer you into making better choices for yourself. That doesn't mean they can give you personalized meal plans. Now, I'm personally not a big fan of personalized meal plans, anyways. I think it's it's it's ridiculous. Uh, I don't think they're necessarily that great for most people. And I'm talking generally speaking, right? I much prefer the the standard just rough advice, eat a bit better. That type of that type of thing. But if you're looking for specific meal plans, you want to go to a registered dietitian, personal trainers are not allowed to do so. Technically, personal trainers in the UK at least, if they belong to the REPS organization, the Register of Exercise Professionals, and I'm not a member anymore because, well, I'll explain now why I'm not. Technically, they're not allowed to sell you supplements either. Right? So Herbalife, you see a lot of personal trainers sell Herbalife in Juice Fast and all those, all those types of things, or they sell protein powders. That is well outside what you're allowed to do as a personal trainer, which is why I'm not a member of Register of Exercise Professionals anymore, because they don't enforce any of them. Right? It is a completely useless uh organization that does absolutely nothing other than make people go on useless courses all the time. They're basically one of those organizations that's there to provide courses and sell courses. Um till they start enforcing the the rules, then there's no there's no point in in being a member. Um as all of you will know, I don't sell supplements and I don't sell well, I don't sell anything really. Um right, I just do my little thing. But it's it's the a personal trainer is not allowed technically to sell you to sell you uh Slimfast or Herbalife or any of that sort of stuff. Technically, that that is in the rules regarding what you're allowed to do as a personal trainer, that is one of the no-nos. So you're not supposed to do it. Everybody seems to ignore that, but there you are. And that is one of those things that that annoys me tremendously. Most of the scope of practice stuff that annoys me centers around what you're allowed to do with supplements and mule plants and all that type of stuff. The the supplement industry is is is not is not unregulated, as someone as people like to point out. There's not there's no regulation in it, it's just way too loosely regulated. And you can basically start selling supplements as long as you don't make silly claims and as long as the stuff doesn't kill anyone. Right? When your supplements start killing people, that's when the in America the FDA uh in America the FDA and in in the UK the food standards uh agency and all that, they would start pulling. They would start investigating after a few years, they would pull pull the supplement off the market. But predominantly there's very loose regulations as long as you don't make any claims saying that. This is why you see a lot of vitamins advertised, well men's and well woman's and all those vitobiotic uh type companies, they say helps with the support of a now normal functioning immune system. Because it doesn't mean anything, right? There's no health claim to that. It just yeah, it may help. It's been shown to help a little bit, maybe. Right? They don't say this will cure diseases, this will make you feel better, all that sort of stuff. That's not allowed. They usually have a vague claim that says um by whichever celebrity they plunk on the outside. I have never felt better since taking than when I started taking these uh these supplements. That's how they sell it, right? They don't make a specific this will help with your health, sort of claim. It just has been shown, vitamin C has been shown to be useful in the in the support of a normal functioning immune system and all that type of stuff. Um when it comes to medical conditions and injuries, it gets a lot, it gets a lot trickier. Um you know, a lot of personal trainers always work with with normal clients, a lot of normal clients have niggles, right? Um bit of back pain, bit of knee pain, and all that type of stuff. And that is where scope of practice becomes a lot more vague. Um because technically, right, if one of my clients has a sore shoulder or a shoulder injury, let's call it an injury, and we don't know what it is, but say it is not too severe, but you know, it's it's it's an injury, there it's uncomfortable. Technically, you should be going to a physio. No one does that. I mean, I mean, I do. If if the injury is is that I'm like, yeah, there's something not right here. Uh, I'll I'll refer out to a physio and have a network of of people that I'm that I'm comfortable referring out to, and they refer back to me and all that type of stuff. Um I tend to go to specialists, right? So if shoulder injury um occurs, I send some to someone who I know is good with shoulders. Same with knee pain. I know a guy who's really good with uh with knee pain, and I know a lady who's good with back pain and all that sort of stuff, and that's that's who I then refer to. Anyway, so I was doing this interview with this physio um uh a few months ago, maybe a year ago, maybe a bit longer, I don't know. And he was quite combative. And I told him this this this story about how I used to have tremendous, uh, tremendous knee pain. Um, used to be agony, and I I saw physios about it and all that sort of stuff, and and and they weren't helping, they were not just not that useful. And I went to see a sports massage guy, um, Gareth, who I haven't seen in a while now, but he stays he stays near me. He's uh absolutely wonderful. Um and and he said, Yeah, the problem with your knee pain is actually I can feel it, your hamstrings and your glutes, they're just they're dysfunctional, right? And by dysfunctional, he means they're not working well enough. Now, this um so he started working on it, and you know, my knee pain disappeared after three sessions because what he did and the exercises I could then do started working, and this guy I was talking to lost his mind, right? So you went to someone who was unqualified and and was working outside the scope of practice, and he told you something that clearly wasn't true, blah blah blah, that type of thing. Right? He like I said, he lost his mind. There's no such thing as dysfunctional muscles, that type of that type of thing. Now technically, of course, he was right, right? There's no such thing as dysfunctional muscles. What we mean when I say when I say dysfunctional, I mean it's not doing the right thing at the right time, right? That's what I mean with those, it's not functioning as it should. That's what dysfunction means. With regards to being outside the scope of practice, right? This is why people go to people. Um, because those if you're working with someone who's in their scope of practice, so in this case physios, and they don't listen to the client, they don't listen to the patient, and they don't fix stuff, then people will start listening to people who made who might actually go with that. And I think what this is what the solution is. Shall we try this? Right? In this case, you know, my the massage therapist started working on my hamstrings a little bit, and uh okay, that's a lot of pain involved because as is usually the case of sports massages, and you know it helps. Sometimes people who are professionals in in a related field, and and like I said, I'm not going to a car mechanic who says these are the exercises you need to do, but who work in a related field are actually really good at just saying, Hey, you know what, what you're having, what you're suffering from is not that big a deal. This is just what we need to function on, uh work on. Right? Quite often we we forget this. If if I have um, and this is why I I don't particularly get that bothered about scope of practice unless it comes to like medication and all that type of stuff. But it matters, of course, you need to be qualified. You kind of need you you need to know what you're talking about. But if we use for personal trainers and physios and all the sort of stuff, scope of practice really narrow, then you know, people are gonna get people are gonna get stuck and they're not necessarily going to find a solution quickly. Right? Every every professional you have to work with, first of all, yeah, you have to hope that they're going to be good. Like I said before, 30% of every person in any profession is at the bottom 30% of of their profession, and they're just not very good at what they do. Right? Um so if you're working with a wonderful personal trainer and you have a bit of shoulder pain and all that sort of stuff, and the personal trainer knows through experience where that shoulder pain emanates from because he knows you very well, because you've been working with him or her for years and all that sort of stuff. They know exactly what the deal is, what exercise caused the problem, what what movement caused the problem, what you were doing when the issue flared up and all that sort of stuff. Quite often they can just say, yeah, this is what we'll do, and we'll help ease that off. Right? If it's an uh an injury that flares up all the time, like like my my knee was painful, as in agony painful for years. And physios just weren't helping. Right? And then, because they were looking at the wrong bit. They were constantly looking at the wrong bit, even though I told them that is not where I think the pain comes from. I kind of know. Right? People know their own bodies to some extent, right? You can quite often you can feel where pain is coming from when something isn't isn't quite right. Or at least you'll be able to say when a professional says, hey, this is what the problem might be, you can say, Yeah, but this feels different, right? Um, especially when it comes to NHS professionals that see a tremendous amount of people every day. You have to it's difficult to relay, to be clear, uh, with someone if they don't know you and you only have 10 minutes or half an hour to speak to them. Um when you're dealing, for instance, with a personal trainer that you work with three times a week for years, that person is simply going to know your body better. Um there is a bit of overlap there, is what I'm saying. If you have really strict scope of practice focus, then as soon as you go, I have an injury here, the PT is supposed to go, I will refer you out to a to a physio, which usually means waiting for a few months and all that sort of stuff before you can actually see anyone. And then, like I said, you have to hope that your personal trainer is well enough connected that they can refer you to a good one. But the problem is the good ones are all they're all gonna have a waiting list. Everybody I refer people to have a waiting list. And quite often I have to call in favors. I have to say, listen, I've got this, I've I've got this woman or or this man, and they need to see someone sooner rather than later. Can you do me a favor and I'll do you a favor when you refer people back to me and all that type of stuff, right? Or when you need, I don't know, presentations done all on postpartum stuff, right? That that is that is how that works. But if you have no strings to pull, right, if you don't, if you don't have that, then people need to wait for a long time. Um so for NPTs listening, my personal trainers listening, you need a network of people for sure. You need registered dietitians and all that type of stuff in in your in your network, um, and ideally a couple of doctors as well. Um I I I definitely do. But there is an element of I know what the problem is, let's fix this. That you will see with personal trainers, and there is not nothing inherently wrong with that. I don't know any personal trainer that doesn't do that, and I know physios will lose their mind over this, but you know, that is that is kind of just the way it is, and the same goes for physios, right? Physios have of a scope of practice and all that type of stuff that they should stick to, and and you see them overstepping it regularly as well, in in a good way, right? They know what they're doing, and then the then the then the the client says, Hey, you really helped with this. Can you can I keep working with you? And instead of saying no, quite a lot of them, even though they're not qualified as personal trainers or strength and conditioning coaches, will just go, yeah, sure, because it's fundamentally exercise, it's not that difficult, right? And there's nothing wrong with it. A physio has a tremendous amount or should have a tremendous amount of anatomical knowledge, and when it comes to training, strength training, and all that sort of stuff, it can easily be argued that that they should be allowed to do that, um, even though it's technically not within their scope of practice. Right? The only time the only time I don't argue with uh or I don't disagree, and this really is the only time I don't disagree with medical and with with people uh for something that's outside my scope of practice is when it's so far outside of the field that I'm just not familiar with it, or when the person at the other end of the discussion has a medical degree uh when it comes to medication and all that type of stuff. So lifestyle, we can debate. Lifestyle, I'm more than comfortable saying, because I know we all kind of know what eating healthy looks like, right? And if a dietitian were to come in and say, I think you should eat 10 donuts a day, which I don't do, but you know, if a dietitian comes in and says, I recommend the carnivore diet, even though you don't have medical conditions, then we're gonna have a disagreement. Right? Then I will argue with the dietitian. If a physio says, um, like they did in my case, yeah, I think there's a problem in your knee that comes from your patella, and I know it's not the case, then I will disagree with that one, uh, with that one. If a doctor comes in or a surgeon comes in and says, This is what the problem is, because you have this illness, I all I do is say, This is outside of my scope of practice, because I get asked these questions a lot. What do you think of this medication, that medication, all that type of stuff? Uh, and even though I'm familiar, because I've trained one or two older people, so I'm very familiar, and people who have had like um TIAs and uh uh mini strokes and strokes and heart attacks and all that type of stuff. And of course, I'm really familiar with postpartum conditions. Um the only time, the only thing I will say then is that's outside my scope of practice, but but I get a second opinion, and in the UK, a second opinion is hardly ever. I know it's really common in the States, but in the UK it's unheard of. Nobody asks their doctor for a second opinion. You're just lucky you got to see a GP, right? I have a fairly decent network of of private GPs that are a lot of my clients, especially my face to face clients, have a bit of money, right? So they can afford a 180-pound fee. Um I know I give away uh uh healthy postnatal body stuff well free for three months and then afterwards you blah blah blah right and I know that's very cheap but and for my personal training I'm not ridiculously expensive for some people but for a lot of people um the the fee is is is significant just because you know I'm I'm at that uh I'm at that level now uh but a lot of my clients can can easily afford um right that that is that is where I am but it allows me to fund HP and B so to speak that's what I tell myself uh to justify it but it's right they can afford a private GP so I can tell them just get a second opinion from another medical professional because I don't argue with people over medication whether someone puts you onto warfarin or or statins or whatever I am not nowhere near qualified to argue now whether you should get your COVID booster or flu shot or not I am nowhere near qualified enough to say yes or no about these things. Right? And no personal trainer is no coach is I know one or two that have a medical degree but you know if you just if unless they are qualified and have a medical degree to back that up and work in that field so in other words they stay up to date with the latest research and all that type of stuff they are nowhere near qualified to say that and that's what I mean with scope of practice. Some things are so far outside your scope of practice that you just should not be touching on it. Individualized meal plans arguing about medication all that sort of stuff um minor injuries we treat them all the time right my shoulder hurts a bit let me fix that that's like putting a band aid on the sc on on on on a scrape right if you have a small cut you don't go to A and E you put a plaster on it yourself right that is that is not a scope of of of practice discussion for me um and it could well be that people who sometimes like like I experienced with my knee find that those working those people that you're unfortunate enough to come into contact with who are qualified technically they have the pay they have the piece of the piece of paper but don't have the solution and someone who is working in a related field right who is very close to say being qualified but isn't qualified um my massage guy is is is a rehab guy right so he's he's remarkably qualified he's just not a physio right um so he he would be my my my first point of contact is it outside the scope technically yeah but I ask him to have a look he has a look hey hey I've come across this before I know what this is and then he explains it to me in language that I understand because I'm not a very smart guy right and he thinks things like you have a dysfunctional hamstring which and I do this on the podcast a lot right technically the phrase isn't correct but I know what he means it's the same as when personal trainers say toned or clients say I want to get a bit more toned. We know what you mean it's fine right we can then argue about whether toning is actually of muscles is actually a thing but predominantly you're talking at the level of your audience and and it's fine and that is what's happening here as well and he fixed it and at the end of the day unless somebody has dangerous procedures and they're doing dangerous things if they fix it they fix it. That is how 90% of the population thinks that and that is the controversial bit for a lot of professionals. A lot of professionals are very stuck on the but you should see me about this. Right one of my clients is currently working with someone who has 15 years of knee rehab experience I only know the person uh briefly not my client I've known them for a couple of years but um they got in she's she was in an accident and the knee just wasn't recovering and again outside my scope so I said go work with a physio um this was accident recovery accident recovery I'm that's not me right that that's that's not what I do accident uh rehab this um this is found she found someone who I did have some conversations with and he's not he doesn't have a piece of paper uh which is concerning for me but um the physios she saw didn't weren't working and this this person has given her some stuff to do and he seems to be improving and he's got 15 years of of of of experience dealing with like rugby players and elite athletes and all that sort of stuff in their knee pains um and and rehab and uh it mainly comes from having had a bad knee injury uh himself right so I would prefer there to be a qualification there but I'm kind of crap on it if he's not doing anything dangerous nobody else is helping and this seems to help right we have to be a little bit uh a little bit more uh open about working slightly outside outside scope uh outside scope for me again this does not mean your personal trainer or your coach can tell you to stop taking cancer medication right I hope that that is obvious I'm not talking about that type of thing I'm not talking about personal trainers recommending GLP1 meds they're recommending Monjaro and all that type of stuff not even talking about personal trainers recommending supplements right we know about protein and creatine all that sort of stuff that's not what I'm talking about I'm talking about NMN uh NAT plus all that sort of stuff usually all the stuff they sell um right you're not allowed to sell stuff as a personal trainer you can sell gloves you can sell kettlebells you can do all that type of stuff you can't sell supplements because you don't know what how these things actually work right that is the case for nine out of ten personal trainers 99 out of a hundred personal trainers the obscure supplements they that they're selling they don't know how they work they don't know what the provenance is they don't know where they come from they don't know the factory that meant they've never been to to the supplier all that sort of stuff anyways a very convoluted convoluted episode I get that it's very confusing uh but I hope you know that's just my opinion on it because I was asked about this scope of practice is important of course you you you know where you are when you stay in your lane but every now and again you can also look out of the car to see what's on the side and you go hey I know that as well and it's not gonna hurt if I step into that lane a little bit just don't move into that lane permanently and for God's sake whatever you do if it gets dangerous go back to your lane right anyways that's enough waffling for me you have a great week next week next week urinary health and you know that should be fun right you take care of yourself bye now.