What the Not So Typical PT Network Is (and Who It's For)
If you've been reading the articles in this series, you already have a sense of what the Not So Typical® PT Network is about. But this article is the plain-language version; what it actually is, what you get, who it's for, and who it isn't for.
Why the Not So Typical® PT Network Exists
The fitness industry has a professional community problem. The mainstream PT networks, CPD providers, and industry events are built around a particular kind of trainer; extroverted, aesthetics-focused, comfortable with transformation culture, unbothered by diet culture because they've never had to question it.
If that's not you, professional isolation is the default. You're doing genuinely good work, but you're doing it alone. You don't have colleagues who get it. You don't have a referral network you trust. You don't have anywhere to take the hard questions; the client who's crying in a session, the gym that's pressuring you to post before-and-afters, the intake situation you're not sure how to handle.
The Not So Typical™ PT Network exists because that isolation is unnecessary, and because the trainers working this way deserve infrastructure that actually supports them.
What the Not So Typical® PT Network Actually Is
The network is a vetted directory and professional community for personal trainers who take a genuinely weight-neutral, anti-diet, neuroinclusive approach to their work.
The directory is the public-facing part. It's searchable by clients across the UK who are specifically looking for a trainer who works this way; people who've been failed by mainstream fitness, who need someone they can trust not to comment on their weight, not to push diet culture, not to treat them as a problem to be fixed. Every trainer in the directory has been vetted, which means when a client finds you through it, the trust is already partly built.
The community is the private part. A space for peer support, referrals, sanity checks, and professional connection with trainers who share your values. No toxic positivity. No hustle culture. Just people who understand what it's like to do this work.
Members also get access to resources; marketing templates, neuroinclusive coaching frameworks, business tools built for PTs who refuse to use diet culture to sell themselves; and ongoing CPD and expert sessions from people with genuine lived experience and expertise in neurodivergence, accessibility, and values-led fitness.
Membership is £25 a month.
Who the Not So Typical® PT Network Is For
The network is for trainers who are already working from a weight-neutral, anti-diet, neuroinclusive approach — or who are actively, seriously building toward it.
That might look like: you've been doing this work for years but doing it alone. Or you're newer to the field and you've never felt at home in mainstream fitness spaces. Or you're in the middle of a values transition; actively deprogramming the diet culture training you received and rebuilding your practice from different foundations.
You might be neurodivergent yourself. You might be a different size, background, or approach than the typical PT stereotype. You might centre marginalised communities not because it's a marketing strategy but because it's the right thing to do. You might just be exhausted by an industry that keeps telling you to show up smaller and you're done with it.
If that's you, this network was built for you.
Who the Not So Typical® PT Network Isn't For
This is worth being direct about, because the value of the directory depends entirely on the integrity of the people in it.
The network is not for trainers who use weight loss marketing, before-and-after content, or body shaming; even softly. It's not for trainers who say the right things but whose practice doesn't back it up. It's not for trainers who are still using "gentle weight loss" framing or transformation language while describing themselves as inclusive.
Every application is reviewed. The non-negotiables are clear. And trainers who aren't there yet are better served by building the foundations first; the Inclusive Trainer Blueprint exists for exactly that pathway.
This isn't gatekeeping. It's the reason the directory is worth being in.
How to Apply to Join the Not So Typical® PT Network
Applications are open. The process involves answering questions about your approach, your communities, and how your work demonstrates the values the network is built on. It's not a checkbox exercise; it's a genuine review.
If you have questions before applying, you can email rhiannon@notsotypicalfitness.co.uk.
