Coaching Clients in Your Home Gym: When Health and Safety Law Applies to a Self-Employed Trainer in Great Britain

Training friends and family in a home gym is one thing; taking paying clients into it is another. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) publishes guidance for self-employed workers and for small businesses on when health and safety law applies and how to manage risk, and GOV.UK has a checklist for running a business from home. This guide applies that guidance to a home gym used for coaching. It covers the HSE guidance for Great Britain. The guidance does not mention home gyms, so the application below is illustrative. It is general information, not legal advice.

Does health and safety law apply to a self-employed trainer?

HSE says that for health and safety purposes, “self-employed” means not working under a contract of employment and working only for oneself, and that if a self-employed person employs others, the law applies. It also says a person may be self-employed for tax purposes without being self-employed for health and safety.

HSE sets out when the law applies to a self-employed person: if they employ anyone, even temporarily; if their work activity poses a potential risk to the health and safety of others, for example using equipment that could injure someone; or if they do work involving six specific high-risk activities (construction, agriculture, railways, gas, asbestos and genetically modified organisms). The law does not apply if the person employs nobody and their work poses no risk to anyone else.

Is a clients’ session a risk to others?

HSE’s page on deciding whether work creates a risk to others defines risk as the likelihood of someone else being harmed or injured by the work activity, and it names members of the public, clients and contractors among those who might be harmed. It says a person has a duty to protect themselves and others from the risks their work creates, even if only for a small part of the time. It lists questions for deciding, including whether the person works in premises where people can visit or have access and could harm their health or safety, and whether someone could be harmed by equipment, for example crushed, or trip over or fall. If the answer to any is yes, HSE says it is likely that the work may pose a risk to another person and the law will apply.

A home gym with barbells, racks, cable machines and treadmills, used by clients who do not own the equipment, fits those questions, since a client could be crushed by a loaded bar or trip over kit. This is an application of the questions, not a statement in the HSE page about fitness. A trainer who is unsure should read the HSE guidance and, where necessary, seek advice.

The five-step risk process

HSE’s guidance for small businesses describes risk management as a step-by-step process, which can be done by the owner or with a competent person:

1. Identify hazards. Look around the workplace and think about how people work and how equipment is used, and consider how visitors or members of the public might be harmed. For a home gym that might include heavy plates, dropped weights, machines with moving parts, cables and trip hazards.
2. Assess the risks. Decide how likely it is that someone could be harmed and how seriously, who might be harmed, what is already being done to control the risk and what further action is needed.
3. Control the risks. Ask whether the hazard can be eliminated; if not, how to control the risk so that harm is unlikely. HSE says the aim is to do everything “reasonably practicable” and not to eliminate every risk, balancing the level of risk against the money, time or trouble of the measures.
4. Record the findings. HSE says employers of five or more people must record significant findings, and adds that the priority should be controlling risks in practice, not relying on paperwork.
5. Review the controls. Controls should be reviewed to make sure they work, and when circumstances change, such as new equipment.

The guides to manual handling of heavy equipment and occupiers’ liability cover related points.

What GOV.UK says about running a business from home

GOV.UK’s checklist says a person may need permission or separate insurance to run a business from home. It says permission may be needed from a mortgage provider or landlord, the local planning authority (for example for major alterations) and the local council (for example if there will be lots of customers or deliveries, or advertising outside the home). It adds that home insurance may not cover the business, such as customers visiting the premises, and that a person may need business insurance. It says a person will need to manage health and safety as with any other business and check whether business rates are payable on the part of the home used for the business. The site’s guide to personal training from a home gym and business rates covers the VOA position, and the guide to insuring home gym equipment covers contents policies.

The bottom line

Health and safety law applies to a self-employed trainer in Great Britain if they employ anyone or if their work poses a risk to others, and clients using heavy equipment in a home gym fit HSE’s examples. The five-step risk process, done in a proportionate way, is the practical response. GOV.UK adds that home insurance may not cover customers visiting, and that permissions, insurance and business rates should be checked before starting.

Sources

• HSE, “Self-employed workers: Overview”
• HSE, “Self-employed workers: When health and safety law applies”
• HSE, “Self-employed workers: Deciding if your work activity creates a risk to others”
• HSE, “Managing risks and risk assessment at work: Steps needed to manage risk”
• GOV.UK, “Running a business from home”