ChesapeakeCharm

BALTIMORE—The Charm City was disarmed.

When 1,500 personal fitness trainers (PFT) began arriving in this stately urban center for the 2002 IDEA Personal Trainer International Summit, the locals had to know something big was up. It’s just not normal to see so many fit-looking, positive persons in workout gear concentrated in one location.

But then again, this year’s 14th annual Summit—themed “Mastering Personal Training Trends” and held March 1 to 3 at the Baltimore Convention Center—was no ordinary event. Delegates came from 21 countries representing places as far flung on the globe as Slovenia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Venezuela. They came mostly to further their professional knowledge, but plenty of networking was going on in between sessions and in the Fitness Expo, where industry manufacturers exhibited the most advanced equipment, apparel and services available to PFTs today.

Following the 2002 IDEA Personal Trainer of the Year Award ceremony (see sidebar on page 38), keynote speaker Laura Berman Fortgang demystified lifestyle coaching for attendees and set the tone for the conference’s new education track on the subject. “You as trainers are concerned with the core stability of bodies. As a life coach, I am concerned with the core stability of lives,” she told a packed house.

If the standing-room-only crowds in each of the five lifestyle coaching courses on the program were any indication of the interest trainers have in this potential, complementary business opportunity, then Fortgang’s explanation of the profession came through loud and clear. Kate Larsen, PCC, Susan Cantwell and Beth Rothenberg, PCC, led the education for this new curriculum.

There were numerous other stimulating and enlightening sessions from which attendees gleaned business and practical training ideas they could bring home and apply immediately.

If you weren’t able to attend the Baltimore Summit, you can still sign up for these upcoming IDEA educational events: The 2002 IDEA Personal Trainer Congress, April 25 in Rosemont, Illinois; 2002 IDEA Personal Trainer Summit West, June 29 to 30 in San Diego; the 2003 IDEA Personal Trainer International Summit, scheduled for February 14 to 16 in Washington, DC.

For more information, contact IDEA at (800) 999-4332, ext. 7, (858) 535-8979, ext. 7 or www.IDEAfit.com. l

IDEA PERSONAL Trainer april 2002

IDEA PERSONAL Trainer april 2002

The 2002 IDEA Personal
Trainer of the Year Award

It took Taylor-Kevin Isaacs, MS, longer to travel from Los Angeles to Baltimore than it did for his father Brian Isaacs to make the 28-hour pilgrimage from South Africa to the same city.

The normally five- to six-hour coast-to-coast trek from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Baltimore-Washington International unfolded into a bonafide ordeal for the younger Isaacs when all suitcases in his airline’s terminal at LAX had to be backed out of the scanning system because of a security breach. Unfortunately for him, and about 400 others forced to queue up outside the airport for two hours until everything was rechecked, the darn X-ray contraption chose this day to go on the blink.

The extra time it took to rescan all the luggage was just enough to make him miss by minutes his connection in Houston. And then there was the overnight stay in Humble, Texas, the delayed flight the next morning, the bumpy weather to fly through, and the misrouted luggage. “It’s a sign of the times,” sighed a smiling Isaacs, the sixth recipient of the IDEA Personal Trainer of the Year Award.

He wishes he could say he wouldn’t have missed it for the world, but the fact is, he did. After all was said and done, he didn’t make
it to Baltimore in time to receive the honor
on March 1 at the opening of the 2002 IDEA Personal Trainer International Summit.

The upside to the story is that Dad made it to the event on time. Brian Isaacs accepted on behalf of his son, who scrambled over to the Baltimore Convention Center later that afternoon. By the time
he arrived, however, he already knew he had won.

“I was paged at BWI after we landed and I went over and picked up the phone,” Isaacs recounted.
“It was my Dad. He said, ‘Is this Taylor-Kevin Isaacs?’ I answered, ‘Yes.’ He then said, ‘Is this Taylor-Kevin Isaacs, 2002 IDEA Personal Trainer of the Year?’

“I said, ‘What are you telling me, Dad? You mean
I won?’ He tried to describe for me how it all happened—how he accepted the award on my behalf . . . I was so happy!”

For Isaacs, who also has been named the MET-RX Personal Trainer of the Year twice, this award came as a surprise. “It was unbelievable that I was chosen as one of three finalists,” the California State University, Northridge clinical instructor of kinesiology shared later. “When I heard I was a finalist, I thought win, lose or draw, I’m indifferent. Just to be nominated for such a tremendous industry recognition award is reward in itself.

This educator-trainer said he hopes the industry recognition of this award will help him toward an immense goal he has: To persuade insurance companies to cover the cost of postrehab exercise. “To convince insurance companies they are dealing with people, not paperwork,” he said. “I also want to duplicate my philosophy of ‘full-time caring, part-time knowledge’ in my students. I teach it, preach it, learn it, live it and love it!”

An IDEA Master PFT, Isaacs works with a variety of clients—young athletes to elderly special populations to those with spinal cord injury. For a complete look at his background, refer to the March 2002 issue of IDEA Personal Trainer, pages 32 to 35.

The other two finalists, Greg Mack, (inset photo, on left) founder and CEO of Physicians Fitness in Columbus, Ohio, and Scott McLain, MS, (inset, on right) director of personal training at Westerville Athletic Club, Westerville, Ohio, also are featured in the same issue.

Reported by Sandy Todd Webster

IDEA PERSONAL Trainer april 2002