Health and Fitness Articles

Online Diets: Logging On

Online dieting is increasing in popularity because we live in a fast-paced, convenience-oriented society—and logging onto the Internet has never been easier. Most diet-related websites these days offer more than a list of recommended foods. Some sites provide elaborate features that “pop up” with recipes, meal plans, online chat rooms, discussion boards and calorie and exercise tracking devices.

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Sample Class: 3, 2, 1, Dance!

So you think you can’t dance? You don’t need to be a professional dancer to teach a fun, heart-pumping, soul-soaring dance-based class.

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Helping Upper-Trapezius Pain

Does your upper back ever feel tight, as though you have “knots” in it? You may have an upper-trapezius strain, a common repetitive stress injury (RSI). An RSI is a condition usually caused by placing too much stress or strain on a joint or musculoskeletal tissue. RSIs are often associated with performing recurring motions, whether on a computer, on the telephone or in a sports a...

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Repetitive Stress Injury: The Upper Trapezius

by Catherine Logan, MSPT

Whether your clients are sports participants, musicians or simply casual computer users, they may suffer from upper trapezius pain.

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10 Exercise Myths

Although some old fitness fictions, such as “no pain, no gain” and “spot reducing” are fading fast, plenty of popular exercise misconceptions still exist. Here are some of the most common myths as well as the not-so-common facts based on current exercise research. 1. You Will Burn More Fat If You Exercise Longer at a Lower Intensity. The most important focus in exer...

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Partner Exercises

by Sherri McMillan, MSc, and Alex McMillan

Ex Rx: Make partner training fun and interactive with these exercises designed for two.

In today’s society, people struggle to find enough time to complete work-related projects, enjoy their loved ones and also take good care of themselves. A personal fitness trainer (PFT) who can demonstrate to clients that they can spend quality time with their sweetie or friends while helping each other stay healthy and fit will be in high demand! Partner training is more economical f...

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Laugh Yourself Fit

by Carrie Myers Smith

Wellness: Why you should get a daily dose of humor—jest for the health of it!

First, you hear a collective deep breath as arms are raised toward the sky; next, peals of laughter and the sound of hands clapping in rhythm. What is this, you ask? A boisterous crowd at a baseball game doing the “wave”? An audience at the local comedy club? Surprise: It’s a meeting of the Laughter Club in the middle of a laughter yoga session!

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Body-Weight Training Program

by Jason R. Karp, PhD

Remember when you were in high school and your physical education (PE) teachers made you do push-ups, chin-ups and sit-ups? What about those long-forgotten Presidential Physical Fitness Tests, which required you to run different distances for time? Whatever happened to thos...

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Teaching Pilates Mat Work, Part 2

by Christine Romani-Ruby, MPT, ATC

In the first installment, printed in August, we looked at how Pilates mat workout is practice for life movement and introduced a four-step system to follow when teaching an exercise. In this installment we explore sequencing guidelines and how to apply all four steps in a Pilates exercise.

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Building a Club Within Your Club

by Valerie Applebaum, MPH, CHES

Reap the business benefits of cultivating a sense of community within your facility.

Retention, retention, retention. The fitness industry breathes and sleeps retention, continually pondering bigger and better strategies for holding on to members. Yet many facilities still focus on getting new members in the door, providing a basic orientation and setting them free—free to slowly lose interest in attaining their fitness goals and coming to the gym. This pattern occu...

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