Health and Fitness Articles

IDEA members around the world make a difference every day by helping people get fit in body, mind and spirit. The IDEA World Fitness Awards highlight professionals who consistently give their all to motivate their clients, their communities and the fitness industry. Join us in celebrating the achievements of the finalists for the 2011 IDEA Program Director of the Year, IDEA Personal Trainer of the Year and IDEA Fitness Instructor of the Year. Award recipients will be announced in the July–August issue of IDEA Fitness Journal.

As a fitness professional, you’ve read hundreds of articles on health and fitness—many in professional publications like IDEA Fitness Journal and others in general magazines like Shape or Health. Who writes these articles? Famous fitness pros? Professional writers who work full-time in the writing business? People with connections?

July 2013; $10 per class in July 2014; $12.50 per class in July 2015; and finally $15 per class beginning in July 2016 (Fitness Australia 2010). Until the outcome of an appeal filed by Fitness Australia is known, these fees will be collected and held in a “suspense” account, to be paid to the PPCA or refunded to the fitness facilities accordingly (Fitness Australia 2010).

Do you have great ideas for making improvements to your facility, but find your manager difficult to speak to? Supervisors can often be challenging to connect with; oftentimes they are busy with their own schedules and can appear distant or unfriendly. Nonetheless, there are ways to speak your mind without risking your job. Here are five tips for connecting with a difficult manager, courtesy of behavior strategist and performance management coach Joe Takash:

We launched IDEA Trainer Success nearly 6 years ago to provide personal trainer entrepreneurs with the first—and still only—publication dedicated strictly to the business insights, strategies and concerns of running a successful in-home, studio or independent personal training enterprise. More than 25 issues and hundreds of articles later, this power-packed newsletter has consistently delivered timely, practical information that has directly impacted your career and supported your success.

As the enormous debate over the administration’s healthcare bill heated up over the summer in Washington, DC, we thought it would be timely to synthesize some of the main challenges we face as a nation regarding health and wellness. Mostly, we wanted to focus on the solutions—namely, the roles that fitness and wellness professionals will have in any blueprint that ultimately gets drafted.

Although research continues to emerge regarding the many mental and emotional benefits of exercise, much of it focuses only on adults. A recent study published in the November 2008 issue of Pediatric Exercise Science (2008; 20[4], 390–401) has determined that structured exercise may help reduce anger expression in healthy, overweight children. The study included 208 sedentary 7- to 11-year-olds who either participated in a 10- to 15-week afterschool cardiovascular exercise program or

About 30 years ago, the first wave of group fitness instructors (known then as aerobics teachers) got their start in an industry yet to be defined. Many of those people are still teaching and training, yet as the industry grows and changes, continuing to shape itself, the need for a steady influx of teachers is evident. Since the world of fitness is radically differ...