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Fitness Trends Report

The IDEA mission to Inspire the World to FitnessTM begins with each of you. Your expertise in integrating equipment and fitness activities is the key to attracting and retaining exercisers.
The more people are attracted to—and retained by—your programs and facilities, the more people will exercise. Their participation helps build your business, which enables you to provide more programs and equipment. That is a circle of fitness worth completing for everyone.

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Highlights From the 50th Annual Meeting of the ACSM

Walking Intensity and Bone Mineral Density
Fogleman, K.M., Borer, K.T., & Sowers, M.R. 2003. Walking intensity stimulates increases in BMD in post-menopausal women. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 35 (5, Supplement), Abstract 95.
Menopause is often associated with a loss in bone mineral density (BMD). Although exercise has been shown to increase BMD in postmenopausal women, the exact mechanism is presently unclear, as are the intensity and types of exercise that will elicit this response.

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Beware the Snack Attack

Do your clients frequently skip breakfast or lunch and then get hit with snack attacks during the day? Are you guilty of avoiding meals in your rush from client to client? You’re not alone.

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The Best Mentors for Women: Male or Female?

When personal training was a new industry, many trainers did not have mentors because they were the pioneers. Now, times are different. Savvy personal trainers know that good mentors can boost their careers. (See “The Mentoring Pathway” on page 34 of the March 2003 IDEA Personal Trainer.)

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The Great Abs Debate

The Great Abs DebateIf you’re up to snuff on your anatomy and physiology, you know that the rectus abdominis is a single muscle. However, you may have found yourself caught up in the debate about whether you can train the upper and lower portion in different ways.

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Blood Pressure Guidelines Change

Your clients are perfectly healthy if they have blood pressure readings of 120 over 80, right? Not necessarily. These readings now fall into the prehypertensive category, according to new guidelines by The Joint National Committee (JNC) on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation and Treatment of High Blood Pressure published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), May 21.

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Public Opinion and Obesity

As personal trainers, you know how important it is for obese adults and children to lose weight. But is the general public aware of the importance of this issue? Yes, for the most part.

A poll by The Harvard Forums on Health examined the opinions of 1,002 Americans 18 and older. Their findings?

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The 2003 IDEA World Fitness & Personal Trainer Convention®

Disney’s California Adventure and the Magic Kingdom may have been just down the street, but the real fun was unfolding in the Anaheim Convention Center for an energized mix of global fitness professionals. With more than 3,000 personal fitness trainers (PFTs) and their health and fitness colleagues from 50 different countries learning, shopping, connecting and…

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Test your Calorie IQ

You undoubtedly know that if you consume more calories than you burn, you will gain weight—and if you do the opposite, you will lose weight. But do you know where calories come from and what the best way to burn them is? Take the following quiz, based on information from Carole A. Conn, PhD, RD,…

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Blueprint of a Startup (Part 2)

In the June issue, I sketched out the first phases of setting up your own personal training business, based on my own experiences. The steps outlined in the June article showed you how to assess the market for your services, write a business plan, secure the necessary financing and find a suitable location. Now here…

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Setting Limits With Challenging Customers

If you’ve followed this column since January, you’ve read about how savvy managers increase efficiency and avoid burnout by establishing work-related boundaries for themselves and their stuff.

This final article in a series of five provides practical solutions for creating boundaries with three common categories of customers. When you skillfully reign in your most challenging and picky patrons, you boost productivity and strengthen customer ties. Here’s how to do it.

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The Shoulder Girdle

fine anatomy

by Susan L. Hitzmann, MS

The Shoulder Girdle
Studying scapular movement, kinesiology and exercises.

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The closer we look at movement or the potential movement of the human body, the more dynamic, intricate and specific it becomes. When studying the appendicular skeleton, personal trainers will benefit from understanding ideal range of motion (ROM), joint articulation and the influ…

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Models of Inspiration

True fitness embraces a lifestyle that recognizes the power of movement, the benefits of a healthy diet and the importance of balance. The winners of the 2003 IDEA Health & Fitness Awards encourage this lifestyle by making fitness widely accessible. To recognize their accomplishments, the IDEA awards ceremony, sponsored by Propel® Fitness Water™, took place…

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Consumer Awareness of Cholesterol: Who Knew?

Despite recent news reports linking high cholesterol levels to different life-threatening diseases, the message has apparently been lost on many consumers. At least, that’s the finding of a new study on contemporary awareness of cholesterol as a risk factor, which appeared in the July 14 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

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Golden Opportunities

Today’s older adults are a frisky and diversified bunch, according to a recent poll conducted by the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association. Here’s a look at the most popular sports and athletic activities (based on participation frequency) among Americans 55 and older, for the year 2002:

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Understanding the Glycemic Index

Long the subject of controversy among nutrition experts, the glycemic index (GI) has been making news lately in the consumer press. The subject of several recent studies, this numerical method of classifying foods appears to be gaining favor as a tool in the fight against obesity and certain life-threatening medical conditions. Although more research is…

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