Archive for January 2008
Cohesive Training Courts New Instructors
As the fitness industry grows and ages, many people have noticed a gap between “veteran” instructors, who have been teaching for 10 years and longer, and “newbies,” group fitness professionals who are just getting started. This has led many to voice concerns over the future of group exercise. To address this issue, IDEA Fitness Journal began running a new column in January, highl…
Read MoreKids in Motion Stay in Motion
It’s not exactly a news flash: children are experiencing serious health problems and a poor quality of life. More kids than ever suffer from the effects of poor nutrition and lack of exercise, and the child overweight/obesity rate has nearly tripled over the past 40 years (Alliance for a Healthier Generation 2006). At the start of 2008, most fitness professionals are aware of th…
Read MoreThe Art of Play
As I approached the pool to teach my first water fitness class, the theme from Jaws grew progressively louder in my head. Looking through the window, I could see the “sharks” beginning to circle—these were the regular participants known for chewing up many highly skilled instructors in the past. Obviously, they were awaiting the arrival of the “new” instructor: me. I developed a lump in my thro…
Read MoreAn Eye on Nutrition
When faces become blurry, road signs get fuzzy and the fine print on a food label appears illegible, your eyes are telling you something: a visit to an eye care professional is in order. From birth, our eyes are constantly filtering light—from harsh sunlight to the more damaging blue light—and over time the effects can be damaging. Just like the skin, our eyes need sunscreen. The good news is y…
Read MoreThe Mentor Connection
When I began my journey as a personal fitness trainer (PFT), I was clueless about what to do first. Though I’d successfully completed my exam, I quickly realized there was a lot more to this career than understanding anatomy and knowing how to execute a squat. I started to feel as though I was casting about in the dark, as there was so much I still needed to learn before I could feel comf…
Read MoreThe Transformational Twosome
Subjects: Dawn and Tom Terwilliger
Company: Terwilliger Fitness
A Winning Partnership. Years ago as Tom Terwilliger prepared to shoot an episode of Muscle Sport USA for Fox Sports Net in Boulder, Colorado, he probably wasn’t aware that his life was about to take a dramatic turn. In his home state of New York, Ter…
Assessing the Lactate Threshold
McGehee, J.C., Tanner, C.J., & Houmard, J.A. 2005. A comparison of methods for estimating the lactate threshold. Journal
of Strength and Conditioning Research,
19 (3), 553–58.
Lactate threshold (LT) is the point in exercise intensity at which blood lactate concentrations rise exponentially. LT has been identified in research as the bes…
How Do You Deal With Competition?
There is always competition. Look at Coke and Pepsi, Verizon and Sprint, Apple and IBM or Adidas and Nike, for example. Whether I was pursuing my master’s in exercise physiology, going for my ACE or ACSM certifications, attending an IDEA conference or even hiring my staff of personal trainers, the people I was interacting with were not only my contemporaries but also my c…
Read MoreThe Skinny on Losing Weight and Keeping It Off
Despite years of talk about the obesity epidemic and the emergence of countless government programs and weight loss crusades, only a select few people manage to lose significant amounts of weight and maintain that weight loss. At any given time, approximately 40% of women and 25% of men in the U.S. are trying to lose weight (Kruger et al. 2004). Sadly, most of their efforts will go unrewarded, …
Read MoreHigh-School PE Class Revisited
Remember when you were in high school and your physical education (PE) teachers—intimidating in their gray, cotton sweats, wielding whistles—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 those “old-fashioned” exercises? While free weights and mac…
Read MoreMoira and Lindsay G. Merrithew
“We didn’t get into this because we thought Pilates would be a big business,” remembers Moira Merrithew, executive director of education for STOTT PILATES, who co-founded the company with her husband, Lindsay G. Merrithew, president and chief executive officer. “In 1988, we were at the right place at the right time. When we started, Pilates was very much a cottage industry. Our goal was simple—…
Read MoreA Five-Alarm Disaster
Just when we thought no more fuel could be added to the already roaring childhood overweight and obesity fire, two research reports published in the December 6 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine have stepped up the call to action to a new level of urgency.
While we know that being overweight or having a high body mass index (BMI) is unhealthy for kids, the two studie…
Do Low-Carb Diets Affect Exercise Fatigue?
Low-carbohydrate diets continue to be quite popular, especially among clients trying to lose weight by exercising. But can these diets actually backfire by causing frustration and earlyfatigue during an exercise session?
Researchers reporting in the October 2007 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association set out to determine whether low-carb diets might resul…
Read MoreA Dash of Cinnamon
Did you know that just a dash of cinnamon a day can spice up your health status? Studies of patients with type 2 diabetes found that cinnamon lowers fasting LDL and total-cholesterol concentrations in the bloodstream and may aid in blood sugar control.
A recent study in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2007; 85 [6], 1552-56) indicates that the spice may also have a pos…
Read MoreShort-Term Meditation Offers Benefits
One of the barriers to consistent meditation practice is that people feel they do not have enough time. A small study conducted in China has shown that meditating as little as 20 minutes daily over a 5-day period can improve both attention and mood.
Integrative body-mind training (IBMT) combines a number of traditional Chinese-medicine techniques, including body relaxation, bre…
Read MoreQigong Helps Neck Pain
Qigong is as effective as exercise therapy for alleviating long-term, nonspecific neck pain, according to a small study published in the October 15 issue of Spine (2007; 32, 2415-22). A wellness practice from Chinese medicine, qigong uses slow movements, breathing exercises and meditation to improve the flow of qi, or life energy. The aim is to restore balance in body, mind and spirit. “…
Read MoreBecoming a Certified Feldenkrais Teacher
The Feldenkrais Method® of Somatic Education, developed by Moshe Feldenkrais (1904-1984), continues to grow in popularity. The purpose of Feldenkrais training is to improve movement and enhance functionality. The two main programs consist of group classes known as Awareness Through Movement® and private sessions referred to as Functional Integration®. In the group classes, an instructor leads s…
Read MoreWorld’s Largest Tai Chi Class
More than 20,000 individuals participated in a 20-minute tai chi class on the grounds of the former Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to The People’s Republic of China, according to an article on The Official Website of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games (http://en.beijing2008.cn). This sets the world record for the largest tai chi class h…
Read MoreSample Class
Check out this great sample class
from the IDEA Article Archive on turning your participants into athletes with sports conditioning drills. As an IDEA member, all of t…
Do Negative Beliefs Sabotage Your Clients?
As a wellness professional, you know how satisfying it is …
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