Archive for May 2019
The Importance of Your Location
Whether you are an owner of a brick and mortar fitness space or an independent fitness professional, your business’s location can be a major factor in your success. According to a study conducted by New York based marketing firm distillery, using the data from cell phone location tracking logs, the average gym-goer has a short 4 mile drive to their gym. The distance will vary by style of facility but the longest distance reported in the study was only 6 miles.
Read MoreTransforming Your Fitness Facility Into a Wellness Center
People originally viewed fitness facilities simply as places to work out and play sports in order to change their physical appearance. However, this has shifted. Wellness—embracing physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health—has become the buzzword of the decade, and today’s fitness facilities have begun offering a myriad of services. To cover the full wellness spectrum, however, you need to combine forces with other health modalities.
Read MoreGrilled Salmon Spelt Salad With Blueberry Vinaigrette
Buttery salmon, sweet-tart berry dressing, crunchy nuts, chewy spelt and sun-kissed vegetables mingle to create an Instagram-ready summer salad that can be enjoyed for lunch or as a light dinner on a sultry night. And each bite packs plenty of health benefits.
Read MoreSleep and Your Clients
Sleep influences our demeanor, our choices and how others perceive us. It shapes our waking hours, leaving us alert, calm, focused and joyful—or tired, grumpy, distracted and unhappy.
That makes sleep a crucial concern for our harried clientele and for ourselves, as busy fitness professionals. We all try to sneak by without enough sleep, and we all pay the price for sleep deprivation. Read on for the latest research on sleep, plus how to bring up sleep in your clients’ sessions or at your business.
Read MoreHave a Ball Workout
This fun format incorporates exercise balls into cardiovascular and strength intervals. Each 8-minute round uses either a stability ball or a medicine ball, 4 minutes of high-intensity cardio training (combined), and about 4 minutes of strength-focused work (combined). For those who also enjoy a core challenge, this class delivers.
Read MoreHow Strength Training Impacts Metabolism
Strength training (or resistance training) does much more than build strong muscles and bones. Research in the past few years has confirmed that lifting weights changes human metabolism in ways that improve health and well-being. Resistance exercise improves resting metabolic rate and cardiorespiratory fitness. Indeed, some authors call strength training an exercise therapy program (Strasser & Schobersberger 2011).
Read MoreA Nod to Scalenes
How much do you know about your scalene muscles? If you just tilted your head in confusion, you can attribute that simple movement, in part, to your scalenes, three pairs of muscular tissue that flank the sides of the neck.
Anterior scalenes, on the front side of the neck, connect the third through sixth cervical vertebrae to the first rib.
Read MoreCorrecting Misconceptions About Fat
For years, fat was demonized as dietary “Public Enemy Number One.” Despite the essential roles it plays in the body, including temperature regulation, hormone production and protection of organs, we were told it was also responsible for weight gain and other health woes. As a result, people stocked their kitchens with low-fat items.
Read MoreMeet an IDEA Team Member: Joy Keller
A former IDEA editor once said that if Joy’s writing and reporting style were likened to a food, it would best be described as peanut butter. Why? Her work is “nutrient-dense,” packing a punch that sustains readers a long time.
Read MoreChanging Behavior Changes Lives
In North America—and around the world—people are suffering or dying from the ravages of chronic lifestyle diseases that are mostly preventable. It’s troubling to write those words as a flat statement of fact, especially in an era of such astonishing medical advancements paralleled with a daily firehose of new health research that further pressure-washes what we already know.
Read MoreSample Class: Barre-Cardio-Core
When you take the strong, efficient movements of barre and mix in cardiovascular intensity and a comprehensive core routine, you get a winning combination that appeals to a wide variety of people. Traditional barre classes use small, repetitive movements from a standing posture to work on balance while strengthening the lower body. Simultaneously, the upper body receives graceful range-of-motion benefits. These movements prepare the body to progress to more intense cardio work, and the core section challenges the center from all directions.
Read MoreBreath and Movement for Core Stability
When your participants ask about their core muscles, they’re most likely referring to the lauded “six-pack.” As a fitness instructor, you may think about transversus abdominis, obliques and pelvic-floor muscles. But almost everyone tends to forget about the diaphragm.
Read MoreCreating Preclass Rituals and Routines
Do you ever feel nervous before teaching a class? While your main focus is to educate and encourage students—and you know your stuff—there’s also a performance aspect to your work, and that can lead to a case of the butterflies! Professional athletes, actors, singers and public speakers experience similar nerves, and many use routines and rituals to put themselves in the right mindset prior to performing or competing.
Read MoreStop and Smell the Daisies
CLIENT: Brenda Badish
PERSONAL TRAINER: Kelly Fletcher
LOCATION: KFit Studios, Brighton, Michigan
Brenda Badish had almost given up hope that she could regain her health. “I figured I was a few weeks away from pushing up the daisies,” she says.
Read MoreIDEA Member Spotlight: June 2019
Shebah T. Carfagna
Member Since 2014 • Miami
Short, High-Intensity Weight Training and Diabetes Risk
Preliminary research on high-intensity training benefits may motivate people who prefer short training sessions and are concerned about diabetes risk. University of Glasgow researchers in Scotland found that 15-minute strength training workouts, done three times a week for 6 weeks, dramatically improved insulin sensitivity and boosted muscle size and strength among 10 young, overweight men.
Read MoreGender Differences in Fitness and Brain Function
Many studies show that cardiorespiratory fitness improvements boost brain fitness in later life. New research in the Journal of Applied Physiology (2019; doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.01046.2018) reveals that effects may differ between men and women.
Read MoreExercise Promotes Brain Fitness in Everyone
Much research on cardiovascular training for brain fitness focuses on benefits to older adults (see below). A recent randomized clinical trial using parallel groups found that cardio training also increases executive function in adults as young as 20 years old.
Read MoreCardio Training and Weight Loss
A systematic review of 77 studies suggests that while both interval training and continuous moderate-intensity exercise are effective for fat loss, interval training may produce results in a more time-efficient manner. Researchers from Brazil and England conducted the review to identify what type of exercise—continuous moderate-intensity (MOD), high-intensity interval training (HIIT) or sprint interval training (SIT)—is best for weight loss.
Read MoreTracker Information Motivates
With the abundance of activity trackers on the market, deciding which product to choose can be overwhelming. New research suggests that the most important criterion may simply be how easy it is to access the data the device provides. Recent research conducted at the Atlantic Sports Health Research Department of Atlantic Health System in Morris?¡town, New Jersey, shows that people who wore a device and accessed data via an app were more active daily when compared with those who did not access the activity information.
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