Amy Ashmore, PhD
Amy Ashmore, PhD
Article Archive
Personal trainers often have female clients over the age of 40 who have similar complaints about losing muscle mass and gaining body fat. Although these changes aren’t unexpected and can be a normal part of the aging process, they are not inevitable. In fact, the right resistance-training program can positively affect body composition by reducing fat, maintaining and building muscle, and increasing strength in this population.
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Who do you most want to work with? Since you can concentrate on so many populations or specialty areas as a trainer, it can be challenging to pinpoint what you really want to do. However, if your focus is not clear before you create your fitness business plan, you won’t know who to reach out to, potential clients won’t understand what you do, and your business may be less successful than you want it to be.
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Who do you most want to work with? Since you can concentrate on so many populations or specialty areas as a trainer, it can be challenging to pinpoint what you really want to do. However, if your focus is not clear before you create your fitness business plan, you won’t know who to reach out to, potential clients won’t understand what you do, and your business may be less successful than you want it to be.
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In today’s marketplace, knowing how to offer combined training is a must-have skill. People want it all—cardiovascular, strength and flexibility training—in just 50 minutes.
It’s easy to design individual or small-group programs that combine several exercise modes so that clients can meet multiple goals in a single session. But there is one challenge to keep in mind: Doing cardio, strength and flexibility training during the same session seems to confuse muscles at the molecular level, in effect interfering with their ability to respond properly (Doma & Deakin 2013).
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In today’s marketplace, knowing how to offer combined training is a must-have skill. People want it all—cardiovascular, strength and flexibility training—in just 50 minutes.
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A lot of people do concurrent training— cardio and strength training within the same session—because it seems to achieve multiple goals at the same time. It’s also a proven fat-burner, making it a popular choice for general fitness.
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Senior exercisers learn differently than younger ones do. They also process information differently from younger exercisers, and they react differently to the same information. This means trainers need to know
whether to give feedback, and how to give it;
when to give feedback—whether during a movement or once it’s completed; and
what exactly to focus on and what to say.
Giving effective verbal feedback during exercise—knowing what to say and when to say it—is essential to the fitness success of older clients.
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One of the most common obstacles personal trainers face is the need to modify an exercise program during a session. A good trainer comes to a fitness appointment with a series of exercises for the client to do. However, even the most well-planned program may need to be modified. The key to success is knowing, based on the client’s unique biomechanics and movement patterns, which modifications to make and how to implement them with confidence.
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Alternating strength sets with time on cardiovascular equipment is a popular way to train clients. When designed and executed correctly, this strategy can very effectively overload muscles, producing maximum results in minimum time.
p class=”subhead”>Designing Strength and Cardio Supersets
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Alternating strength sets with time on cardiovascular equipment is a popular way to train clients. When designed and executed correctly, this strategy can very effectively overload muscles, producing maximum results in minimum time. Specificity Principle The key to effective superset workouts is specificity. The specificity principle states that the muscles worked during an exercise will…
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To most people, personal trainers are the solution to a huge problem: unsafe, ineffective and inefficient workouts. When the three goals of kinesiology and applied biomechanics—safety, effectiveness and efficiency (Hamilton, Weimar & Luttgens 2008)—are met, it results in successful participation in physical activity and improvements in the physical and physiological factors associated with fitness.
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As we age, our hearts beat more slowly and pump less blood. Our lung capacity also decreases. These changes result in decreased maximal oxygen consumption, which causes less oxygen to reach muscles. Oxygen is the life fuel for muscles; without it, they simply cannot work. The decrease in muscle oxygen consumption is one of the main reasons why we slow down, grow weak and lose stamina as we age. Without speed, strength and stamina, we cannot do the basic activities of daily living that allow us to enjoy life, maintain health and remain independent.
Read MoreRecent statistics show that 41.3 million Americans belong to health clubs (IHRSA 2005). If you are a personal fitness trainer (PFT) who works at a fitness facility, you don’t need to go outside the facility’s doors to sell your services. A large potential market is already in the gym, so you just have to figure out how to approach the people right in front of you. The key is t…
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In case you haven’t noticed, the make-up of group fitness classes is changing. There’s been a progressive shift from working exclusively with the fit and abl…
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One of the most common mistakes exercisers make during strength training is
to use momentum. For everyday movements, the use of momentum is normal and adaptive. It is the body’s way of conserving energy, particularly during running, throwing or pushing activities. But during strength training, momentum is counterproductive because it decreases the work a muscle does, thereby decreasing the effectiveness of the exercise. What’s worse, it is dangerous to the joints and spinal cord, since it overloads these areas, causing unnecessary “wear and tear.”
Force = Mass × Acceleration
mass = weight
acceleration = the time rate of change in velocity