Article Archive
As a certified group fitness instructor, you know how essential a physical warmup is, but in today’s world—when digital distraction and the rigors of a stressful life tend to short-circuit the brain—there’s also a need to mentally connect attendees with the moment so they are fully present to receive your cues and guidance.
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What activities or equipment-based program trends are you seeing in the new year? Are you boosting promotion of any particular programs like high-intensity interval training, indoor cycling, yoga or barre? Or are you offering shorter class times or opportunities for virtual training? Please share your success stories.
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When the body’s systems are running smoothly, we’re a walking, talking cellular symphony. When something goes “off note,” we become more cognizant of how vital interconnections affect our functionality. More commonly, though, we take the actions of some body parts for granted. Consider, for example, the renal, or urinary, system.
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dietary apps or food trackers to your clients?
Please share what apps you’re working with, whether you prefer one app or device to another, and any successes you’ve had with clients.
We want to hear from you! Email executive editor Joy Keller, [email protected]
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As “head coach” of the circulatory/cardiovascular system, the heart pumps blood throughout the body, supplying oxygen and nutrients to tissues. Actually, two circulatory systems work as a “team”: Systemic circulation carries oxygenated blood from the heart to the body and sends deoxygenated blood back to the heart. Pulmonary circulation transports oxygen-poor blood from the heart’s right ventricle to the lungs, where it picks up a new supply of oxygen-rich blood that it carries to the heart’s left atrium (PubMed Health 2018).
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When it comes to muscles, we rarely think about our eyes, and yet the eye is the fastest and most active muscle in the human body (VSP 2018). We say “in the blink of an eye” for a reason! While you probably don’t program “eye lifts” into your strength training routines, exercise does support healthy vision. Read on to find out more about the benefits, along with a few fun facts you can share with clients to further inspire them to keep moving.
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While life may not always be a highlight reel, thousands of the best personal trainers, group exercise instructors, fitness entrepreneurs and nutrition/wellness professionals added significant footage to their lives at this year’s IDEA World Convention, where everyday actions became epic adventures in education. At the 2018 event, held in San Diego, June 27–July 1, more than 14,000 like-minded pros converged to learn from more than 350 workshops and workouts taught by the industry’s keenest minds.
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When you’re designing a fitness program, you may or may not consider the endocrine system, and yet it’s a key component of wellness. A network of glands that secrete hormones to support bodily functions, the endocrine system regulates internal processes—including growth and development, metabolism, homeostasis, response to stimuli, and reproduction—via the bloodstream (Sargis 2016).
Read More Located behind the stomach in the upper abdomen, the pancreas is a glandular organ that has two primary “jobs.” It is both a digestive exocrine gland (secreting products via ducts) and a hormone-producing endocrine gland (secreting substances directly into the bloodstream). The pancreas excretes enzymes to break down the foods we eat, and it secretes insulin and glucagon to control blood sugar (Taylor 2018). Spongy, and shaped like a flat pear, it’s about 6–10 inches long (Columbia University Medical Center 2018).
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You may have noticed that many of your clients are blissfully unaware of just how much work the foot and ankle complex does—unless and until, of course, an ankle sprain or tendinitis occurs. The ankle “negotiates” ground reaction forces, informing the kinetic chain in numerous ways. Among other functions, the feet and ankles help the body adapt to uneven terrain through side-to-side movement (Price 2008).
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