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Equipping Your Club or Studio

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Harnessing Body Scan Technology in Fitness

In modern fitness and wellness practice, precision and personalization are cornerstones of effective client programming. While traditional methods such as calipers, tape measurements, and scales have long served as tools…

Build a Better Club or Studio

Whether you’re the owner of a large gym, a small-studio entrepreneur, a mobile personal trainer, or a yoga or Pilates specialist, a basic tenet of keeping your edge sharp with clients is to shake things up frequently enough that they (and you!) don’t get bored. Certainly, that means changing your programming regularly, but it also means looking at your equipment with fresh eyes and considering some new tools for experimentation—all while being judicious about your budget.

Learn, Connect and Thrive at the IDEA® World Convention

Education is the foundation of the IDEA World Convention, but this fitness event offers plenty more than stellar instruction. For Jonathan Bernath, publicist-turned-personal-trainer, it’s where he discovered the “fitness family” that would guide him in his new career.

How to Find Your Epic

The fitness industry is a rewarding and inspiring place to be. However, it’s not without its challenges, and getting ahead with passion alone can be difficult. The most successful fit pros know that to build an epic life and career, they must invest in education and learn from those who’ve been there and done it.

What’s Hot in Equipment: Fitness Pro Favorites

Fitness professionals like their equipment—from "tried-and-true" to "oh, so new." And equipment companies like to fill convention halls with fresh gear to help trainers and clients hit their goals. Of course, fitness pros also enjoy new gadgets for the pure thrill of them—and will sometimes go for equipment that targets a fun goal over a hypertrophy goal, for example.

“What are the advantages and/or disadvantages to wearing workout gloves?”

The advantages to wearing weightlifting gloves include eliminating the need for chalk, eliminating calluses and preventing sweat from diminishing grip.

The disadvantages are that gloves can make gripping harder because they add girth to whatever you are gripping; gloves can get stinky if not allowed to dry out properly; and gloves can be difficult to get on and off for people who wear them intermittently in a workout. In addition, they can be expensive compared with more modern silicone or neoprene grip barriers.

A Teaching Kitchen in Your Studio?

Those of us who know how to cook typically learned by helping our
parents in the kitchen when we were growing up. We picked up on little
pointers, burned some toast, learned how to eyeball a measurement and
prepared recipes passed down through the generations. Developing a
comfort level in the kitchen requires practice—spending time there
planning, preparing and serving meals (and washing the dirty dishes!).

Facility Design and Construction 101, Part One

Shiny, solid floors. An upgraded stereo and microphone system. Brand-new equipment. Many fitness facility managers look around their club and can rapidly envision what needs to be acquired or improved.

Equipment Safety in the Fitness Setting

Stories of failed exercise equipment leading to injury have been making headlines. Recently the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced a voluntary
recall of 3 million fitness balls, for example. According to a press release, manufacturers received reports of balls bursting while in use. “Many of the injuries that occur with stability balls come from a poor-quality product [not made to handle] repetitive use in the gym,” states Abbie Appel, IDEA presenter and author, and Resist-A-Ball® master instructor.

AEDs Required in California Fitness Facilities

It’s been 3 months since all
fitness facilities and studios in California were required to have an automated external defibrillator (AED) program in place (the implementation date was July 1). If this requirement applies to you, are you up to code? If you don’t live in California, visit www.ncsl.org/programs/health/
aed.htm to see if your state
requires …

Getting Your Equipment Needs Met

Q:My director knows our studio microphone is broken and agrees we need to fix it right away. She says she has requested a repair. Yet 3 weeks have elapsed, and nothing
has been resolved. Meanwhile, my voice
is shot. If I refuse to teach until the mike is repaired, I will be considered a problem instructor. But if I continue to teach without a mike, my voice will suffer even more. What should I do?