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Picture yourself training clients or leading a class on a white sandy beach, poolside or in a gazebo overlooking sparkling blue waters. As a certified fitness instructor who travels to teach at a vacation destination, you will get all the benefits of a luxury holiday while inspiring and showcasing your expertise to new clientele. Here are 10 benefits to going beyond your club or studio and exploring opportunities that could lead you to some of the most coveted locations around the world:
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Instagram’s billion active monthly users and 500 million active weekly users demand your attention. If you’re doing any marketing for your gym or fitness studio, it’s a platform you can’t afford to ignore.
But, being strong on the 'gram doesn’t have to dominate your time.
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What has changed with customer service in the last decade, and certainly in the last five years? The intersection of customer service and technology. Nowadays, clients interact more with devices, apps and platforms than they do with a live person. In many instances, these online interactions make for rapid, efficient service.
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Has your program director been hinting that your participation numbers are down? It can be frustrating and challenging to keep your regular participants engaged while trying to recruit new fans. If you’re like a lot of instructors, you’ve probably gone from not having anyone to teach to maybe even having to turn people away due to lack of space! There are many things you can do to keep the participants you have, capture new ones and keep people exercising with you, year after year.
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Muscle cramps can stop athletes in their tracks. Although they usually self-extinguish within seconds or minutes, the abrupt, harsh, involuntary muscle contractions can cause mild-to-severe agony and immobility, often accompanied by knotting of the affected muscle (Minetto et al. 2013). And cramps are common; 50%–60% of healthy people suffer muscle cramps during exercise, sleep or pregnancy or after vigorous physical exertion (Giuriato et al. 2018).
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Do you want healthier knees for your clients (and yourself)? Start from the ground up with IDEA’s latest free course (that’s right, free)! Learn how to program sessions that use the feet to get better results all the way up the kinetic chain and better understand the influence the feet have on knee health.
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As the control center for the body’s nervous system, the brain participates in every human function. From sensing to controlling motor skills, its vital role in movement means this cognitive powerhouse is—literally—the brains behind your work as a fitness professional.
There are three main components that make up your mind:
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It was little surprise to anyone when, asked to pick her “favorite punctuation mark” for a photo shoot of the IDEA editors, Judy Minich picked the exclamation point. She approaches every situation with the thought that she can spice it up with an extra dash of excitement.
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Older adults are more susceptible to deficits in cardiovascular fitness, muscle mass, strength and power, which may ultimately lead to losses in physical function. The following chair-based format focuses on improving outcomes for older participants, especially those who may need the support of a chair during exercise. Ready, Set, Sit! offers the variety of three 15-minute training segments (cardiovascular, high intensity and strength/power), while targeting important components that boost overall function.
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One of the many benefits of yoga is that it requires a “proximal to distal” approach. A strong core (proximal) is central to developing mobility and strength in the extremities (distal). Many yoga poses require spinal stabilization rather than flexion and are safe and beneficial for a wide range of abilities. The following three traditional stabilization postures have the added challenge of asymmetrical appendage movement, which requires the core to work harder to resist rotation.
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Yoga teachers will already be well aware that the yamas are one of the eight limbs of yoga. According to Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, the word yamas can be translated as “abstinences”; in other words, these are things yogis should avoid doing (Satchidananda 2012).
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Group fitness instructors have a reputation for being fearless extroverts. And it does take self-confidence to stand in front of a group of people and lead them through an exercise routine—all while wearing a mic and managing a playlist. The truth is that we’re performing, but that doesn’t come naturally to everyone. Some of us need to fake it till we make it!
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Cynthia Walker was struggling. Although she’d been trying to lose weight for years, it just seemed like the odds were stacked against her.
“At age 42, she had a TIA (transient ischemic attack) along with high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels,” says trainer E. Faith Bell. “Then, 11 years ago, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. At 4 feet 9 inches tall, she weighed 176 pounds.”
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Exercising in front of a television, computer screen or mobile device is nothing new. Since the advent of VHS tapes, fitness programs have offered users an opportunity to get their sweat on whenever they choose in the comfort of their home. Over the past several years, however, fitness facilities have leveraged new technology to offer virtual classes on-site in hopes of luring exercisers out of their living rooms and into the group exercise room.
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From the first Halloween treat to the last glass of New Year’s bubbly, we are bombarded with occasions that tempt us with decadent goodies. This constant parade of rich foods can make the last few months of the year a challenge for even the most disciplined of eaters.
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Nutrition advice from social media “experts” is best viewed with a huge grain of Himalayan pink salt, says new research presented at this year’s European Congress on Obesity. British researchers at the University of Glasgow recently combed through popular U.K. nutrition and weight loss blogs to determine how much of the advice being dished out was trustworthy. The social media influencers were graded on transparency, nutritional soundness and use of research-backed references.
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A duo of recent studies are further strengthening the case against dumping high amounts of salt into restaurant fare and packaged processed foods.
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Being glued to your smartphone at night may not be so smart if you’re trying to stick to a healthy diet. In research presented at the 2019 conference of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior, in the Netherlands, rats exposed at night to just 1 hour of blue light—the same type of light emitted by many digital devices like smartphones—consumed more sugar afterward than when they were not exposed to blue light at night.
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As we become better informed about the potential pitfalls of too much screen time, findings in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine suggest that sitting in front of a computer to play a diet-focused game may drive people to trade in their candy for cauliflower!
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Since many Americans spend half their waking hours at a job, it makes sense that the food they decide to purchase at work can have a big impact on their overall diet.
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IDEA Fitness Journal
Current Issue:
December 2019
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