Mastering Exercise Modifications

Questions

What are your best tips for providing exercise modifications during group fitness classes? How do you manage modifications for different experience levels?

From the Experts

Inclusion and Belonging

Ruben Pereyra, BS, ACE personal trainer, senior fitness specialist and senior fitness director at WESLEY Senior Homes, Des Moines, WA

As a group exercise instructor, it’s crucial to offer modifications to accommodate various fitness levels in each class. Whether participants are recovering from an injury, dealing with chronic pain or just beginning their fitness journey, fitness instructors can create an inclusive atmosphere where every person in the group feels a sense of belonging.

Follow these tips and techniques to make modifications with confidence:

• Scan the room: Before the start of your session, perform a thorough scan of the room to gain an understanding of the different body types, ages and fitness levels of your participants. This allows you to tailor your instruction to meet the needs of each individual and ensure a safe, effective workout.
• Begin with intention: Before class, explain that modifications will be available during the session. Doing this will ensure that all participants, regardless of their current fitness level or physical abilities, can make the necessary modifications to their exercises to meet their individual needs. It will also create an inclusive atmosphere where everyone feels comfortable.
• Layer exercises: Begin your sessions with low-impact movements that allow participants to warm up and get familiar with exercise movements. Provide 1–2 exercise options for each exercise move that individuals can work towards throughout the session. This approach helps mitigate injury risk and assists those recovering from injuries or participants who are not accustomed to a particular movement. Layering is an effective technique that can help seniors gradually build strength and confidence in their ability to perform an exercise. One example of layering is beginning with a chair squat, where seniors can use their arm muscles to reach towards the floor and gradually push off the chair with their triceps muscles. As they become more comfortable, they can progressively perform a full squat with the chair as support.
• Reduce weight, resistance and impact: Lead by example and foster an environment that encourages enjoyable and useful modifications for exploring various intensity levels. Remember that modifying a workout does not mean it is less effective. When using weights, instruct the class to go lighter to reduce tension and minimize the risk of injury. To ensure joint health during physical activity, recommend that participants take measures to reduce the impact on their joints. By implementing these modifications, participants can continue to engage in physical activity while reducing the risk of joint injury. Furthermore, it is important to remind participants to take their time with modifications, allowing them enough time to comprehend the exercise and make further modifications that are suitable for their bodies.

Making modifications is essential to allow individuals to attain their maximum fitness potential. Instructors must have the flexibility to adjust to any group to guarantee the safety of all participants. By offering substantial motivational cues and utilizing layering techniques, every group fitness instructor can lead a successful class tailored to suit the needs and abilities of all body types.

The Executive Decision

Elizabeth Lenart, MEd, coordinator of fitness, wellness and instructional programming at Yale University, and owner of Innerathlete and Studio E Fitness, Chicopee, MA

I’ve had great success empowering clients to choose the exercise option or modification that suits what their bodies can do and help them reach their goals for the day.

Instead of saying, “If you can’t do this, try this approach,” I create a safe space using what I call “the executive decision.” The “executive decision” lets the client choose the exercise or exercise variation that helps them work towards their goals.

For example, we know some clients can’t jump, don’t want to jump, or have an injury or limitation that prohibits a jump in any given moment. My cues sound like this:

• “If you’d like some air time today, these jumps are for you.”
• “If your energy is high and it’s available to your body, be as explosive as you can for [insert number] reps!”
• “If deep ROM is a personal goal today, skip the jump and put your focus on the depth of your squat.”
• “If balance is something you’d like to work on, squat and then lift your heels and see if you can balance on your toes for 2–3 counts instead of jumping.”

The beauty is that no one needs to know who can or cannot do anything. This approach creates an inclusive atmosphere while instructing clients we can all work on different things while still loving our precious time together.

Empower Participant Choice

Siri Chilazi, group fitness instructor and 2023 IDEA Emerging Trailblazer award recipient, Boston, MA

Providing exercise options and modifications is essential during all group classes since every body in the room is different! In my warmups, I include movements that I expect to be accessible to almost everyone (at some range of motion), such as squats, basic lunges in all directions and spinal twists. I use the warmup to observe my participants closely to see which ranges of motion they naturally gravitate towards, how well they are moving and how comfortable they look with different exercises. This helps me determine which options to provide when we head into the body of the workout.

For example, should the default option for a pushup be a quadruped position with knees under hips or a modified plank with the knees on the floor? This will depend on who I have in the room. Either way, I will offer a pushup on the toes as a progression (and maybe a laterally moving pushup as a further challenge if I have highly conditioned individuals in the group). I recommend pre-planning your modifications so that for each exercise you have 2–4 versions in mind.

To get everyone moving together safely and quickly, I start with the “base” or “default” (i.e., lowest difficulty) version of an exercise. I then give options for people to progress the exercise as they see fit; to build up instead of scaling down. I’m a fan of encouraging people to tune deeply into themselves and select the options that work best for them, so I often say things like, “If you are happy here, stay here,” or “If you want a cardio challenge, add a jump. If you want to train muscular endurance instead, pulse at the bottom.” This way, we empower our attendees to choose whichever option (or modification) works for them in the moment, instead of implying that the “hardest” option is always the best.

I also think it’s helpful to educate our participants about what differentiates each version of an exercise from another. For example, “Lifting one leg will train more balance, whereas keeping both feet on the floor will help you feel more grounded.”

Finally, it’s useful to keep reminding people that the options and modifications you provide are there for the taking. However, we say it—“your body, your workout” or “honor your body’s needs today” or “do what feels good for you, not for your neighbor”—it is our job as instructors to make people feel welcome to train at the level that is best for them. I say these cues many times throughout the session, and I often purposefully stay with the base move after showing more intense options to keep company for those participants who are sticking with the base move.

See also: Group Exercise Cues for Success