Career Path for Mind-Body Professionals
November Knowledge: Earn CECs & Advance Your Expertise with IDEA
This month at IDEA Health & Fitness Association, we’re all about YOUR education! Are you in need of CEC credits to renew your certification? Would you like to learn more…
Maximizing Your IDEA Membership: Top 5 Most Popular Professional Resources
As fitness professionals, we know that staying ahead of trends, maintaining certification, and building a thriving business are crucial to success. At IDEA® Health & Fitness Association, our mission is…
Mental Health in Children: Yoga to the Rescue
Poor mental health is detrimental to the development and well-being of children. Can yoga for children help improve symptoms?
2023 Fitness Industry Compensation Trends Report
This compensation trends report provides data on current wages in the industry as well as benefits and hiring and promotion criteria.
Becoming a Holistic Wellness Industry
Success in fitness will require a more holistic wellness approach with knowledge of the emotional, social and mental perks of exercise.
Brain-Breath Connection
Researchers analyzed human and animal imaging that showed the brain-breath connection and how breathing influences the brain.
Connection and Community: A Critical Combination
How is connection and community, or lack thereof, affecting your personal and professional life? Here are three ways to create community.
Breathwork Research and Application
An overview of what scientific evidence supports, common breathing dysfunctions and a sampling of effective breathwork exercises.
Transform Your Fitness Facility
The traditional fitness facility has typically been viewed as a place to work out and play sports in order to change one’s physical appearance. However, this has shifted. Wellness—which includes physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellness—has become the buzzword of the decade, and today’s fitness facilities have begun offering a myriad of services, hoping that people will view these locations as the local wellness center. To cover the full wellness spectrum, however, you need to combine forces with other health modalities.
Posture Correction for Static Damage
The word posture tends to evoke the image of a schoolgirl standing perfectly erect with a book on her head. More accurately, static posture refers to the way in which a person holds his or her body or assumes certain positions, such as sitting, standing or sleeping. The cumulative effect of the time spent in certain positions can lead to prolonged static-posture damage to both the musculoskeletal and myofascial systems of the body.
Sell Mental Health and Wellness, Not Exercise
As the world puts one foot in front of another after the pandemic, it’s critical to address mental and emotional health and wellness.
Expand Your Skillset With Pilates and Mind-Body Movement
Pilates and mind-body movement to keep your clients engaged, motivated and eager to keep moving with you in-person and virtually.
Health and Wellness Coaching Approved as Healthcare Service
Health and wellness coaching has hit an important professional milestone. The AMA has officially recognized the role of health and wellness coaches as nonphysician healthcare professionals by approving procedural codes for tracking health and well-being coaching services. This means that health and wellness coaches who are certified by either the National Board of Health and Wellness Coaching (NBHWC) or by the National Commission for Health Education Credentialing Inc. are recognized as Category III healthcare professionals.
Shoulder the Load: Mechanics and Programming for Shoulders
Review the anatomy and function of the glenohumeral and scapulothoracic joints and learn basic, low-risk exercises that are designed to improve rotator cuff strength, shoulder mobility and scapulohumeral rhythm.
Training Happy for Positive Behavioral Change
Are happiness exercises part of your training program design? Does that question seem odd? As you embark on a new year of helping clients work toward their fitness resolutions, this is the perfect time to pause and consider how you can use every tool at your disposal to make sure people succeed. Your toolbox includes harnessing the power of positivity to promote physical activity.
10 Reasons Why Fitness Instructors Should Teach on Vacation
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:
Tips for Growing Your Fitness Classes
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.
Cultural Appropriation in Yoga
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).
How to Increase Confidence and Fitness Class Size
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!