Career Path for Personal Trainers
7 Keys to Creating an Unforgettable Onboarding Experience
Do you want to strategically and consistently educate and motivate your new clients so they feel like they’re getting incredible results—and so you’re getting a steady flow of referrals and earning positive social proof? Are you ready to not just deliver but over-deliver? If your answer is yes, then one of your most important next moves is to create a step-by-step onboarding process.
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.
Special Benefits of Group Exercise
Group fitness instructors may also want to approach medical schools with an offer to provide exercise classes for medical students. To support a pitch, refer to a recent nonrandomized controlled study in The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association; it found that, for medical students, group exercise can reduce stress and improve physical, mental and emotional quality of life more than training alone or not engaging in any exercise program.
Firefighter Fitness Status
A health promotion opportunity for fitness professionals may lie in working with local firefighters. A longitudinal study of fitness-level changes among firefighters found that while they significantly improve health and fitness measures during firefighter training, many lose a lot of those gains as active-duty firefighters. Physical training is no longer mandatory once firefighters have completed their academy education.
Programming to Prevent ACL Injury
Your new client, 16-year-old Alexis, is a competitive athlete who wants you to design a fitness program that will help her prevent a second anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear. She partially tore her ACL while playing soccer and rehabbed it with a physical therapist, who cleared her to play again. Alexis returned to spring softball without an issue, but she would like to be as fully prepared as possible for the upcoming fall soccer season. She hopes to be recruited to play in college, but her parents are concerned she will sustain another ACL injury, perhaps a more severe one.
Spotting the Food Industry’s Influence on Nutrition Research
The food industry has an inherent conflict of interest when it funds
nutrition research. After all, food manufacturers’ livelihoods rise and fall on how we decide to consume calories. The industry’s deep pockets translate into influence over dietary experts, scientific studies and nutrition policymakers.
Green Exercise: How It Benefits You
Here’s a look at what the latest findings tell us about why you may want to incorporate green exercise into your programs.
Simplicity Steers Success
client: Jennifer | personal trainer: John Parker | location: San Diego
Keeping it simple. Every day it seems there’s a new supplement, food plan or training program that purports to produce unparalleled results. But all of these choices can make it difficult for clients to make wise choices and remain consistent in their approach. That was the problem faced by Jennifer, a florist and part-time kickboxing instructor, and it’s why she reached out to San Diego–based personal trainer John Parker, CSCS.
5 Reasons You Still Need to Attend Live Trainings
Energized! That’s how I feel every time I leave a fitness conference. I’m eager to implement fresh ideas and coaching tips into my fitness classes—a feeling I rarely have after completing an online course. Although I’ll be the first to admit that I need digital learning opportunities for their sheer convenience, I still crave live fitness education experiences.
Here are 5 reasons why you, as a fitness instructor, will reap the greatest benefits from live courses and conferences.
1 A Face-to-Face Community
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.
130/80 = High Blood Pressure
For the first time since 2003, the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association have produced a substantial report updating blood pressure recommendations. People with a reading of 130/80 are now classified as having high blood pressure. This is down from 140/90.
According to the ACC, this means 46% of U.S. adults will now be categorized as having hypertension.
Those in the “hypertensive crisis” category require medication intervention and immediate hospitalization if there is organ damage, according to the report.
How to Develop Better Work–Life Balance
Do you find yourself checking your email and responding to messages well after you’ve “clocked out” for the day? While keeping up with emails after hours might seem productive, researchers from the University of Zurich in Switzerland believe this habit could have the opposite effect.
They launched an online survey in which 1,916 employees answered questions about work–life balance. For example, respondents were asked how often they thought about work during nonwork hours; the type and frequency of recovery activities; and exhaustion levels.
Exercise Responses Vary Among Women
A new study from Bangor University in Wales affirms that body type influences a woman’s response to exercise, potentially affecting weight management success.
Female participants were assigned to either a 4-week or 8-week circuit training intervention. The women met three times per week and exercised at 50%–90% VO2 peak for 45–90 minutes per session. They were instructed not to diverge from their usual diets.
The Power of a Playlist
There was a time when I was teaching 32 group classes per week for 14 companies, all with different demographics and with classes spread throughout the city. It wasn’t uncommon for me to teach in a collegiate setting, a fitness facility, a studio, a corporate office and a hospital, all in the same day. Could I have used the same generic fitness mix for every location or simply chosen a station on a music streaming app? Sure, if I’d been content to deliver a subpar experience.
Question of the Month
With the American Heart Association’s recent recognition of meditation and mindfulness practices and with meditation studios appearing in Los Angeles and New York City, it’s clear that these activities are going mainstream. Are you or is your facility integrating this trend into programs? For example, are you offering yoga and meditation classes or meditation-only sessions?
Share your responses with executive editor Joy Keller at [email protected]
Fitness Facility Membership by the Numbers
In 2016 America, traditional commercial health clubs—multipurpose, fitness-only and corporate facilities—served 32.2 million members, a 3% decline from 2015, according to the International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association. Studios served another 18.2 million, a 15% improvement.
Nonprofit facility membership rose 6.9% from 2015 to more than 24 million. Collectively,
studio facilities claimed 40.7% of total membership.
Resistance Training for Youth: 10 Tips for Success
Resistance training for youth can be a polarizing topic, mostly because of misconceptions about safety, injury rates and training techniques. Though parents and trainers alike often worry about the hazards of youth resistance training, research shows that it has a host of benefits—if it’s done properly.
Most Popular Club Activities
The three types of workout equipment used most often in health clubs in 2016 were treadmills, resistance machines and free weights, according to the IHRSA 2017 Health Club Consumer Report. Among group exercise and training programs, yoga topped the list, with 36% of members reporting participation. Stretching (24%) and calisthenics (23%) ranked second and third.
Body Image and the Fitness Industry
A look at why the fitness industry does indeed have a body image problem—and what we can do about it, starting now.
Personal Experience Inspires Client Success
client: John | personal trainer: Tony Phillips, president, Custom Fitness Solutions | location: Cookeville, Tennessee