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By 2030, approximately half of the U.S. adult population will be obese, and a quarter will have severe obesity, based on body mass index data.
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“The message we get from the fitness industry is that your body is the problem, and it’s your job to fix it,” says Gillian Goerzen, author of The Elephant in the Gym: Your Body-Positive Guide to Writing Your Own Health and Fitness Story (Winchelsea Media, November 2018) and owner of the Super You Studio. This pressure can be even more pronounced in athletes — and in the fitness professionals who train them. In fact, according to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, some of the hallmarks of a successful athlete — mental toughness, commitment to training and pursuit of excellence — can easily slide into asceticism, excessive exercise and perfectionism, which are signs of anorexia nervosa.
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Jack Welch, American businessman and former CEO of General Electric, once said, “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” This is the reason the IDEA World Convention exists—to bring together some of the brightest people in the fitness industry so they can grow into greatness and inspire that growth in clients, students, athletes, co-workers and staff.
Comprising more than 330 sessions led by top coaches, entrepreneurs, and fitness, nutrition and wellness professionals, IDEA World offers the full spectrum of education you are seeking for instant and ongoing career growth, regardless of your position in the industry.
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Fitness professionals may want to reach out to more young adults, as “millennials are seeing their health decline faster than the previous generation as they age,” reports Blue Cross Blue Shield in The Economic Consequences of Millennial Health, published on November 6, 2019. Millennials were born in 1981–1996 and are considered to be the first generation of “digital natives.”
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Serving cancer survivors is another area in which exercise is being acknowledged as an important part of the healthcare continuum. New guidelines, developed by an international group of experts, advise people living with cancer to avoid inactivity.
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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.
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Indoor cyclists who wore virtual-reality headsets experienced less leg-muscle pain during brief, high-intensity intervals than cyclists who wore headsets showing static images, according to a study published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise (2019; 51 [10], 2088–97).
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What activities or equipment-based program trends are you seeing in the new year? Are you boosting promotion of any particular programs like high-intensity interval training, indoor cycling, yoga or barre? Or are you offering shorter class times or opportunities for virtual training? Please share your success stories.
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Walking was the most popular activity. Western women and Midwestern men did more intensive exercise than those in any other region. The South had the biggest gender gap in exercise intensity
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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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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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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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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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What are you or your facility doing to support the next generation of fitness enthusiasts? Are you offering any kids’ physical activity programs at schools or other off-site community locations? Are you providing programs free to local youth—or, if fee-based, what are you offering and how are you reaching potential clients? Please share your success stories.
We want to hear from you! Email executive editor Joy Keller, [email protected]
If you work with athletes, you’ve likely run into the challenge of how to incorporate power components into their already-packed training schedules. Whether you’re working with a clutch outfielder, a center or a lineman, your client’s athletic skills need refinement, and power is one aspect that requires attention. Trainers typically program resistance training to develop strength and plyometric drills to improve speed.
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As the holidays approach, so does the three-day Super Bowl of Shopping.
Black Friday (Nov. 29), Small Business Saturday (Nov. 30), and Cyber Monday (Dec. 2) are all circled on any good bargain-hunter’s calendar.
Enticing them can mean a chance to bolster your retail sales. AND, if you present the right deal, you can earn a customer who will return again and again.
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Outstanding customer service has always been the number-one way to attract and retain customers, clients and members. In recent years, the notion of great customer service has changed as a result of high expectations from informed consumers. This switch has occurred in large part because people can “connect” with a company easily and quickly through a multitude of channels, both offline and online.
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Is your fitness business not performing as well as you’d like? Maybe your fitness facility is experiencing too much turnover, so you’re constantly training new staff instead of taking time to grow your business. Or perhaps your clients are leaving, and you’re losing money because of it. Challenges like these are tough for a business owner. The good news is that you can turn things around. The first step is to determine exactly what your problem is. The second step is to create a plan for change.
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The fitness industry has never been so exciting, and there is so much renewed interest in wellness and our collective desire to seek optimal health. The concept of a “traditional gym” has slogged it out for about 50 years, starting in community halls and evolving into big-box gyms, budget clubs and boutique studios. Adjacent industries—such as entertainment, health, athleisure, franchising, food and hospitality, social media and gaming—are investing money in our arena.
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IDEA Fitness Journal
Current Issue:
December 2019
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