Training With a Purpose

Your purpose as an impassioned personal trainer, manager and owner is to deliver transformational fitness experiences for your clients. And if the past several years have taught us anything, it’s that we must also possess the fortitude to continue training with a purpose no matter what the world throws at us.

For the first time in 2 years, IDEA Personal Trainer Institute returns to Alexandria, Virginia, February 24–27, to provide you the strategies and tools to support your clients, grow your business and ensure a lasting career that can weather any storm.

Read on to learn about some of the innovative topics planned for this in-person event.

The New Rules of Muscle Growth

Building muscle is not a new concept or endeavor in fitness. However, according to Zachary Mang, PhD, postdoctoral employee for the health and wellness program at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the science behind muscle hypertrophy has evolved.

“Here is a short list of fundamental hypertrophy training variables that have undergone a ‘makeover’ in the past decade: Intensity, volume, frequency, rest intervals, repetition tempo and proximity to failure (i.e., the set end point).”

He adds: “In addition, there has been a recent research boom regarding whether advanced training techniques are more effective, or just as effective, when compared with traditional resistance training. Examples of advanced training techniques include drop set, compound set, reciprocal super set, cluster set, pre-exhaustion, accentuated eccentrics and pyramid training.”

Mang insists that these new insights, which he will share during his session, “10 Advanced Training Techniques and Methods to Increase Muscle Size,” are invaluable for personal trainers looking to level-up their ability to help clients see desired gains.

Your Heart on Exercise

Understanding a client’s physiological response to exercise is key to monitoring progress, motivating clients and keeping sessions laser-focused and effective. A powerful way to do that is through heart rate monitoring, says Jesse Thomas, MS, founder, president and CEO of Fitness Deconstructed.

“Understanding exactly how hard a client is working in real time will help a personal trainer to make the most effective modifications to ensure safety as well as desired intensity,” Thomas explains. “Whether it is sustained endurance exercise, high-intensity interval training or somewhere in between, maintaining specific intensity levels or intervals throughout a training session will greatly enhance the ability to make adaptations and will help a personal trainer get the most out of each training session.”

His workshop, “Understanding Heart Rate Response: Cardiovascular Dynamics for All Fitness Levels,” will cover everything you need to know about how to monitor client heart rates, collect data and then use that data to build more impactful programs to keep you training with a purpose.

Change Your Identity, Change Your Life

Client compliance is one of the most important—yet most difficult to implement—components of the success continuum. We often blame the client for not adhering to well-crafted plans, but Eliza Kingsford, MA, licensed psychotherapist, suggests otherwise. “It’s a faulty approach because it’s based on the presumption that when people know better, they do better,” she explains. “In other words, we make the assumption that as soon as we tell someone what to do, they will ingest that information and just go do it. That’s not how our brain works.”

In her session, “The Neuroscience of Change: How the Brain Prevents You from Outperforming Your Identity,” Kingsford will explain what does work.

“To put it simply, the brain operates like a machine. And we can’t outperform the functions of the machine. Our identity provides the programming for what the machine is capable of.”

She says, for example, a client who self-identifies as lazy will not be compliant if they decide to book early-morning sessions—no matter how motivated they were during the initial consultation.

“The brain is designed to function to the capacity of that limiting belief, and they will sleep through their alarm, cancel sessions or not show up. This is not a character flaw; it’s a faulty belief system, which can be changed.”

Breathe Your Way to Better Posture and Performance

Client performance is often impacted by limited mobility and discomfort. Have you considered that this may be due to poor breathing technique? Evan Osar, DC, owner of the Institute for Integrative Health & Fitness Education, thinks you should.

“Optimal breathing regulates internal pressure within the core,” he says. “You can think of this as similar to blowing up a stability ball. Like a well-inflated stability ball, breathing improves core stability and hence improves posture.”

Osar will cover all things breath and its impact on client success in his session, “Breath: The Secret to Posture and Performance.”

“Fitness professionals will discover how to easily assess their client’s breathing to identify common breathing faults that impact posture and movement,” says Osar. “Additionally, they’ll learn how to incorporate breathing into their corrective exercises. Finally, they’ll discover how to integrate breathing into functional exercise and programming.”

Body Image and Client Success

Entering a gym or hiring a personal trainer is not an easy task for people who feel like they don’t look like the individuals regularly promoted and marketed as “fit.” Certified holistic health coach and personal trainer, Tasha Edwards, MS, aims to dismantle this homogenous perspective so that all individuals feel seen and heard in the fitness space.

“As the fitness world became more diverse and there were more options for different types of bodies, people began to question the notion that fitness can only belong to one type of person,” she explains. “The unseen and unheard have found their voices, and it’s a pushback on the things that made them (us) feel like we were somehow out of place due to our age, race or size.”

She adds that it’s vital for fitness professionals to understand that body bias occurs and how to better relate to clients that don’t fit the typical fitness mold. She’ll take a deep dive on the subject—and offer unique insights into how to create inclusive fitness experiences—in her session, “Body Image and Behavior Change: Shifting the Narrative for Enhanced Client Wellness.”

“When people come to us in what could be a very vulnerable space, we cannot allow our ‘stories’ to get in the way. How we react and respond to someone who has finally broken through the anxiousness of even trying to start a lifestyle change or has decided to try another form of movement for their wellness is everything.”

In the end, training with a purpose means a personal trainer’s primary responsibility is to guide clients toward improved health and happiness, and that can’t happen when those clients are afraid to walk through the door because they don’t feel they belong, she concludes.

This is just a small taste of the high-level and impactful education attendees will experience at the 2022 IDEA Personal Trainer Institute. Additional topics include expert guidance on business growth and stability, training specific populations, leading small and large group sessions, designing great programs, and more.

Now’s the time to sharpen your skillset and become the most impactful change agent you can be.

Learn more about this premier event and register today.