The Most Common Mistakes People Make With Professional Trainers
Most Fitness Professionals know that as every New Year approaches, people begin to think of the significance of exercising as it relates to weight loss and all-around health. Many New Year's resolutions are made to start an exercise program or increase one's degree of physical activity. According to International Health, Racquet, and Sportsclub Association (IHRSA), more than 12 percent of gym members join in January when compared with a typical of 8.3 percent every month for the full year. New gym memberships also show a rise in March as people start to focus on the way they want to look for the summer months.
As a licensed Fitness Professional that works as a Personal Trainer in a corporate gym, it really is amazing to see how many gym members try to achieve their fitness goals on their own with little if any knowledge of sometimes even the best way to operate the machines they opt to use. Typically members rely on friends that they deem "in shape" or "fit" to enable them to reach the perceived level of fitness success they can have, with no real science behind their exercise routines or programming. What the majority of people fail to realize is that the real difference in someone's body type can often have an impact on how their body responds to the exact same exercise completed by somebody else with an alternative body type.
Other than consulting with a medical professional ahead of starting any exercise program, it's also essential that an initial fitness assessment be conducted by an authorized Fitness Professional. This assessment should think about an individual's health, fitness background, current level of activity, previous injuries, surgeries, medications being taken and any limitations or specific recommendations given by a medical practioner. These important factors about a person will be essential to a Fitness Professional prior to any exercise program design. An "in shape" friend with no education or understanding of a scientific approach to exercising will more than likely not do an initial assessment and could unintentionally coach their friend into a possible injury as a result of this neglect.
The perception of what constitutes an excellent personal trainer is subjective. Most individuals when they consider employing a personal trainer do not exactly determine what attributes they will want to look for.
Perhaps you discover yourself in a similar position-is choosing a trainer about personality, age, or gender? Is it about job ethic or similar fitness ideals? What should potential clients need to understand about the person they choose? Are there "deal-breaker" questions? Does it matter if a trainer doesn't actually possess any education in exercise fitness, physiology, or nutrition? If you are in the marketplace for a personal fitness trainer, get answers for yourself and hire the trainer with the answers that most closely match the next suggestions.
To begin with, fitness trainers are not workout buddies. Rather, a professional trainer listens to your personal needs and goals; assesses your health and fitness; designs a means of tracking your progress; motivates, pushes, or else inspires you to keep moving forward; and then creates or builds a program specifically for you. The amount of expertise, professional training, and education required by these tasks is nothing to sneeze at. Ask your trainer if they are a certified fitness trainer. Some well known certification fitness associations include ISSA, the national Academy of Sports Medicine and the National Strength and Conditioning Association. If your potential trainer is a certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist or a Health Fitness Specialist and CPR certified, you're off to a great start.
What about college? Remember, it's possible to be a certified trainer without having a four-year major in a health, fitness, and/or wellness program. However, any preliminary or additional college-level education certainly takes a prospective trainer up a notch or two over the competition. Additionally, trainers who get looking forward to fitness-oriented seminars, training opportunities, and/or alternate industry certifications should be kept on the potential trainer list. Whenever they are captivated in bettering themselves they're probably genuinely interested in bettering you as well as your fitness too.
Why all of the hoopla about record keeping healthy diet and lifestyle accountability? The ability to track a client's progress in a concrete, easy-to-understand way often separates the excellent personal fitness trainers from the great ones. It isn't as easy as it sounds. Ask a trainer how he/she plans to map your fitness. Will you get copies of workouts to take home and do on your own? Will the trainer make use of a computer program to track your progress? Get a clear image of how training will "look" with anyone you're seriously interested in hiring. If a trainer can not give you a clear, concise response to these questions (or better nevertheless, show you actual illustrations of model workouts, readouts, etc.) take them out of the running.
Lastly, how serious is your trainer about you? Does this trainer give undivided attention to you throughout the personal time you pay for? Or does he/she speak to other gym members while you struggle through the last chin-up, lose count of reps and/or come unprepared to train you ("Let's just wing it today..."). You health and fitness is important to you. It should be vital that you your trainer too.
