3 Important factors about Personal Trainers (Part 1)

Are you looking to lose some weight? Become lean or nicely toned? Increase your lean muscle mass? Bulk up? Be healthier and fit? Use the equipments in your gym to achieve your fitness goals? Be motivated to keep up with your fitness and health regiment? Then you are more likely to attain your goals and succeed by engaging the services of a competent and qualified personal trainer.

With so much being said in magazines, books, shows, and by "buddies" who tell you 105 things you should do or not do to look and feel better, it becomes hard to decide what you really need to do for yourself to reach your fitness goals. Beside most of what you read or hear in this regard are general principle because what may work for "John" may not necessarily work for "Jack" even though they may look the same. You have to consider age, genetics, physical composition, eating habits, and so on. As a result getting a personal trainer will indeed be helpful, specific and less time consuming, enjoyable and fun.

Something you should realize about personal trainers is that except for Australia as of present, majority of personal trainers around the world do not have a regulatory, standardization and governing body that monitors and controls the etiquette's and practices of personal trainers. Hence you are investing your time, energy and money to achieve your fitness goals by entrusting the services of a professional that you hope knows what he or she is doing. Of recent though, some countries are trying to standardize, and govern personal training. There are many things to consider when choosing a personal trainer. As a personal trainer I suggest that you start out with these three;

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE: What college or university did your trainer attend? What was his or her focal studies? kinesiology? Physical and Health Education? Health Sciences? What ever the area of studies how long ago was it? How many training certifications does he or she have? It is highly important that a trainer keeps up to date with recent fitness and health studies and is certified yearly or regularly to ensure that he or she is current with Research and Development. For example recently certified CPR and First Aid personal trainers should know that as of late 2006, Canadian health and safety standards instructs that chest compression for resuscitation are NO LONGER 15 but 20 compressions!!
If your trainer makes you use the Roman Chair with weights for hyper-extensions YOU SHOULD BE WORRIED!! What really causes problems and injury to the body is the angle of leverage and pressure put on the tissues and spine. Add improper use of weights to the equation and you have a recipe for disaster. In fact, gyms should not have that "future back crippling" piece of equipment in their establishment. Gyms that do have it show lack of consideration for their clients and their inability to keep up with recent fitness developments. For more on this visit www.plyomax.com under the heading core strength where I quote Dr. Stuart McGill Professor of Spine Biomechanics from his recently published book "ULTIMATE BACK FITNESS AND PERFOMANCE" or read his book. Dr. McGill book is the latest in Back exercise research.
There are many more facts recently released that show the errors of "old school training" and "old school machines" backed my years of Research and Development.
How many years experience does your trainer have in his/her field? A professional personal trainer should have a collection of testimonials from previous clients he/she has trained or is training to give you confidence in his/her ability. If you are spending time, effort and money, you should be getting the best.

3 Important factors about Personal Trainers (Part 2)

TRAINING ETIQUETTES: Your first orientation with a personal trainer should involve more than a fitness test and the trainer getting to know you. If he/she does not carry out a SCREENING TEST or EVALUATION, please ask for one. If your trainer does not know what a screening test, or evaluation is GET ANOTHER TRAINER IMMEDIATELY!! For more on the benefits of screening test stay tuned for part 1 in the upcoming series; "What you should know before you train"
When you arrive at the gym for your training session, it is improper for a trainer to start training immediately, using your last work out program or upping the last program by a few pounds!!! Everyday at the gym is usually a different day and a different you. A trainer should typically ask a client what he/she ate that day before coming to the gym to train. One client had been so busy and stressed about a deadline at work that he ate only one meal that day and came for this workout later that evening. On knowing this I sent him home to "feed his body". Trainers should know "who" they are training on a specific day. If you are in pain and a trainer keeps pushing you, tell him or her to STOP!! "No pain, no gain" is a fallacy!! If a trainer tells you this, get another trainer before you get hurt. There is a big difference between discomfort and pain. During excersice the body produces natural opiates, called endorphins, that can mask discomfort of the effort. If you experience real pain during training, you should back off!! Stay tuned for more on this.

How to Perform a Proper Lunge

How to Perform a Proper Lunge

Basic movement -
Stand with knees slightly bent and feet shoulder width apart. Bring one foot forward creating a short (or wider) space between both feet and flex forward thigh until it becomes horizontal. Extend it to return to initial position.

The key points to a lunge are to -

1. Inhale and tighten your abs to maintain control and balance of the upper body while executing the lunge, and exhale as you return to your initial position.


2. Make sure that knees do not pass your feet (knee should be in parallel with feet when performing a lunge


3. Keep back straight


4. Hands may be positioned on hips or straight in front of your body.

*This exercise works primarily the gluteus maximus muscle, but can be performed in two different ways.

*The farther the feet are apart the more the gluteus maximus and hamstrings will be engaged

*The closer the feet are together the more the quadriceps will be engaged

3 important factors about Personal Training(part 3)

YOUR TRAINER'S PHYSIQUE: What does your trainer look like? Does your trainer have the fitness level you are seeking? If you are looking to become lean and toned and your trainer possesses none of these qualities then there is a possibility that you won't either, or you may not achieve the most you can from your fitness goals. If a trainer can not train herself or himself to be fit then he/she lacks the discipline, motivation, and know-how to train others. There is a difference between knowing and knowing how to teach. Sometimes it's hard to get the two, but it is necessary to get the two. A trainer must practice what he/she preaches.

So next time you are in the gym to get the services of a trainer make sure you choose wisely, so that your money, time, and effort works for you!!

EXERCISE BOOSTS BRAIN POWER!!

The benefits of exercise as some have stated goes beyond our physical well being. Studies show that our mental faculties are given a chance to last longer and stay alert longer by exercising. Dr. Wiliam Staines a client and friend of mine, sent me a recent write up on the correlation between exercise and brain power. Enjoy the post below.

EXCERSICE BOOSTS BRAIN POWER!!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Exercise boosts brainpower by
building new brain cells in a brain region linked with
memory and memory loss, U.S.researchers reported Monday.

Tests on mice showed they grew new brain cells in
a brain region called the dentate gyrus, a part of the
hippocampus that is known to be affected in the
age-related memory decline that begins around age 30
for most humans.

The researchers used magnetic resonance imaging scans
to help document the process in mice -- and then used
MRIs to look at the brains of people before and after
exercise.

They found the same patterns, which suggests that
people also grow new brain cells when they exercise.
"No previous research has systematically examined the
different regions of the hippocampus and identified which
region is most affected by exercise," Dr. Scott Small,
a neurologist at Columbia University Medical Center in
New York who led the study, said in a statement.

Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences, the researchers said they first tested mice.

Brain expert Fred Gage, of the Salk Institute in
La Jolla, California, had shown that exercise can cause
the development of new brain cells in the mouse
equivalent of the dentate gyrus.The teams worked together
to find a way to measure this using MRI, by
tracking cerebral blood volume.

"Once these findings were established in mice, we
were interested in determining how exercise affects
the hippocampal cerebral blood volume maps of humans,"
they wrote. They of course could not dissect the brains
of people to see if new neurons grew, but they could
use MRI to have a peek.

They recruited 11 healthy adults and made them undergo
a three-month aerobic exercise regimen.They did MRIs
of their brains before and after. They also measured
the fitness of each volunteer by measuring oxygen
volume before and after the training program.

Exercise generated blood flow to the dentate gyrus
of the people, and the more fit a person got, the
more blood flow the MRI detected, the researchers found.

"The remarkable similarities between the exercise-induced
cerebral blood volume changes in the hippocampal formation
of mice and humans suggestthat the effect is mediated
by similar mechanisms," they wrote.

"Our next step is to identify the exercise regimen that
is most beneficial to improve cognition and reduce 
normal memory loss, so that physicians may be able to 
prescribe specific types of exercise to improve memory," 
Small said.

Bottom line; Let's all get smarter!!!