NP fitness

In light of numerous recommendations by health officials and government health agencies, only about 15 percent of Americans are regularly active.  By “regular” I mean at least 3 days a week, exercising between 30-60 minutes a session.  Fitness professionals have done an excellent job in keeping that 15 percent active throughout most of their lives.  There are numerous clubs and fitness studios across the country for them to workout, take a class, etc.  But what about the other 85 percent?  Why haven’t they jumped on the exercise bandwagon?  My guess is that they either don’t know what to do with working out, have been injured with exercise before, or that exercise just isn’t that important in their lives.  Our focus as trainers and group fitness instructors has to be on teaching people not only how to move, but to get them to realize that exercise has to be incorporated into their lives.

About 10 years ago, when I was a student at Rutgers, the main three areas of fitness we focused on was stretching, strength training, and cardiovascular exercise.  This made sense at the time, especially when sitting through an exercise physiology class.  However these three areas of fitness have to evolve in order to meet the needs of today’s client.  For example, a workout from 10 years ago would have been to walk on the treadmill for 5 minutes, jog for 20 minutes, stretch for a few seconds, then do the circuit of machines with the additional set of stomach crunches on the floor.  I am sure a lot of people still workout this way.  This approach has limited value to getting a sedentary person to change their habits for the better.  The reason is that this the default program; no to little changes are made.

Fast forward to today and fitness coaches need to be aware of how to improve a client’s joint mobility and stability and how to implement exercises that correct improper movements.  In addition, a separate core training program has to be developed to protect the spine.  Studies show that traditional crunches damage the spinal disks over time, so they are removed from the program.  Also, strength training on machines does nothing to prepare someone for the body’s movements.  This the structure that has the best chance of teaching an individual that fitness should be personalized and is geared towards injury prevention and health improvements.