Hydrogen, the smallest yet most potent molecule in the biochemical world, now seems to hold the promise of revolutionizing both health and fitness arenas. In…
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Category: Exercise Science, Biology, and Research
Beyond Crunches: Embracing the Hanging Leg Raise
We all know those clients: they insist that only hours of cardio and hundreds of crunches will reward them with crop -top-worthy abs. Perhaps personal…
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Understanding Hip Flexion
Article compliments of Personal Training on the Net. A recent post on my web site forum made me realize that often a short answer to a complicated question doesn’t work. A few of my readers seemed to think that all of the recent talk about a weak psoas muscle or an under-active psoas muscle might just be people being trendy. I strongly disagree.
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Increase Your Personal Training Client’s Vertical Jump
When the basketball off season is in full swing and I have been asked numerous times, "how do I increase my vertical?" Most aspiring basketball players think about flying through the air "Like Mike". As fitness professionals these people come to us for help in achieving that dream. They see the value of having professional training to get them off the ground quicker and higher than their opponent.
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How Exercise and Diet Influence Key Hormones and Metabolism
How physical activity and diet change our personal training clients’ bodies is indeed top of mind in our industry. Low fat, low carbohydrate, high protein,…
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Understanding Connective Tissue: Fascia and Programming for Integration
The human body is a dynamic machine. We have been designed and created to move,react, create force, withstand being pulled, twisted, and undergo various stressors. However, when the human body exceeds a certain threshold, something gives way. This being connective tissue, ligaments, tendons and muscles. Making one thing inevitable, breakdown or injury. One important contractile element that places an essential role in withstanding stressors and provides static and dynamic support is called fascia.
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Why Sleep and Recovery Is So Important For Personal Training Clients
In pursuit of the perfect body, many people focus on things like workout routines and supplements, however, many fail to consider another vital component of training-recovery. Remember that training is the stimulus to which the body adapts, but sufficient rest is essential to allow time for the adaptations to take place.
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The Power of Endorphins
Runner’s “high” is so-called because of the euphoria associated with the release of feel-good chemicals in the brain, of which endorphins are one category. From…
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Bioenergetics: Aerobic versus Anaerobic Energy Production
While we are all familiar with aerobic activity, defined in the early 1970s by Dr. Kenneth Cooper as activity during which the cardiorespiratory system provides enough oxygen for muscular effort, most of us associate anaerobic activity with that very hard effort we do during intervals. The fact is that each non-sequential muscular effort, such as turning your head, entails some measure of energy production in the absence of oxygen, qualifying it as anaerobic.
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Biomechanics: The Science of Human Movement
As the fitness industry grows in popularity and importance, it is of the utmost importance that we as fitness professionals continue to develop a growing knowledge of the exercise sciences to communicate effectively with the established health professions and sciences on “common ground”. The following article, while at times technical, provides an integral part of that knowledge base necessary to facilitate such communication.
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Defining General Fitness: What Burgeoning Personal Trainers Should Know
After spending countless hours in the gym lifting weights and doing aerobics, how will you know when you’re physically fit? Many of your personal training clients will tell you they just want to get fit. Therefore, it is important to know just what constitutes a general state of physical fitness.
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Understanding Muscle Fibers and Function: The Foundation of Being a Personal Trainer
As a competent and effective personal trainer, who is equipped with the knowledge necessary to be considered a fitness “expert”, you need to know the basis of human movement. That is, how knowing the different muscle fibers and how they work.
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