I can’t believe trainers still do this…
I’m amazed how many of you work out with trainers day after day, month after month without ever having an evaluation done. Not only that, your trainer doesn’t keep any records of what you do.
At my gym, everyone that walks through the door gets a thorough evaluation before they ever touch a weight. We also track not only the standard sets and reps, but also track rest periods (crucial yet typical ignored), exercise order, and even note client quotes about particular exercises.
For example, if you LOVE a certain exercise, I have a shorthand note that tells me that so we’ll be sure to do more of that one in future workouts.
If you hate an exercise, I’ll ignore you. Just kidding. I’ll note it and do my best to come up with an alternative that accomplishes the same goal.
Any asymmetries, that come up as a result of the evaluation are tackled at the beginning.
So why are these steps so important? Because times have changed. In today’s society, the gym is usually the only form of physical activity the average person gets. With that said, we must be sure to write work out programs that will help you in everyday activities outside of the gym as well as in it.
But if your trainer does not do an assessment, he is just guessing which means you will get the same workout everyone else received that day.
The workout program, which is written based off of the assessment is very important. Without it, there’s no plan and no scientific progression. And without planned progression, you cannot get optimal results.
One of your goals for your workouts HAS to be to do more over a period of time.
Research on what’s called “periodization” tells us you don’t want to increase everything in every workout, but over the course of a month (or two weeks, or one week, depending on your model) you should be increasing your weights, increasing your total reps (or volume), and/or decreasing your rest time between sets.
In short, today’s workout should be more of something than the workout you did a month ago.
In my almost 10 years of fitness coaching, I’ve found that the most common problem keeping people from getting results despite consistently showing up to the gym is that people don’t understand the importance of progression.
It’s this simple:
Same workout = same body.
Progressively more challenging workouts = Progressively better looking body.
An effective fitness coach will help you develop a progressive workout program.
If, however your fitness coach doesn’t keep records, then you know he doesn’t have a scientific program, and it’s time for you to get a new trainer.
3DFitness Coaching Studio is setting bar that the other gyms will have to follow or fall by the wayside.
How Bad Do Do You Want It?
Blair