Welcome to Volume 3 of the Fitness Destinations Journal! Our third installment brings with it several exciting updates to the Fitness Destinations website, although we admit that the fitness equipment section is still sorely lacking! However, we do have a contract bid process in place to get that area of the site up and running as soon as possible!
One change has to do with our Fitness Articles, which are the "flagship product" of this Journal, and we are proud to announce that we are doubling that value! As you will see below, there are now TWO articles, one geared more towards health conscious consumers, the other an informative piece for Fitness Professionals. Feel free to read them both, however, no matter which camp you live in!
Another change is the addition of our Fitness Consulting service. With more and more people getting more and more confused by the endless stream of bogus information in the world today, the need for quality professionals to come clean with the truth is greater now that it has ever been. Fitness Destinations has responded with a nationwide Fitness Consulting service!
Our final change has to do with the Fitness Journal itself. We are happy to announce that the Journal will now be sent out every week! With the almost daily additions and improvements to the Fitness Destinations website and services, we didn't feel that twice per month was often enough to keep our subscribers informed, so we have decided to publish the Journal each week, on Fridays. We hope that you enjoy our content-filled Fitness Journal as a weekly information source!
Our "theme" for this edition of the Journal is Core Stabilization, and it is a subject that we feel very strongly about. To that end, our fitness article this week is about that very subject.
Fitness Article - The Core: Unleash Your Inner Caveman
An alternative name for this article could have been, 'How to undo Generations worth of Damage Caused by sitting on our Backsides and Letting Machines Teach us Not to Stand up Straight'.
That doesn't exactly roll off the tongue though, does it?
The point is the same, however. Before we were even able to stand fully erect we could literally fight for our right to live on a daily basis. Now, we are again barely standing up straight due to bad posture and bad habits, but we can hardly walk across town without pulling a muscle or throwing our back out!
Why? We are weak - from the inside out! In today's image conscious society, we are so concerned with the way we look that we ignore the fact that we are falling apart from the inside. For lack of a better term, we are "rotten to the core"!
What IS "the core"? Why does everyone keep talking about training 'the core"? What does any of this have to do with cavemen?
Basically, the idea here is that there was a time in human evolution when we literally had to fight to survive. Although actual battle was certainly part of life back in the Stone Age, we are also talking about the day to day struggle that was involved in just making it to see another sunset!
Walking, running, climbing, throwing, pushing, pulling, balancing, lifting, pressing - the list goes on and on. These activities were all a daily part of life way back when the human body was being "programmed".
Compare that to the present day activity level of an average person in a civilized culture, and what do you get? A MAJOR difference between the way we were built and the way we are actually called upon to perform! If you took your average office worker in 2005 and threw them back in time to a point when fur was "in", they probably wouldn't last for very long.
Is it wrong that modern technology has made our lives so easy? Probably not - depending on who you ask. However, is it wrong that we don't keep our bodies as strong and vital as we used to HAVE to keep them? YES!
Just because you CAN sit down all day, and just because you CAN eat 1,000 calories in less than 20 minutes, and just because you CAN pay someone else to mow your lawn doesn't mean that you SHOULD do those things.
Allowing our easy lives to make us weak is OUR fault. It's not your boss at work who tells you that you can't exercise when you aren't pulling desk time. It's not your mother or father who is making you eat at fast food restaurants every day. It's not your car that is making you drive it ¼ mile to the store instead of just walking.
It's YOUR fault. It's all YOUR fault. Does that sound harsh? That's too bad, because it's the truth and you know it. Even people who are paralyzed from the waist down can get plenty of exercise if they train hard enough. Even people who don't know a barbell squat from a bench press can learn if they really try to. Even "corporate Americans" who work 12-hour days can get some exercise and eat right if they truly make an effort.
So what can you do to be more in touch with the "programmed" caveman inside of you? Simple. Get out there and make an effort! Get up off your backside, stop making excuses, and MOVE. Start from the inside, though - with the Core.
What is meant by "the core" is the successful inner teamwork of many systems in your body, all of them originating at center mass - the torso area. We are talking about the muscles of your lower back and spine, the Transverse Abdominis muscle behind your "six-pack", the obliques and other supporting muscles, the circulatory and neurological systems that power these muscles with fuel and instructions, and many more muscles and tissues that all work together as a unit, collectively being called "the core".
Why does any of this matter to you? After all, it's only what you look like from the outside that matters, right. Wrong! Your body's core is like a power plant. It fuels and controls everything that you do. From moving nutrient and oxygen-rich blood to your extremities, to the very network of neurological pathways that control your arms and your legs - all of this starts at the core.
All of your vital organs and systems are located in the core area. Your heart, lungs, spine, stomach, liver, kidneys - the list goes on. The only thing outside of your torso that you couldn't live without is your head. However, your head is directly connected to your spinal column, which is part of the core!
Part of having a strong core is that the actual muscles are thicker, stronger, and much more resistant to injury. If you have a weak core, you could give yourself a lifetime back injury just by picking up a box the wrong way! On the other hand, if your core muscles are strong and vital, you have a lot more "margin for error" when it comes to bending over, picking things up, keeping your balance, etc.
What about your posture? Posture is definitely controlled by a strong core. Would you think of having good posture as an important thing? You should! If not, let's take a secret shortcut to weight loss: Stand up straight and suck in your gut. Congratulations, you just lost 10 pounds!
Are you starting to see the point? It all starts at the core, so safeguarding the inner-workings of your body is as important as it gets.
There are many great exercises to work your core, but listing them all is beyond the scope of this article. The point that you should take home is that working your core should be an integral part of your life - even if you don't exercise on a regular basis. Even if you don't care about weight loss or physical appearance, safeguard your LIFE by having a strong core!
Here are some resources where you can learn about core exercises:
http://exercise.about.com/cs/abs/l/bl_core.htm
Remember: Your core is your body's power plant. Keep YOUR body running at maximum power!
Aaron M. Potts
ISSA CFT, ISSA YFT
Fitness Destinations
http://www.fitnessdestinations.com
Personal Training: 5 Easy Steps to Sanity on the Road
If you have been a personal trainer for any length of time - or any fitness professional, for that matter - then you know what it's like to spend a lot of time on the road. For trainers who work with their clients in homes or a geographic mix of local fitness facilities, you especially have some serious time behind the wheel on a regular basis.
Regardless of where you train your clients, most trainers spend a good deal of time driving to and from training sessions, seminars, and other work-related activities. For most people, that time ends up being "dead time", during which you really can't be very productive. Listed below are some great ideas for making the most of that time, and making it time that you even look forward to!
Audio Learning
Audio learning is listed first in our list of great ideas because it is VERY powerful on many levels, and there are numerous resources available for this productive practice. The basic idea here is that you listen to any number of audio learning resources while you are driving. You don't have anything else to do, and you can't effectively or safely do anything with your hands, but your EARS are just fine, so put them to work!
Here are some of the educational and motivational items that you might consider listening to, and many of them have resources geared specifically for fitness professionals: Self-help programs, Audio interviews, Recorded conference calls, Recorded radio programs, Career enhancement tools, and Motivational recordings.
As you can see, there are enough ideas for things to listen to while driving to fill up endless hours of time, and if you know where to look, there are literally more things to listen to than you will even have time for.
We won't get into too many details, since it would take a large amount of text, but here are some great resources to get you started. Self-help, motivational audio, and recorded conference calls are items very specific to your individual tastes and situation. As for the rest, here are some fitness industry specific resources:
Audio Interviews:
http://www.personaltraineru.com
Recorded Radio Programs:
http://philkaplan.com/thefitnesstruth/RadioShowMENU.htm
Career Enhancement Tools:
http://www.fitnessdestinations.com/fitnessinfoproducts.html
http://www.fitnessdestinations.com/sixfiguretrainer.html
http://www.fitnessdestinations.com/personaltrainersecrets.html
Planning Workouts
Driving time is a perfect time to work on the training protocols for your clients. If you are doing the same workouts week after week and month after month, both you and your clients are going to get bored doing the same thing all the time. A great way to keep your own motivation up while also keeping your clients from hitting plateaus in their training programs is to change up the training routines on a regular basis.
Think about all of the muscular and cardiovascular training principles that you are familiar with, and come up with new and inventive ways to put those resources together in effective training routines. Also, for specific clients, you can spend that driving time thinking about their individual workouts, and ways that you can make them more intense, or fill them with more variety. This is a valuable practice, especially if you have long-term clients who need things to be changed up on a regular basis.
Working on Products
Another trait shared by many successful trainers is that their actual training wages make up only part of their income. They also have many products that they sell to their clients, through their websites, and via their newsletter distribution lists. However, just as with training, the same products can only be utilized so many times, and driving time is a perfect time to think up new product ideas.
Whether you are talking about "information" products, such as books, e-books, CD's, DVD's, manuals, etc., or if you construct actual training equipment, use that dead time when you are driving to think of cutting edge product ideas that will not only help your target audience towards their goals, but will also make you a nice residual income in the process.
A great example of this is the Ultimate Complete Personal Training Business Kit. This kit was constructed simply by taking the experiences and knowledge of one trainer, putting it all together in a downloadable package, and making the kit available to others in the fitness industry. Learn more here: http://www.completepersonaltrainingbusiness.com.
Making Phone Calls
As most trainers have realized, phone work is an integral part of keeping a steady flow of clients. Contacting and following up with prospective clients is a sure-fire way to keep your training schedule packed from week to week.
In addition, you can call your present clients to check on them. See how they feel after yesterday's brutal leg workout, or find out if their sore shoulder is feeling any better, or maybe check in with them to ask how their job interview went, or their anniversary dinner. TALK to your clients! When they know that you care, they will keep training with you!
Nothing!
One of the most effective things that you can do as a busy personal trainer when you are driving is NOTHING! Just let your mind be blank. Pay attention to the road, obviously, but otherwise, just enjoy some mental down time!
You spend hour after hour every single day training, motivating, and educating countless people. Sometimes to the point that if you tell one more person the proper way to do a push up, you just might have to SCREAM!
Let those mental energies have a well deserved break! Listen to some relaxing music and (safely) let your mind wander. Crank out some hard rock and sing your frustrations into the wind. Plan your next bout of Karaoke - whatever! The point is that you are doing anything BUT putting your brain on overdrive.
Conclusion
Your time traveling from place to place is YOUR time. Use it well and you will find both your success and your sanity under control, and keep both headed in the right direction!
Aaron M. Potts
ISSA CFT, ISSA YFT
Fitness Destinations
http://www.fitnessdestinations.com
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