The Evolution of Fitness Training

By rob · Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

The world of exercise is changing rapidly. Unfortunately a lot of people are still in the dark ages and want to walk aimlessly on a treadmill for 40-50 minutes and then go hop on a couple of machines and then call it a day.

This type of program is not only grossly inefficient, but in some instances it can be situations in can actually lead to injury. You definitely need a safer, more effective program that is going to give you more bang for your buck.

The modern fitness program really needs to consider seven key areas:

Mobility and Movement Preparation: activate muscles, stretch tight muscles and improve movement. All our personal training programs at The Body Project begin with this phase.

Corrective Exercise: Do you know anyone who has ever had a shoulder or back injury? I’m sure you do – they are two of the most common musculoskeletal problems of today. Let’s start implementing some basic strategies to make the body resilient…

Look at some of our amazing testimonials of clients that recovered from long term pain with our corrective exercise programming. Through our assessments, many muscle imbalances are uncovered and then addressed through proper training.

Core Training: Despite what some writers would have you believe - direct core training is necessary and the science validates it. And today’s core training is about stabilization and dynamic stabilization — not thousands of crunches in an “ab class”. At the Body Project our personal trainers integrate core training in almost every exercise, it’s that important.
Resistance Training: Still the most important part of a program — but we need to focus on function, linked system strength and real world strength - not necessary isolation. Science has shown that a higher frequency exposure to training each body part, and a multiple exposure to rep ranges outperforms the old-fashioned “once a week, three sets of ten” approach for today’s client. Some personal trainers right here in Eagan are still training their clients like body builders.
Metabolic Training: 21st Century cardio - the ability to do higher levels of work - and sustain that output over time — not just the ability to work at a level where you can “hold a conversation”
Regeneration: If you have a training strategy - you need a recovery and regeneration strategy. Life is too demanding to just assume that not coming to the gym is optimal for your results. We have too much science available to ignore.

Many of our clients that come to the Body Project have some level of either thyroid or adrenal dysfunction, so we sometimes need to work on their insides more than their outsides. A nice by-product of some of the nutritional therapies we use here, like Nutrition Response Testing is it really helps us get to the underlying cause of the symptoms you are experiencing.

So when you start looking for exercise professionals you need to look for someone who has a more holistic approach, because after all who wants to look great, but feel terrible.