Be Fit NH » personal training

Do you know what to do?

Donna — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:16:50 +0000

Do you know what to do when you reach a plateau? Let’s say you’ve been eating healthy and working out for 3 months. During those 3 months you saw continuous weight loss and you’re now down 12 pounds, but have not seen any additional weight loss for two weeks. What’s going on and what do you do about it?

I get this question quite often, the simple answer is: ‘step it up a notch’. Your body becomes accustomed to exercise in anywhere from 1 to three months of doing it. Once that occurs, your body sees no need to make anymore changes as it’s meeting your regular needs.

So nows the time to step it up a notch. If you’re using 5 pound dumb bells, increase them to 7. If you’re running on the treadmill or the elliptical for 30 minutes, increase it to 40 or raise the level of the program.

Once you do this, you should begin to see changes once again, as your body will adapt to the increased stresses you’re putting on it.

Just a word of caution, not too much too quickly. That’s how we get hurt and lose our interest in exercise, and that’s the last thing you want to see occur.

So have at it and have fun doing it!

Bookmark

Couples Training…

Donna — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:13:39 +0000

When you think of personal training, it’s usually one-on-one with client and trainer, as opposed to group training which is a group of people with one trainer in the front of the room. But what about a couple? You and your significant other working out together with a personal trainer. I’ve always had at least one couple to work with. I find it both fun and challenging. It would be impossible to do if each needed an individual workout routine, but when their conditioning is similar, I can manage to provide an excellent workout in our one hour session. Lately I’ve been getting more and more inquiries about it. Most ask if there is a discount, which there is, and others want to do it to spend more time with their spouse, or to be sure their spouse is doing some exercise. The only drawback I’ve found is the space. Sometimes we’ll need to move some furniture to have enough room for both to be exercising at the same time without bumping into one another. I see that it’s enjoyable for married couples who rarely spend time together. They get some needed discussions in about the kids, or the upcoming vacation. I feel like I develop a closer relationship with my long term couples since I’m involved in some of these discussions. But in the end, I’m there to see them attain their fitness goals, so while their talking, I’m pushing them on to the next exercise in the sequence, or making sure the level on the elliptical is high enough.

Bookmark

The Three Major Elements of Exercise

Donna — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 21:41:11 +0000

A well balanced exercise program needs to include three major areas of fitness: Resistance or strength training, aerobic or cardio training and stretching or flexibility training.

Resistance (strength) training 20 minutes of resistance training with dumbells, barbells, body weight, resistance bands or using weight machines twice a week. All the major muscle groups of the legs, abdomen, arms, chest, back and shoulders should be worked.
Aerobic (cardio) training 30 minutes of exercise at about 60% to 85% of your maximum heart should be done at least 3 times per week, more often is best. The 60% to 85% is known as your the aerobic range, which is calculated by subtracting your age from 220, then multiplying that number by .60 and .85 to obtain your heart rate range.
Stretching (flexibility) training 15 minutes of stretching, after you’re fully warmed up, to include all the major muscle groups at least 3 times per week.

Bookmark