Save Money, Get Fit with Small Group Personal Training
Interested in hiring a personal trainer, but concerned about the cost of one-on-one training? Sharing the sessions and the cost with others is a growing trend. Small group personal training can help you reach your fitness goals without breaking your budget.
Where Can I Find Small-Group Personal Training?
Finding a certified personal trainer who offers group training may be easier than you think. According to a 2010 IDEA Health & Fitness Association survey, 84% of responding personal trainers currently offer semi-private training (at least 2 clients share) and 57% offer small group personal training (at least 3–5 clients share). If you’re not sure whether your gym or trainer offers small-group personal training, ask. Most trainers are willing to accommodate a shared session.
How Much Will it Cost?
One-on-one personal training fees range from $40-$100 per hour, sometimes more, based on the region and the trainer’s education, certifications, experience, and skills. In contrast, group personal training is usually offered at a much lower hourly rate, depending on the number of participants. In a small group of five, for example, each person might pay $15–45 for an hourly session. Most trainers offer advanced purchase packaging, which helps maximize savings and commitment.
What Are the Benefits of Sharing a Personal Training Session?
Most groups are formed according to fitness levels and such goals as weight loss and post-partum fitness, for example, so you’ll exercise alongside others who share your goals and interests. When you train with a small group, you’ll receive a level of social support you won’t get by working out alone or in a solo personal training session.
Many people prefer working out with a small group. It can be much more fun and motivating than exercising alone. Your group members will cheer you on, inspire you and encourage you to stick with the program. And because you’ve all gone through the trouble of coordinating your schedules, they’ll expect you to show up.
Are There Any Cons?
Sharing a personal training session means your trainer won’t be able to give you the one-on-one attention you can expect in an individual session. That may or may not matter to you, depending on your goals, the trainer, and the size of the group. Also, your trainer won’t be able to modify your workout every session, so you may not progress as fast as you would with one-on-one training. Some people prefer individual attention, and others prefer the camaraderie and encouragement they get from exercising with other people. Keep in mind that scheduling for small group personal training sessions is often less flexible than for individual sessions, because the needs of three or more people, including the trainer must be considered.
Give It a Try
If what you’re doing right now isn’t working, it’s time to take a different approach. Small group personal training can give you the accountability, group support, and professional expertise you need to take your fitness to the next level while keeping expenses down. If you don’t like it, talk with your trainer to determine if one-on-one training or a different group would be a better fit.
5 Cardio Do’s and Don’ts
Whether you’ve hit your fitness groove or are just getting started, make sure you’re doing it right with these quick tips:
1) Don’t Overdo It As You Start Your Program
If you haven’t been active lately, start from square one — even if you were a high school athlete. Jumping into vigorous exercise without gradually building up to it puts you at risk for serious injury — and even death.
Do Increase Exercise Level Gradually
If it’s been a while since you busted a move, talk to your doctor first. At the very least, complete the Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire (PAR-Q), an easy way to determine your physical readiness for exercise.
To get started, go easy. Start with what you can do and steadily increase time, frequency, and intensity, in that order, increasing total weekly time by no more than 10% per week. As your fitness level improves, aim for 30 minutes, 5 days a week. Be patient —regular exercise pays off, but too much too soon can backfire quickly.
2) Don’t Go From 0 to 60 in 5 Seconds
Going straight to the cardio portion of your workout without a warm-up is a bad idea. To successfully meet the demands of cardiovascular training, your body needs a heads-up.
Do Perform a Warm-Up Before Your Workout
For most people, 5-10 minutes of low-to-moderate intensity cardio activity is enough. The warm-up helps you transition from rest to movement, gradually increasing body temperature, heart rate, and blood pressure to support the physiologic challenge of the vigorous workout ahead. A proper warm-up also helps reduce post-exercise muscle stiffness and improves exercise performance.
3) Don’t Get Hung Up on Heart Rate
It’s just a number. Target heart rate training is a great way to boost your level of fitness, but it’s not the perfect method for everyone. If you can’t seem to get your heart rate into the right intensity “zone,” don’t fret.
Do Pace Yourself Based on How You Feel
If you can talk comfortably — or slightly uncomfortably — you’re exercising at the right intensity. If you can’t talk comfortably at all, slow down — regardless of heart rate.
Target training zone charts offer a ballpark range at best. Target zone is influenced by fitness level, health status, certain medications, and genetic limitations. For best results, ask a certified fitness professional to help you calculate your target training zone.
4) Don’t Stop Immediately After a Vigorous Workout
Personal trainers see it all the time — someone going at full speed on a stair climber, and stopping suddenly to stand still. A sudden stop causes blood to pool in the feet and legs, reducing blood flow to the heart and other organs. As a result, you could get dizzy and fall — or experience a life-threatening cardiac arrhythmia.
Do Cool Down Gradually
Keep your feet moving! Performing 5-10 minutes of low-to-moderate intensity activity after moderate-to-vigorous exercise keeps blood from pooling, flushes metabolic waste from the muscles, and gradually returns circulation to pre-exercise levels.
5) Don’t Be a Weekend Warrior
Waiting until Saturday to break a sweat won’t help you reach your fitness goals — and could turn out to be the last thing you do. Sudden cardiac death with exercise is relatively rare at 1 case per 36.5 million hours of exercise. But studies suggest that infrequent exercise may increase momentary risk of exercise-related sudden cardiac death.
Do Exercise Regularly Throughout the Week
Make physical activity part of your everyday life — whether it’s walking on your lunch break or bicycling after dinner with your family. Regular exercise makes a difference, according to a study of nearly 70,000 women over 18 years. Compared to inactive subjects, those who exercised two hours a week had reduced risk, and those who exercised four or more hours a week had a 59% decreased risk of sudden cardiac death.
10 Fun Ways to Mix Up Your Cardio Training
- Use Nordic walking poles.
- Try a group fitness class like cycling, water exercise, or Zumba®.
- Cross–train by swapping a new activity for 1–2 of your regular weekly workouts.
- Train with a running, bicycling, or masters swimming club.
- Get some “green” exercise — go for a day hike or learn to kayak.
- Enjoy some retro recess fun with kickball, jump rope, or freeze tag.
- Go skating — inline, roller, or ice.
- Train for a multi-sport even like triathlon, biathlon, or duathlon.
- Play an active video game for fun and variety.
- Train with a fitness podcast or smartphone app.
Everything in Moderation
When it comes to exercise, we each determine what we can or cannot do, and how hard we push ourselves. Some follow the all-or-nothing principle, believing that if exercise is going to be good for you it has to be hard, even painful. This is a myth and far from the truth. In the 1990s, a shift occurred with exercise recommendations, as experts began to recognize the benefits of “moderate-intensity” activity. So before you go out and break your back trying to get in some hardcore exercise, relax and develop a workout that you might actually stick with and enjoy. After all, if you enjoy an experience—such as exercise—you are more likely to want to repeat it.
You Don’t Have to Put Out a Lot to Gain a Lot
There are many methods used to measure the intensity of activity and all give some indication of how hard the body is working. While you might want to monitor your metabolic rate, few of us have the means to do so. There are some simple guidelines to follow when it comes to monitoring exercise intensity. Without requiring expensive and advanced testing, a good marker of moderate-intensity activity is the ability to elevate your heart rate and break a sweat while still being able to carry on a conversation, even if it is a bit of a challenge. Next time you are working out, try to talk continuously and out loud for 20 seconds. If it feels challenging, but not difficult, where you are not gasping for air between words, then you are working at an appropriate intensity.
Another way to measure your activity level is to estimate your effort on a scale from 0 to 10, based upon the perception of your effort. Activity levels between 4 and 6 would generally be accepted as moderate-intensity activity.
Limitless Options
There are few limitations on what types of activities you can do at a moderate intensity. The Surgeon General’s Report on Physical Activity and Health includes a recommendation that everyone accumulate 30 minutes or more of physical activity on most or all days of the week. You can do this in 30 consecutive minutes or break it up into 10-minute segments throughout the day. Thirty minutes a day is enough to maintain health and reduce your risk of chronic disease. If you want to lose weight, or gain additional benefits and further improve your health, you will need to exercise for a longer duration and at a higher intensity. Brisk walking is the most popular choice since it can easily be incorporated into a busy day, generally has low injury rates, doesn’t require special skills or equipment and can be done by anyone at any age.
But don’t forget the things you do every day. Gardening provides a multitude of opportunities for improving muscle strength, as does waxing the car or vacuuming the carpet. One of the appealing aspects of this type of exercise program is that the amount of exercise you need to accumulate can be adapted according to the duration, intensity or frequency of your exercise.
The Road Ahead
Now that you know that physical activity does not need to be overly strenuous to be beneficial, it’s time to get started. To ensure that you’re able to stick with exercise, choose activities that you enjoy and that can easily become part of your routine.
Begin slowly, giving the body time to adjust, and work up to the desired amount and intensity. If you have any chronic health problems, or are at risk for any (e.g., heart disease, diabetes, obesity), consult with your physician before starting any activity.
Examples of Moderate Amounts of Activity
A moderate amount of physical activity is roughly equivalent to physical activity that uses approximately 150 Calories (kcal) of energy per day, or 1,000 Calories per week. Some activities can be performed at various intensities; the suggested durations correspond to expected intensity of effort.
Energize Your Life with Strength Training
Are you living the life you want to live? Is a decrease in your physical strength and energy getting in the way of enjoying your favorite activities? Regular cardiovascular exercise is a well-known way to preserve stamina and to prevent chronic disease that can slow you down. But an increasing number of older adults practice strength training (using resistance bands, weight machines, body weight, or lifting weights) as an effective health-boosting strategy.
Men and women of any age can benefit from strength training. Having a chronic medical condition doesn’t mean you can’t do strength exercises. If you’re living with heart disease, arthritis or diabetes, strength training may even help improve your condition.
Are You Losing Muscle Tissue?
Experts point out that many of the changes associated with getting older are actually due to becoming less active with age. Unless you regularly engage in activities to strengthen your muscles, you’ll lose about a half a pound of muscle a year in your 30s and 40s, and that rate can double once you turn 50. As you lose muscle, you lose strength, and that compromises your ability to do even simple things, such as carrying your groceries, getting up from a seated position or gardening. Your metabolism also slows down as you lose muscle, so your body will need fewer calories to maintain itself, and you’re likely to gain excess body fat, unless you eat less. And excess fat contributes to a multitude of health problems: heart disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.
14 Good Reasons to Pump Iron
It doesn’t matter, if you’re 50 years old or 80, studies show that strength training can help:
1. Maintain your independence as you get older
2. Improve your quality of life, allowing you to do the things you enjoy with less effort
3. Strengthen and preserve your muscle tissue
4. Strengthen your bones
5. Reduce your risk of falling
6. Improve control of blood sugar
7. Increase your metabolism
8. Improve your body composition to less fat and more muscle
9. Reduce your resting blood pressure
10. Speed up the rate at which food moves through your digestive system, reducing risk of colon cancer
11. Reduce your risk of low back injury
12. Elevate your mood and your self-confidence
13. Relieve pain from osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis
14. Enhance recovery from stroke or heart attack
How to Get Started
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend strength training on two or more days a week with exercises that work all major muscle groups (legs, hips, back, abdomen, chest, shoulders and arms).
Because everyone’s needs and limitations are different, talk to your health care provider before you begin strength training. Find out, if there are specific activities you should avoid, or any special precautions to follow. Next, decide if you’d like to do strength exercises at home, at a community center, or at a gym. For some beginners, the supervision and camaraderie found in a group fitness class is an ideal combination.
If you’d rather work out on your own, consider scheduling a few sessions with a certified personal trainer, ideally, someone specializing in older adult fitness. You’ll receive a program tailored to your needs and interests and supervision to make sure you’re performing the exercises correctly. While strength training offers serious health benefits, improper form or technique can lead to injuries.
Buddy Up
For best results, invite a friend or family member to do strength exercises with you. Besides being more fun, it’ll help keep you accountable or sticking with it. You’ll inspire one another as you get stronger, and push one another to reach goals. The importance of social support can’t be overemphasized when it comes to adopting new health behaviors.
“Shifting” is the New Lifting
Most lifting programs are incomplete. And it’s because they are just that — lifting programs.
Exercise is really just human movement performed at an intensity that is sufficient to bring a challenge, which elicits change in the body.
To pull the perspective back even further, in life, we move things. We lift and carry them; push and pull them; throw them and catch them. And to do these, we are always dealing with gravity and momentum.
Most weightlifting exercises involve lifting, directly opposing gravity (e.g., squat, dead lift, shoulder press, pull-up, etc.). But in life, we lift, shift, and twist things we hold, even if it’s just ourselves. We move through gravity and so, have to deal with momentum.
Moving vertically against gravity is only one part of movement. For example, you won’t win many dance competitions by simply lifting your partner off the floor. You also need to glide elegantly across the dance floor and also spin your partner and/or yourself.
If you add some shifting and twisting, your “lifting” program can now provide a more complete movement experience.
We’ve done a great job of spreading the message that resistance training (“lifting”) is essential for fitness. Now we need to expand the definition of lifting to include shifting and twisting.
Remember, exercise is frequently dominated by just lifting with some occasional shifting and lifting done by accident. By including a mix of shifting, lifting, and twisting, your programs will provide a movement experience that is more complete.
After all, in life we move stuff around. Everything we move has weight to it, and life is a lot more than just lifting!
Circuit Training Basics
Looking for a way to infuse your fitness routine with some new energy and excitement? Whether you’re a seasoned athlete or just getting started with physical activity, circuit training is a great way to challenge your body in a variety of ways while boosting the fun factor.
What Is Circuit Training?
A typical circuit training workout includes about 8-10 exercise stations. After completing a station, instead of resting, you move quickly to the next station. A muscular strength and endurance circuit alternates muscle groups, such as upper body, lower body and core, so little or no rest is needed in between stations. This article focuses on another form of circuit training: aerobic + strength. This type of circuit alternates 1-2 sets of resistance exercise (body weight, free weights, dumbbells, kettle bells, bands, etc.), with brief bouts of cardiovascular exercise (jogging in place, stationary cycling, rowing, etc.) lasting anywhere from 30 seconds to 3 minutes. Depending on your goals and the number of circuit stations, you can complete 1 or more circuits in a 30-60 minute session.
Advantages of Circuit Training
Boredom and time constraints are frequently cited reasons for giving up on a fitness routine. Sound familiar? Circuit training offers a practical solution for both. It’s a creative and flexible way to keep exercise interesting and saves time while boosting cardiovascular and muscular fitness. You’ll burn a decent amount of calories too—in a 1-hour circuit training session, a 150-pound person burns about 308 calories at a moderate intensity; and 573 calories at a vigorous intensity. Because the exercises can be performed in any sequence, you can create an endless number of combinations and design every workout to match your mood or specific training goal. Participating in a group circuit-training class is a great way to discover new exercises you might not have tried on your own.
At Home
Set up strength and cardio stations indoors or outdoors. Cardio could include going up and down stairs, marching or jogging in place, running up and down the driveway, using home exercise equipment and jumping rope. For strength stations, do push-ups, planks and lunges, using your own body weight. You can also use dumbbells, bands and Kettlebells. For more ideas, look for a fitness DVD featuring circuit-training workouts.
At the Gym
Check to see, if your gym offers circuit training classes. You’ll need to move quickly from station to station, so it’s tough to do on your own during regular gym hours when others are using equipment. If you’re working with a certified personal trainer, ask for help in building a custom circuit training workout using a variety of equipment.
At the Park
The fitness trail, or parcourse are popular features at many parks across the United States and around the world. This can be considered a form of aerobic + strength circuit training. The parcourse consists of walking trails with exercise stations located along the way. But even if your local park doesn’t have a circuit set-up, you can create your own aerobic + strength circuit by alternating brisk walking, bicycling or running on a trail with push-ups, dips, and squats, incorporating things found in nature, such as a tree, a boulder, or even a park bench.
Turn Up the Heat
If you’ve been doing circuit training for a while and are ready to push harder, try these ideas:
• Shorten your time intervals. If you’re currently doing 2-minute cardio intervals, shorten them by 30 seconds. This will keep you moving faster through the circuit, allowing you to complete more stations in the same amount of time.
• Boost your intensity. If your strength sets are feeling too easy, increase the resistance or choose a different exercise that works the same muscle group. Take your cardio intervals up a notch by accelerating or adding another cardio exercise.
• Do a backward circuit. If you always complete your circuit in the same direction, start at the opposite end to challenge your body and your brain in a new way.
What is TRX® Suspension Training®?
Born from the minds of U.S. Navy SEALS and developed by Fitness Anywhere®, Suspension Training® is a revolutionary method of leveraged bodyweight exercise. Easily set up the portable TRX® Suspension Trainer™ and you’re in control. Safely perform hundreds of exercises that build power, strength, flexibility, balance, mobility, and prevent injuries, all at the intensity you choose. Delivers a total-body workout for men and women of all fitness levels. Regardless of who you are if you want to perform and look your best, the TRX® is the perfect tool for you.
Never miss a workout again.
Weighing less than 2 lbs., the TRX® delivers greater performance and functionality than large exercise machines costing thousands of dollars. The TRX® sets up in seconds so you can get and stay fit at home, the gym or on the road–wherever you want. Thousands of people of all fitness levels now train on the TRX®–from professional athletes who need peak performance to everyday people who just want to feel and look their best, the TRX® delivers.
A complete total body training system.
The TRX® is more than just the most versatile piece of exercise equipment available, it’s a complete training system. To ensure your success, every TRX® package includes complete usage instructions, training tips and a comprehensive full body workout that can be adapted as your fitness improves. To take your training on the TRX® to the next level, Fitness Anywhere® also offers a wide variety of exercise DVDs.
