Final Week!

April 19-23: This being my final week of personal training due to exams starting next week, I'd like to outline just a few of the things I've learned:

1. Every college girl has convinced herself that she needs to lose at least 10 lbs and, even if you try to persuade her otherwise, she probably won't believe you. Thus, for this population, I prefer not to use the scale as part of my initial assessment because I believe fitness goals rather than body weight to be a better measurement of overall health.

2. First impressions of fitness can be very deceiving. Some of the healthiest looking people are in fact the weakest, while those who would appear out of shape are often the most familiar to exercise.

3. Not everyone likes to be instructed by a drill sergeant. For some people, any form of exercise is uncomfortable and intensity is a goal rather than a standard.

4. Feedback, feedback, feedback! People are not as inclined as I thought they would be to give feedback. If the weight is too heavy or something hurts, the grimace on your face won't always make me guess that something is wrong. You have to speak up!

5. Planning other people's workouts is the #1 de-motivator for planning my own.

Weeks 11-12

April 5-14: I'm combining these two weeks for two reasons:
1. I leave in the morning on Thursday, April 15 to be a conference track meet all weekend so this week will be cut short in terms of personal training sessions, and
2. Due to having to travel to Charleston for the meet, I know there is no way I will have time to update this blog over the weekend and would rather record this week's events so far while they are fresh in my mind.

Though I didn't think it was possible, training has picked up its pace even more in the last couple weeks. Or perhaps the rest of life has begun to implore its increased demands as well. The time commitment demanded of my athletic training field experience with HPU's Track and Field team on top of my hours personal training makes for a very, very busy day. Every weekday from 8 am in the morning until 6 or 7 at night, every hour is scheduled to class, personal training, or being at track practice. Weekends now have completely disappeared in the midst of lengthy track meets. As my own schedule grows increasingly busy, I also noticed this week, a decline in attendance to personal training sessions. After three or four cancellations between the end of last week and beginning of this one, I finally decided to enforce the programs attendance plan once again to all my clients. Although more than half of the people I work with maintain nearly perfect attendance, those that do not create incredible frustration for me when I prepare a routine for them and allot time in my schedule to help meet their fitness goals, and they fail to hold up their end of the agreement. Since the service is free to them, I don't think they realize the amount of effort that goes on behind the scenes. Hopefully next week will show improvements in people's dedication to attending their sessions, despite everyone's busy schedules as we approach exams.

Week 10

March 29-April 2: I've been very lucky so far in my array of clients and have truly enjoyed working with each of them. For the first time, however, I'm beginning to feel consistently frustrated toward one specific session. This client is often difficult to read, which makes open communication more challenging from the beginning. To compensate, I try to ask more questions to gauge feedback and determine her reactions to the exercises prescribed. Often, her answers are unhelpful or half-hearted so it is difficult to tell if they are in fact true. While most of my clients come in energetic and ready to engage in whatever activity I prescribe, this client sometimes seems almost resentful of her time spent in sessions, which makes for a very frustrating 45 minutes as I feel time spent on exercise routines is making her miserable. As discomforting as our interaction is, I still appreciate the responsibility and opportunity to help her meet her fitness goals. However, this week I was forced to address with her the issue of attendance when she missed both our scheduled meeting times within the week. Though it has not been enforced up until this time for lack of necessity, our program does have an attendance policy due to the high demand of a service offered free of charge to university students. Upon sending an email notification of the policy and the possible consequences of missing sessions, the client failed to show up to our next meeting time without affording me any notification.

The majority of my experience so far has been nothing but enjoyable, and every student I have worked with thus far has expressed such great appreciation for the time I put into their sessions. Other than this one incidence, I have had no additional frustrations in my experience so far.

Week 9

March 22-26: Last week I decided to try using a foundational workout with each of my clients with minor changes to fit each of their individual needs, and having tried the method more than twice in a row, I am happy to discover that it works!!! Rather than hastily planning 7 different workouts which is often exhausting and mentally draining as I run out of new exercises by the last routine, I spend quality time creating a skeleton of a workout that flows together seamlessly and can be expanded upon based on which client I am working with.

My favorite part about this session so far is the opportunity I have to work with two clients at one time. Both girls are motivated and enthusiastic about being involved in personal training and I enjoy watching the interactions between them. Working with two people at once makes planning workouts that much more important, as I have to consider how to balance exercises that require the use of a machine or set of dumbbells when only one is available. I have begun to utilize both supersetting and circuit techniques, which also eliminates rest time between exercises. Working with multiple clients rather than just one on one has made me consider teaching group exercise classes in addition to personal training.

Week 8

March 15-19: Back from spring break and ready to start working again...

Last session, I often designed a different workout for each client due to their varying fitness levels, weight-room experience, and individual goals. While it challenged my creative ability, it also demanded a great deal of extra planning. This session, most of my clients are relatively experienced exercisers so for this first week, I am going to make many of their workouts foundationally the same with only minor changes to fit their personal goals and preferences. Though I am far from expert, I am beginning to be able to better analyze my clients' abilities, which makes for more successful workouts that need less tweaking. As the semester picks up, I am very thankful for the luxury of being able to use one workout with multiple clients, not only for convenience sake, but also because each time I lead the exercise routine, I am more confident in my directions. This is evident to clients and makes them feel assured that their workout has been thoroughly thought out and is being executed with certainty.

Week 7

March 1-5: So thus began the first week of session 2…

I was expecting the first week of scheduling initial meeting times to be a logistical disaster, but everything actually worked out a lot better than I thought it would. Surprisingly, all 7 of the girls who signed up on the interest sheet chose a different 30 min window off of the list of available times that I offered. Since we only had this one week before spring break, I figured I would use the time to have the initial meetings so people could sign and fill out paperwork, but I wouldn’t begin actual workouts until we got back from break. And for me personally, the week of personal training “light” was a much needed reprieve.

For this session, in addition to the people who put their names on the 2^nd session sign-up sheet, I decided to continue with two of my clients from last session who diligently attended every session and were beginning to show marked progress. I’ve decided after my experience last session that four weeks for personal training is far too short, especially if I only meet with a person once a week. As I’ve recently learned in exercise physiology, strength gains within the first four weeks are predominantly neuromuscular, and thus by the time I actually get to the hypertrophy phase of adaptation with each girl, I have to set them free. So I added some earlier morning hours to make room for one of my favorite clients. I call this method “Long-Term Analysis of Amy’s Effectiveness as a Personal Trainer.”

By the end of the week I had met with all but one of my potential clients. So my roster for this session includes 7 new and 2 returning clients for a total of 9 poor souls who might go to bed sore every night for the rest of the semester.

Week 6

February 22-26: These past few weeks I've been struggling with finding workouts that suit one of my clients who is less familiar with weight room equipment and organized exercise. During our first session when I prescribed the diagnostic full-body workout which is designed to be of moderate intensity and easily adjusted for any fitness level, we were unable to make it through even half of the workout before my client began to feel sick. Taking into consideration the fact that I had begun the workout with more intensive cardio movements and immediately moved into a full-body workout, I designed her next workout to have a light, cardio warm-up and gradually progress through the upper body exercises. Within 10 min after our light cardio warm-up, my client once again began to feel nauseous. Frustrated with not being able to design a workout my client was able to complete even halfway, I took a new approach in developing her workout for last week. Instead of trying to combine the most energy demanding exercises by interspersing them with periods of less intensive activities, I compiled a lower intensity routine that included a light, cardio warm-up followed by low-resistance exercises designed to target each lower body muscle group in near isolation. By taking out the high-intensity, multi-joint exercises, my client was able to concentrate on contracting one muscle group at a time and felt less overwhelmed by not having to exert maximal, full-body effort with every repetition. In addition, the isolating exercises help build neuromuscular connections that are necessary for the body awareness required for more advanced exercises. And her workout went so much better that she was able to challenge herself enough to complete it without ever feeling sick!

All that to say that this week, I've made a second attempt at designing a workout catered to her specific fitness level and once again, had success in designing a challenging, yet acceptable workout!