If you employ a personal trainer, make sure that they are including enough strength training exercises in your regimen.
Personal trainers have different philosophies. Depending on the certifying organization from which a trainer has their certification, trainers can emphasize different methods. If your trainer doesn’t have a certification, you should find out why this is the case, and depending on the answer that you get consider finding a new trainer.
There is no excuse for a serious professional personal trainer to not have a valid, legitimate certification from the National Strength and Conditioning Association.
Strength training should be the emphasized in the sessions that you have with your trainer. People don’t need to be watched while they walk or run on the treadmill, or use any other piece of cardiovascular equipment. That is a waste of your time and money. You should make sure that your personal trainer spends the majority of your workouts teaching and implementing strength training movements.
Everyone who works with a personal trainer should be able to squat, dead lift, do push-ups and pull-ups, perform overhead presses and be familiar with the complete list of explosive exercises such as the split jerk and hang clean. Age, gender, athletic ability or any other demographic isn’t an excuse to not do these exercises. Your personal trainer should be able to demonstrate and teach all of these exercises to you.
If they cannot, you should find another trainer. Certainly, cardiovascular activity is important and your trainer advice you on the proper way to perform cardio. Your cardio routine should consist of endurance training – with a minimum of any kind of distance running – sprint and agility work and calisthenics.
Swimming is the best endurance activity there is, and should be used in place of any kind of jogging. Having this kind of variety in your program will help you to avoid both mental burnout and physical breakdown. Strength training combined with the proper cardiovascular program will help to get you into the best overall shape possible.
Your personal trainer should be able to provide you with a program that is both well rounded and effective so that you can get the most out of your investment.
