What is the Best Personal Training Program for You?

Many fitness trends have exploded over the last five years. From Zumba, to spin class, to Crossfit, there seems to be a new personal training option for you all the time. Take a stroll down the street and you may find a new fitness facility popping up on every corner!

We think this is great. Consider this – according to the Center of Disease Control, 35% of Americans are obese. Think about that for a moment, that’s almost 80 million people.

 

The Best Fitness Program

Many fitness trends claim to be the best option to whip you back into shape. One of the most common questions we get here at Champion is “what is the best fitness program for me?”  Our answer is always simple:

It depends!  There is no such thing as the “best fitness program” for everyone.

All fitness programs are great in their own ways. The best fitness program is unique to you and has to be individualized to help you safely and efficiently accomplish your goals.

For example, in sports performance training, there are specific goals to be met. Get stronger, faster, and more powerful to exceed at your sport.  For general fitness, the goal is what we call “general physical preparedness.” All of our adult clients want to look better, feel better, and perform better at their daily routine. This means something different for everyone.

We feel it is important to sit down with all of our clients to review their specific goals and their current fitness level.  Your goal is simple:

What will help YOU perform better at YOUR daily routine?

If you are a parent that spends most of their time taking care of your kids and performing errands, maybe that’s something you should train towards. Do you carry a lot of groceries multiple times a week? Maybe you have twins. Then, it’s time to throw in some general strength, core control, and farmer’s walks.

Do you need to drop 5 pounds before the big wedding? Let’s do some high-intensity interval training.

Do you want to run a half marathon but you have back pain? Then, it’s time to fix some of those nagging aches, gain full-body strength, and gradually start developing cardiovascular endurance.

 

The Components of a Well Rounded Personal Training Program

At Champion, we believe in developing well-rounded fitness programs that will help optimize your body. Many of our clients may come in for a specific goal, like weight loss, and realize that they are also more mobile, less achy, and generally stronger after going through our programs.  That is the biggest sign of success.  You don’t want the opposite and feel beat up and exhausted.

All of our personal training programs combine exercises designed to enhance your:

• Mobility
• Agility
• Power
• Strength
• Endurance

We vary how we do this for each person and their specific goals, but we feel this is the foundation to optimal human performance. In fact, our professional athletes’ programs are built off these same concepts, just at a different intensity level.

We have found that programs that jump right into complicated or aggressive lifting techniques can often lead to injury or lack of progress because the person wasn’t ready for that programming just yet.  Any program should look at you as an individual and assure that you have a solid foundation to build off prior to getting aggressive.

Posture and mobility tend to be the most common restrictions we see preventing people from increasing their function and performance. In our programs at Champion Physical Therapy and Performance, this is the first thing we address. Through corrective exercises we increase your core strength and stability as well as specific mobility restrictions that might be holding you back. The nature of our daily routines makes it difficult to remain in proper alignment. That is why this is something we continually work on in our program.

Along with mobility and strength our programs uniquely incorporate both strengthening and conditioning techniques to get you in better shape.

For example, in our group setting our workouts are quick, dynamic, and fun!  Get stronger and keep moving. There is not a lot of rest in-between sets and a good tempo keeps you moving. Many fitness trends began with this idea, but some beat you down, not build you up.  There are plenty of tools we use to accomplish this, including free weights, barbells, battle ropes, sleds, kettlebells and more. You get a huge bang for your buck and these exercises that are easy to learn. With this up-tempo atmosphere, you will achieve a lean and healthy body.

 

 

So, What is The Best Personal Training Program for YOU?

What ever gets you motivated, is fun, and safely and efficiently accomplishes your goals. We believe this is unique to everyone and has to be individualized.

Personal training should be “personal!”  It should be 100% individualized towards your goals. You need a specific program designed for you to restore your mobility, improve your posture, increase full-body strength, and develop a general conditioning level. Your program should make you feel, look, move, and perform better.

The first step is getting going!

Find a training facility that appeals to you and meets your goals. If your are interested in trying our approach, click here for more information on our personal training and group training programs in Waltham at Champion Physical Therapy and Performance.