What personal training involves

 

Although everyone’s fitness programme is different, there is often an element of all of the following at various stages throughout the training:

Strength & toning work

Using handheld weights, dynabands or resistance tubes. This is to train the major muscle groups in the body, and would typically include the chest, back, shoulders, arm, leg and abdominal muscles.

By improving your muscle tone, the more calories you will burn doing nothing because muscle is metabolically active but fat is not.

Cardio-vascular activity.

This might include power walking outside, hill walking, jogging or running, depending on the individual’s goals and preferences.

This type of aerobic/anorobic exercise is also effective for burning calories and fat, getting your heart rate up and ultimately improving how efficiently your heart and lungs function.

Core strength training.

This involves working the body’s core muscles in the abdominals and back.

It is essential for improving posture and it can help to reduce lower back pain (depending on the medical diagnosis of what exactly the back pain is, and how it has been caused).

Core stability training usually involves working with the large exercise balls which are becoming commonplace now in gyms and even in offices.

They are an excellent way of training the abdominal muscles, and the stronger your abs, the less likely you are to suffer with low back pain.

The exercise balls are also great fun to use, and can be incredibly challenging and demanding so make for a very good workout and ultimately a very strong, lean, toned body, if used correctly.

Warming up & stretching.

This applies to everybody’s training – it is critical to warm up properly before doing any kind of exercise in order to prepare the body for the challenges in the workout ahead.

Stretching is also very important, especially at the end of a workout to prevent muscles from stiffening up too much and to try and reduce the amount of lactic acid building up in the muscles which can cause muscle soreness the next day.

Doing a good warm up and stretches also helps to reduce the risk of injury.