Whether we want it to or not, gender preference often plays a role when choosing a personal trainer. Unfortunately, this can come at the expense of negating a trainer’s qualifications and experience. Therefore, it becomes incumbent upon gym owners and fitness center...
Cathleen Kronemer
Cathleen Kronemer is an NFPT CEC writer and a member of the NFPT Certification Council Board. Cathleen is an AFAA-Certified Group Exercise Instructor, NSCA-Certified Personal Trainer, ACE-Certified Health Coach, former competitive bodybuilder and freelance writer. She is employed at the Jewish Community Center in St. Louis, MO. Cathleen has been involved in the fitness industry for over three decades. Feel free to contact her at trainhard@kronemer.com. She welcomes your feedback and your comments!
Training the Personal Trainer: Can We Walk the Walk?
Despite our best efforts as personal trainers to try to see an experience through the client’s eyes, we often are unable to fully accomplish this because we know too much from being on the inside of the business. The real challenge comes in separating ourselves from...
Protein Bar Roundup: The Best and the Worst
Are your clients looking to refuel after a challenging workout, bulk up for a competition, or just kaibosh hunger pangs for an hour or two? A protein bar lies within easy reach. However, with such an abundance of options available in the marketplace and online,...
The Delicate Sodium-Potassium Balance and Summer Heat
The summer season brings with it heat and humidity, and when humidity levels exceed 70%, that excess moisture can interfere with the body’s ability to sweat and cool itself as it attempts to maintain homeostasis. This can spell trouble for some clients who like to...
Functional Imagery Training: Visualizing Performance and Health Success
Personal trainers might be interested to learn about Functional Imagery Training (FIT), a new motivational intervention that utilizes mental visualizations to achieve personal goals. “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I...
Backwards Training Can Propel Your Clients Forward
Although personal training clients hire personal trainers for a multitude of reasons, the overwhelming majority of personal training clients, hope to build strength or achieve a lean physique. Fitness professionals should have a variety of methods to incorporate to...
The Impact of Hormonal Birth Control on Exercise
As fitness professionals we need to be aware of the deleterious effect hormones, that are often unknown or undiscussed, may have on a client’s workout. The majority of personal trainers cultivate friendships, even a closeness, with long-standing clients. Some sessions...
Competitive Nutrition For Women’s Figure, Physique, and Bodybuilding
Pre-competition nutrition programs are designed to help an individual drop fat without compromising lean muscle. The subtleties between meal plans depend to a certain extent on the division in which your competitive personal training client selects. Understanding the...
Training Young Athletes: What Personal Trainers Should Know
Personal trainers working with young athletes can strongly influence whether or not the child’s future gets monopolized by training and competing, literally defining his or her formative years. The knowledge base of the coach, as well as his or her approach and...
Symbiosis of Maximizing Size and Strength
Growing muscles and gaining strength are not necessarily achieved by the same means. Strength is the foundation of everyday acts of athleticism, as well as all fitness-related activities and technical skills. Muscle Size is often highly acclaimed and desired,...
Tips On Falling Safely And Injury-Free
There are valuable tools a personal trainer can add to a client's repertoire that will improve overall functionality and resiliency, among which falling safely is one of the most useful, especially for an aging population. Serious falls begin so innocently: you take...
Fitness Fights Age-Related Cognitive Decline
Exercise is known to have numerous neuroprotective and cognitive benefits, affecting domains from memory to learning processes. In a society where one new case of age-related dementia is detected every four seconds and scientists predict that over 115 million...
Women’s Bodybuilding Categories: Choosing the Best Competitive Division
For anyone who still believes that fitness is a male-dominated sport, you may suggest they attend a bodybuilding competition and take a gander at the many women in several divisions who have meticulously sculpted their bodies. Understanding the different competitive...
Protein or Total Calories: What’s More Important for Hypertrophy?
There seem to be conflicting opinions about what's most important to grow muscles: the intake of protein or total calories. Personal trainers should know that the answer is complex and shouldn't point to one or the other, but the correct combination of both. The...
Are Water Alternatives Healthy?
With so many varieties of hydration available on store shelves today, how do we determine if alternative water products are healthy or not? Are some of them even water at all? Let's explore the different options and find out what's really in these "healthy" water...
Training the Diabetic Client
The effects of diabetes may be ameliorated by a well-designed exercise program, giving personal trainers an opportunity to do more for these clients than improving their fitness. By learning how to tailor programs to meet a diabetic’s needs, we can enhance quality of...
Medication and Exercise: Interactions and Implications
Millions of Americans currently take prescribed medications to manage various chronic conditions making it imperative for personal trainers to understand the side effects of medication and exercise implications to guide our clients safely and effectively. According to...
Changing Your Mind About Fitness: The Benefits of Meditation on Exercise
Approaching exercise solely from a physical perspective without exploring the benefits of meditation and mindfulness may be leaving out a key element that may surprise both you and your clients. Research has demonstrated that regular meditation practice can create...