Spring and summer are the two favorite seasons for many outdoor sports enthusiasts. At this time of year, parks abound with softball leagues for all ages, bicycle riders, joggers, and tennis players. The fun of tennis goes way beyond those cute little white shorts and...
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!
The Importance of Juxtaposing Mindfulness and Fitness
What’s on your mind when you exercise? We all exercise for different reasons. Sometimes our reasons vary with the workout itself: perhaps we prefer training biceps and triceps instead of quads, simply because we can see progress developing more easily. Clients often...
Poorly Managed Protein Can Undo Your Goals
If your personal trainer, athletic coach, or dietitian has ever preached to you about the merits of protein in your diet, consider yourself to be in good hands. Most athletes, whether they consider themselves to be recreational, competitive, professional, or even...
Forward Thinkers Train Backward
As a personal trainer, the skill of aiming a bow and arrow toward a target has never been on my radar… not even in the same zip code!!! However, as is the case with many significant life lessons, I gain the most powerful insights from the most random events. In...
Failure to Plan is a Plan for Failure
In our home over the past few months, schedules seem to be dictated by football. Even though our favorite season, college basketball time, is already underway, the Super Bowl and of course its commercials were certainly on everyone’s mind. I am actually taking a break...
How to Set Your Sights on Training Visually Impaired Clients
It would be a fallacious expection to believe you'll only ever encounter non-disabled clientele in your career in the fitness industry. One possibility is being asked to coach visually impaired clients. As a personal trainer at a large community center, I am fortunate...
Trainer Tribulations: Apparently Clients Are Not The Only Ones Facing Challenges!
When deciding upon a career path, somewhere between the ages of 17 and 22, we tend to gravitate toward one that reflects not only our knowledge but also our personality. It has been my experience, over the past 27 years in the fitness profession, to observe that those...
Forward Thinkers Train Backwards
As a personal trainer, the skill of aiming a bow and arrow toward a target has never been on my radar…not even in the same zip code!!! However, as is the case with many significant life lessons, I gain the most powerful insights from the most random events. In...
When Can Personal Trainers Give Nutritional Advice?
When I first embarked upon the journey that would ultimately propel me to the competitive bodybuilding stage, there was quite a bit for a newbie like myself to learn about this exciting undertaking. Probably the most crucial piece of advice given to me by my Coach had...
Motivation Elevation: Training the Clinically Depressed Client
Now that we are in the swing of 2016, we are no doubt observing what I refer to as “The January Effect”: an influx of new members in our Fitness Centers, eager to jump-start their resolutions. As is the case with our current clients, the majority of them come to the...
Unilateral Training
Ready or not, here it comes…November 2015, 1 year until the next presidential election. Already we are being inundated with candidates, conventions, and more than enough mud-slinging. Whether you consider yourself a Republican or a Democrat, these are challenging...
bodyART: Blending FORM, FUNCTION and THERAPY
As seasoned personal trainers, we have witnessed the coming and going of a seemingly endless parade of fitness formats. From high-impact aerobics of the early 1980’s, through the Zumba craze, the Step mania, and currently the TurboKick phenomenon, there never seems...
Be Magnificent With Magnesium
Open any fashion magazine these days, and you are sure to be visually bombarded by advertisements. Whether it is age-rewinding make-up or figure-flattering jeans, it seems that everyone is obsessed with the exterior, and ways to appear more magnificent and appealing...
Suspension Success: A Different Way to View Training
In the never-ending quest for fresh and innovative ways to keep clients motivated, it seems our industry has landed upon something truly unique. Suspension training, made popular by the introduction of TRX equipment, has been catching on in fitness centers and gyms...
Empower Your Legs: Becoming King of the Deadlift
“How much can you bench, man?” This is probably the first question any male bodybuilder, or many clients who are new to a gym, will ask, regardless of his physique. Some mystique has always been attached to this value, as if a magical number somehow defines an...
Preparing Personal Training Clients For A Hiking Adventure
Many personal training clients and fitness enthusiasts are compelled to embrace the great outdoors by embarking on a camping, hiking, or even rucking endeavlor. Here's how to advise them to be well-prepared for their adventures. Hiking Preparation While some families...
Recognizing Reliability
Saint Louis in proud of many things: the Gateway Arch, toasted ravioli, Provel cheese, and especially the highly acclaimed Washington University School of Medicine. So much knowledge and experience is contained within the walls and halls of our great institution; yet...
Anxiety Management: Coping Strategies to Benefit Overall Health
“You cannot change the wind, but you can adjust your sails.” In today’s fast-paced and often overscheduled world, stress of various kinds seems to be literally woven into the tapestry of our culture’s “new normal”. We live with it, expect it, attempt to push it...