Hi All!

I read this article and think this is a good read for all my AAF Boot Campers, my personal training clients, or if you plan to be a client of mine. I completely agree with this author. Please take these tips to heart. They can make a huge impact on the outcome of your progress. Enjoy!

Jimmy

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The Beginner’s Guide to Working With Your Personal Trainer

Author: Kassandre Harper-Cotton 

 The New Year is upon you. You have decided to abandon last year’s promise to ‘get in shape’ and just ‘enjoy the holidays’ until January 1, 2010. This date holds the promise of a new life, new goals, and a new start. You are eager and are going to enlist the help of a personal trainer to transform your body.

You can see it, clearly. This will be the year that you don that bikini revealing perfectly sculpted shoulders and a beautifully muscled back, that narrow to a tight midsection and seductively curves out to drum-tight glutes and thighs. Or you will finally walk around shirtless and shameless seducing all you meet with your defined delts and full pecs. The sun’s rays shine on your peaked biceps, and you let your beach shorts hang just a bit lower than usual to reveal perfect obliques.

This is the vision. This is the year that it is going to happen! You have done your research, and are now armed with a personal trainer who you are confident is going to help you reach your goals. You are ready to change your life.

Now, we are going to pump the proverbial brakes and talk about your responsibilities as a client. I am not writing this article as a trainer, but as a fitness enthusiast, figure competitor who takes my relationship with my trainer and coach very seriously. There are many variables to consider when looking for, and working with a trainer. Everyone has their personal list of non-negotiable qualifications: credentials, years in business, client success, the trainer’s personal appearance, philosophy, personality, chemistry, creativity, education, personal experience, etc. Some could care less if their trainer is barking orders or poking them with a stick as long as progress is being made.

Let us assume that you have found the trainer for you. Here are some tips to increase your chance of success in your new partnership.

1. Be Committed. Embarking on a journey towards one’s physical goals is not just an emotional journey. When you sign on with a trainer, be prepared to give 100% of your effort. You are making an investment in your health. You are paying for a service and this person’s expertise.

2. Be Honest. Going to a trainer is almost like going to your physician. They cannot not help you and provide the full range of their expertise if you are lying about: injuries, the frequency of your training, how you ate throughout the week, and the amount of sleep you are getting. A good trainer knows when you are not progressing as you should or could. They are not there to judge; they are there to coach.

3. Be Courteous. Be on time for your sessions. Your session should be able to begin at your agreed upon time. You should not be parking your car, coming through the door, or getting dressed. And if you need to cancel, be sure to give your trainer advanced notice.

4. Be Realistic. If you have abused your body for years you cannot expect your trainer to ‘fix it’ in 12 weeks. Remember that changing your body is a process, not an event. And, refer to #2. If you are not following the plan laid out for you, you are only hindering your progress.

5. Be Courageous. Your trainer is there to push you past your own expectations and help you reach your goals. The introduction of a new move or concept is not to embarrass you, but to help you help you attain new levels of fitness.

6. Be Positive. The mind is a powerful thing. Go into your sessions with an open mind and ready to challenge yourself. When you are energized your trainer is, too!

7. Be Intense. There is something about being under the watchful eye of a professional. You train harder and with more intensity. Try to keep this intensity and focus even when your trainer is not there. You would not hold an engaging conversation with other gym-goers when working with your trainer. Treat your gym time with the same seriousness.

8. Be Smart. Sometimes your trainer will introduce you to weight loads and/or exercises that are best practiced with under their watchful eye. Be smart and avoid injuries. Do not try to be a superhero. There may be instances when you need to lower your weight when you are alone to ensure that you use good form. Taking notes as you are training is also a great way to remember tips and feedback that can be used when you are not with your trainer.

Now, prepare to optimize your training time and results with your new partner in fitness!
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Exclusive ACE study investigates the fitness benefits of popular boot camp–style workouts

By John Porcari, Ph.D., Kirsten Hendrickson, B.S., and Carl Foster, Ph.D., with Mark Anders


Fitness fads come and go, but boot-camp workouts are still among the most popular.

Back in the spring of 1998, the American Council on Exercise first spotted the rapid growth of instructor-led workouts based loosely on the calisthenics used (like push-ups, squat thrusts, punches, kicks, etc.) to whip new recruits into shape in the U.S. Army’s basic-training program. Ten years later, take a look at the class schedules of gyms and fitness centers across the country and you’ll still find boot camp. According to recent stats from the International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association, a trade organization for health clubs, 955 of its 3,306 member clubs offer boot camp–style fitness classes. And it’s not just hot in the gyms. A quick scan of the exercise videos offered on Amazon.com yields more than 30 different boot-camp videos.

"There’s a certain element of getting back to the basics and a more functional-training approach," says ACE’s chief science officer Cedric X. Bryant, Ph.D. "People are looking for different experiences. With boot camps, you’re giving them something outside the traditional club environment."

Maybe the boot-camp trend is still going strong because it’s not really trendy at all. The workout is simple and not tied to a single piece of equipment. Or maybe it’s the motivating team-oriented atmosphere that’s created as fellow exercisers ‘survive’ the workouts together.

Whatever the reason, boot camp remains wildly popular, yet surprisingly its efficacy has never been formally studied. "Boot camp is becoming more and more popular in the health club setting so obviously people want to know if they’re really going to get something out of it, and if it’s going to be worth their time," says Kirsten Hendrickson, a graduate student in exercise and sports science at the University of Wisconsin. "So we decided to take a look at it."

The Study

To analyze the health and fitness benefits of boot camp–style workouts, a team of exercise scientists from the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse Exercise and Health Program, led by John Porcari, Ph.D., and Hendrickson, recruited six men and six women ages 19 to 29.

All volunteers were given an exercise test on a motorized treadmill to determine each subject’s maximal heart rate(HR max) and maximal oxygen consumption (V• O2 max) to establish a baseline of fitness. Ratings of perceived exertion using the 6–20 Borg Scale, a measure of how hard subjects feel they’re exercising, were also recorded throughout the exercise testing.

Once that baseline was established, the subjects were invited back into the lab to view a 40-minute recorded boot-camp exercise video. Naturally there are many boot camp–style exercise videos on the market, so researchers reviewed a wide range of titles, eventually settling on The Method: Cardio Boot Camp with Tracey Mallett. "We chose that DVD because it has a good blend of aerobic movements and strength moves that you’d picture military guys doing at boot camp," notes Porcari. "Plus we wanted to pick one where people were taxed pretty hard because that’s what you picture when you think of boot camp."

The study volunteers were given a copy of the DVD to take home and practice until they felt familiar enough with the choreography to be able to follow along easily with the workout. At that point, they were asked to return to the lab for testing. Each subject was then outfitted with the Cosmed portable analyzer, a backpack and facemask apparatus that measures oxygen consumption and caloric burn. Heart rate and perceived exertion were also tracked every three minutes throughout the 40-minute workout.

The Results

After analyzing the data, researchers found that the average exerciser burns approximately 9.8 calories per minute during a typical boot-camp workout, which equals nearly 400 calories during the entire 40-minute boot-camp video studied (Table 1)

"The biggest benefit is you’re burning an average of 600 calories per hour," says Porcari. "That’s obviously going to help with weight loss, but you’re also getting the muscle-building benefit from pushups, arm curls and squat thrusts that you wouldn’t get just from going out for a fast walk or jog."

According to recommendations set by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), to enhance cardiorespiratory endurance individuals need to exercise at 70 percent to 94 percent of HR max and 50 percent to 85 percent of V• O2 max. Based upon the data collected in this study, subjects were exercising well within those recommended intensity levels. "On average, people were working at 77 percent of heart-rate max, which is considered moderate intensity, but it also gets as high as 91 percent, meaning, all these boot-camp workouts have peaks and valleys," Porcari explains. Figures 1 and 2 offer a visual representation of how heart rate and oxygen consumption varied by the minute as the test subjects followed the video from high-intensity moves like kicking and punching, down to low-intensity moves with the dumbbells, and back up again to high-intensity moves.

"These workouts are designed to be cyclical like that," he explains. "Boot camp is a good form of interval training because you get periods of high intensity interspersed with moves that tend to be lower in aerobic intensity but they serve a whole different purpose—to build muscle strength."

The Bottom Line

Boot camp is an excellent way to enhance aerobic capacity and help control body weight. "I think it’s a great workout with great variety," says Porcari. "It’s a good combination of aerobic exercise and muscle conditioning and it’s much more of a total-body workout than just going out for a run or bicycle ride."

But remember, not all boot-camp workouts are created equal, he warns. Some are heavy on cardio, while others emphasize martial arts–inspired movements or basic strength-training exercises. For best results, our researchers recommend picking a well-balanced program with equal helpings of aerobic movements and calisthenics. However, if you’re looking to improve in a particular area, you might consider looking for a boot-camp class or video that caters to your particular fitness weaknesses. For example, if you’d prefer build more upper-body strength and endurance, consider picking one with more push-ups, squat thrusts and similar moves.

"If people are looking for something that’s fun and variable that will increase their adherence to an exercise program, and, most importantly, burn a lot of calories," says Hendrickson, "boot camp would be a really great option."

 

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