Fitness is a state of the human body that allows it to function up to its full potential. It’s the ability to do regular jobs without any strain, while being alert and energetic enough to endure any stressful activities. It’s basically a condition wherein, all the major parts of the body, heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, bones and muscles are in proper working condition. There are four aspects related to physical fitness: cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular strength, and muscular endurance and flexibility. Fitness plans are the path to having a healthy body. They are the perfect way to incorporate exercise into the daily routine. Fitness plans, when followed religiously, are a remarkable way to counter several diseases, even in old age. Fitness plans need a lot of commitment and hard work.

There are several stages in incorporating an exercise planinto your daily routine. The first thing is to check your present medical condition to determine what kind of a program would suit you. This requires a basic health check up of blood pressure, diabetes-check, and a full work over for any suspected diseases, and past injuries. Also, consider your family history. Are you prone to heart attacks, strokes, arthritis, and other sicknesses? A major aspect in fitness is the body’s composition, which indicates the makeup of the body in terms of the ratio of lean mass to fat mass. Lean mass is comprised of muscle, bone, critical tissue and organs. Fat is fat.

Exercise programs take all these physical conditions of the person into account. The ideal exercise regime for a person will suit his/her body type. This is also contingent upon one’s objective be it weight loss, physical strength, or others. Exercise programs are composed of several kinds of activities such as: group exercise, aquatic exercises, golf, walking, skipping, jogging, swimming, bicycling, running, skiing, or playing sports like tennis and squash.

Fitness program should be chosen to suit your fitness level. They should be enjoyable, with realistic goals, and should fit well with your lifestyle. Some people might not see immediate results. Depending on the program as well as their body type results may vary. However, patience is very important. Picking more than one type of exercise would also make it interesting. You can opt for an instructor for special kinds of fitness plans or for group fitness plans. People with disabilities need to follow fitness plans consistently.

There are many specialist gym? that have sophisticated equipment to suit all kinds of people and their fitness needs. These centers have specialists and medical specialists who would be able to offer advice about the best kind of fitness program to take up. They provide personalized workout routines, nutrition plans, personal trainers, and expert guidance to make the results last.

The mission at Gold’s Health Club? Winston Salem is to fulfill our members’ needs and build lasting relationships through a fun and friendly experience. It is our goal to ensure this is accomplished with every member, every day. They have created a comfortable and family oriented environment to make exercising more of a pleasure. In order to develop this atmosphere they provide a children’s’ club, member perks and a friendly and committed staff. They are committed to assisting members lose weight, maintain a healthy body and enjoy their time in the gym.

At this gym members enjoy state of the art fitness equipment to maximize their efforts, more than thirty group fitness classes to choose from, including: cycling, water classes, dance and boot camp; they also are provided the option to do a freestyle workout where they can layout their own workout or choose the assistance of an extremely licensed personal trainer to support them in accomplishing their goals and keeping them motivated. Members are also treated to a $150 gift card upon joining to buy equipment or exercise wear and enjoy any of the health spa treatments available; there is also a quarterly Lifestyle magazine published online and in the facilities that is available to all and gives quick exercise tips, nutritional information for living a healthy lifestyle and herbal remedy advice.

There are three different membership types at Gold’s Fitness Center? Winston Salem that each have different perks.

1. One Club- this membership includes basic privileges and guarantees and allows 6 visitor sessions.

2. Passport- includes all One Club privileges plus daycare, cycling and use of any club nationwide, plus 9 visitor sessions.

3. Premier – includes all Passport privileges plus tanning and 12 visitor sessions.

Each of these membership plans can be altered based on individual needs and range anywhere from forty to sixty-five dollars a month. Clients should build muscle, lose weight and, most of all, have fun.

The averagewoman will gain between 25 and 30 pounds during her pregnancy, but how many women do you know that have gained upward of 50 pounds or even more? Keeping your weight gain in check can be difficult when you’re “eating for two,”, but with the help of a personal trainer, you can ward off the inevitable excess baby weight.

Studies have shown that exercising throughout your pregnancy is not only good for your body, but good for your mind as well. Exercising makes you release endorphins which in turn may make you feel happier, and more stable. With the inevitable rapid moods changes and lowered energy that pregnant women experience, prenatal exercise can be very beneficial to both husband and wife! Prenatal exercise can also have a positive impact on the length of delivery and post partum weight loss. A woman who has more muscle tone and cardiovascular endurance will fare better in a labour room than one that does not. This is a true marathon event, and you want to be ready.

If you’re the type of woman who already likes to exercise and has a program in place with a trainer, there is no need to slow down just yet. With your physician’s approval you may continue your program until your body starts to slow you down. If you are not currently exercising and want to begin, you may also do so, but you need to be cautious about going into it with your eyes open. Pregnancy is not a time for weight loss goals, but instead, healthy weight gain goals with the forward focus on post natal weight loss.

During pregnancy, there are many issues to be concerned about such as gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia, and lethargy. At the 2002 annual meeting of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Dr. Tanya K. Sorensen stated that vigorous exercise during pregnancy appears to reduce the risk of pre-eclampsia. Exercise can help keep all of these conditions from occurring, and utilizing a personal trainer can help you get the most benefit from your workout. Just as you would during your regular sessions, your personal trainer will modify exercises for you as she sees fit, and tailor a program to meet your specific needs. You and your personal trainer will decide what feels best for you at each stage of your pregnancy, and You will feel at ease exercising knowing you are doing exercises that are good for both you and your expanding belly.

Most non- pregnant women who exercise solo have a program in place that they vary infrequently due to lack of fitness knowledge and uncertainty about technique. More than ever, those things are important during pregnancy. You don’t want the same routine in the first trimester as in the third, and a trainer can help with that. The type of workout that you get with a personal trainer is so customized to your specific needs throughout your pregnancy that you don’t need to worry about doing an activity that might not be in your best interest. Proper technique and choice of exercises are most important during this crucial time since you could do more than just pull a muscle; you could effectively harm your baby.

Any questions or concerns you have about your program can be brought up and discussed with your personal trainer to make you feel completely confident that you are executing each exercise properly.

With the guidance of a personal fitness trainer, your prenatal workout should be worry-free, full of interesting exercises, and preparing your body for the biggest workout yet.

Whether you’re accustomed to attending gym-offered group fitness classes or working out to videos in the privacy of your own home, you are probably well aware that resistance training or weight training has been the “it” thing in fitness the past few years. There’s a plethora of equipment- resistance tubing, bands, weights, medicine balls, Body bars, Coreboards, Bowflex machines, and everything else under the sun you can lift or pull. Then there is a vast array of classes, including Body Pump, Power Pump, Pilates, Yoga, Body Sculpting. The list is endless. But with all the variety offered comes some confusion. What one mode of toning exercise is the best? Is there a “best” way to tone the muscles of the body?

I am personally a big believer in cross-training and variety. Your muscles get efficient with one format; by switching modalities of resistance or weight training, you can keep your muscles always guessing and working hard. However, the best answer is to do the format that you enjoy the most. If you’re doing a workout that you do not enjoy, You will not stick with it and You will never achieve the optimum results. That said, let’s discuss the pros and cons of the most well-liked forms of weight and resistance training.

Machines If you’re known as a “gym-rat”, you’re probably familiar with every weight machine in the gym, but they can be very intimidating to first-timers. If you have never used the weight machines before, it is advisable to have a personal trainer or an experienced friend show you how to use each machine and explain to you what muscles you’re working. Each machine isolates a specific muscle, and you can adjust the amount of weight therefore. The bonus is that you can easily mark your progress by performing a set number of reps and seeing your weight increase every few weeks.

However, machines limit your range of motion, and it does take time to figure out exactly how much weight you can lift on each machine. Also, in many gyms, You will spend a lot of time waiting for a machine, so you do not get to work the muscles in a desired order. Many people also find the machines boring and find that it takes too much self-motivation to count all your reps and encourage yourself to continue your sets.

Body Pump or Power Pump These group fitness class formats use a bar that you are able to add weighted plates to the ends. The class typically focuses on all the major muscles, spending about five minutes on each muscle group-quadriceps, chest, triceps, biceps, hamstrings and calves, shoulders, back, and abdominals. Body Pump, a trademarked Body Training Systems program, is choreographed to set music, and the routine is repeated for a few weeks before incorporating other songs/choreography. This is a fun workout but is only offered at facilities that pay fees to Body Training Systems.

Power Pump is similar to Body Pump, except that it’s not choreographed to set music and is therefore instructor-based. Having an great instructor may make this class exciting and motivating. This class also lends itself to a bit more variety than Body Pump, as it often adds the use of tubing, balls, and hand weights.

Body Sculpting This group fitness class can have a selection of other names, but it basically involves working the muscles of the body in any order by any mode-from hand weights to tubing to your body, as in push-ups. This class is great to teach participants how to use a selection of tools to strengthen and sculpt the body. On the downside, it is very instructor-based. If the instructor lacks certain teaching skills, the class may feel choppy. Participants may feel like they took out every toy but didn’t really play with them. In other words, they got variety, but didn’t work any muscles to the point of true fatigue. As a participant, make certain you choose heavier weights or greater-resistance tubing to optimize your own workout.

Pilates/Yoga While Pilates and Yoga typically do not use weights, there are some classes/videos that incorporate the use of very light weights. Because most of the exercises are designed to strengthen without weights, it’s often unnecessary to use them. Never use weights heavier than 5 pounds in a yoga or Pilates class. Both yoga and Pilates often use the weight of your own body for resistance, which is why both are so effective. They can also use the Swiss ball for additional stability challenge. They also incorporate a lot of isometric contraction, that is, holding a muscle contraction. Both also focus on core strength and balance, strengthening a variety of muscles at one time rather than isolating muscles. This makes both yoga and Pilates more “functional” (translating to everyday activities better) because we usually use multiple muscles at a time. We hardly ever isolate one muscle in our everyday activity.

Some people believe that weight machines are for men; yoga and Pilates is for women. But this is completely untrue. Men can benefit  from yoga and Pilates in so many ways, and both yoga and Pilates were actually originated by men. The other advantage of yoga and Pilates is that they do not lead to as much as injury as Pump and Sculpting classes can incur. This is due to the principles of control, breathing, fluidity of movement, and body awareness that is key to both yoga and Pilates.

After “weighing” the pros and cons, your best bet is always yoga and Pilates. But don’t be afraid to try other formats to vary your routine. Above all, find one you enjoy and keeps you motivated to come back for more!

There is nothing new about the idea of a group retreat. The family vacation may be the original of all retreats. This vacation was an opportunity to get away from distractions of a hectic life and enjoy the group time for bonding and experiential activities. Today, these same principles that directed the family vacation retreat, can and are utilized for a lot of different corporate and recreational groups. an opportunity to bring a core group together, outside of the standard setting, having time for team building and to focus on a personal or group of challenges can be very powerful.

If heading up a team building retreat, You will want to do all you can to ensure every bit of scheduled activity provides for the utmost ability for all participants to focus and accomplish their goals. to do this there is more to be done than the simple scheduling of space and ensuring meals are available for retreat group participants. What activities will you provide to give them mental downtime? How’ll they workout the kinks from the days activities, sitting through presentations and brainstorming meetings? You will want to assist them in staying mentally and physically fresh. This is best done when utilizing the skills of a fitness specialist.

5 Reasons for Adding Wellness to Your Group Retreat

  1. Physical activity has been shown to increase brain function. A fitness specialist, depending upon their specialty, may be able to provide cardiovascular activities, resistance training opportunities, yoga for flexibility sessions, boot camps, tai chi, or a combination of fitness formats to keep the blood flowing to all parts of the body including the brain.

  2. Providing morning and afternoon classes for the corporate retreat group will offer an excellent opening and closing to daily activities. to start the day with a little physical activity is not only good for the body but it will also mentally prepare the mind for the upcoming business activities. Closing the day with a bit more physical or mind/body activity allows for a separation of the days activities and initiates the mental relaxation that is beneficial for being ready and capable of quality focused activity the next day.

  3. You will show the retreat participants you care about them as much as you do about the targeted retreat business activities. You can even go as far as a dual purpose and offer multiple educational classes as part of a wellness retreat or yoga retreat in addition to your designed corporate retreat. Multiple studies have shown the positive link of a healthy workforce and reduced employee absenteeism.

  4. You may choose to utilize the intensity of the incorporated workout sessions as team building opportunities. Yoga and boot camp programs are well suited for taxing not only the body, but also the mind. Be certain to encourage your team to work together to meet a common health and fitness goal.

  5. Lastly, various forms of wellness retreats are occurring every day. Your group will have an excitement leading up to their event as they look forward to the somewhat exotic wellness schedule. This alone will not only increase likely participation, but it will also increase the overall moral of the group.

Take your corporate, recreational, family reunion, or whatever the reason, retreat to the next level. Keep participants refreshed, enlightened, and appreciative with the assistance of a fitness specialist. Personal Trainers, Yoga Instructors, Aerobics Instructors, or those with combinations of skills are available throughout North America. Utilizing a single source business can easily assist you in finding a fitness specialist that will best fit your needs. The Fit Pro will be a valuable piece of your retreat meeting and exceeding all the business goals your retreat was designed to meet.

One of the latest trends to be introduced into our industry has been Stability Ball training. Stability balls are big balls, similar to the big, plastic ones the children play around with in the backyard, which are made of sturdy material that allows users to sit, lay, kneel, and even stand to perform varying degrees of exercises. The dynamic nature of the ball improves balance, posture, body awareness, coordination, and allows for different positioning options to increase the challenge and progress the exercise’s level of difficulty.

The most important factor of all when it comes to ball training is the amount of fun it can bring into your program. Whether it is a group fitness class, private training session, or just personal use at home these balls add an element of play and excitement to your current exercise regimen. Not only are they fun, but they also provide one heck of a strength-conditioning workout at an inexpensive price!

Resist-A-BallTM, the leader in stability ball education, provide 3 different levels of challenge in their C.O.R.E. (Competent On Resist-A-BallTM Education) instructor training manuals. The position of the body is always placed in the easiest, or least amount of resistance, at first. By repositioning the body, the resistance challenge (1st level of challenge) is increased to make the exercise more difficult. The base of support is also reduced from broad and more supportive, to narrower and less supportive to increase the balance challenge (2nd level of challenge). In conclusion, maintaining a certain position on the ball, or performing a movement pattern while adding movement on the ball can add a dynamic challenge (3rd level of challenge).

Whatever exercise you perform on the ball to overload a particular muscle group, several others are acting as stabilizers to facilitate the joint actions of the particular prime movement. After one session of abdominal training using the ball, You will never lay on the floor to do another crunch. That is unless you are too sore to do your next workout, which in most cases after your first ball training session you are.

Besides being a tremendous benefit to your body, it adds another layer of variety to your current weight training protocol. By replacing your bench with the ball you can add a whole new level of coordination and balance to your seated and lying exercises. Not to mention the great core muscle strength and endurance you create from stabilizing your body during all of your sets and repetitions.

Don’t delay, get on the ball and roll with it!

Sizing Tips and Guidelines

• When seated on the top of a stability ball your knees should be even with your hips or slightly above.

• 45cm- used for shorter (generally under 5 ft) participants.

• 55cm- used for most people

• 65cm-used for taller (generally over 6 ft) participants.

• Larger, softer balls are great for de-conditioned, overweight, or mature populations

• The firmer the ball the more difficult the exercises are to perform; the softer the ball the easier exercises are to perform.

It’s starting to bounce around the Internet training world that one-on-one personal training is dying and will be all done in a few years. Whether or not that’s true is certainly up for debate, but there’s no question that group fitness is becoming much more popular. The idea of “group fitness” used to exclusively mean aerobics and step classes, but today it encompasses group training, boot camps, aquatic fitness, CrossFit groups, and other multi-athlete exercise kinds.

Group exercise and one-on-one training both have their place. I am going to look at the pros and cons of aerobics (focusing on boot camps) in relation to one-on-one training. This is from the perspective of the client, not the trainer, although there are another set of pros and cons from a business point of view.

The Pros

1. Group training can provide an awesome atmosphere. Training with other people, especially for multiple sessions, can provide a terrific sense of camaraderie and make a terrific support network. I can’t write enough about the importance of a support group in helping you reachyour fitness goals. I usually advocate setting up a group among your family and friend, but a group fitness class has one already built in! It’s usually non-competitive and you’re all pushing and groaning through the same things. Take a look at shows like The Biggest Loser and Celebrity Fit Club. Even when the competitors are in direct contention they still band together and cheer each other on.

Accountability and adherence are often a lot better in the group training atmosphere than in one-on-one training and especially over non-supported training. People make excuses to themselves or their trainer, but who wants to miss a session of hanging out with their friends?

2. It can be more cost-effective. There are a few levels of financial involvement in fitness, and as the costs go up, so does the support. The cheapest is just joining a gym, buying a book, or investing the time to poke around online. This is usually the method with the highest risk of failure.

Next on the list is the boot camps and group training. Usually this is less expensive than one-on-one training, although it opens you up to the cons below. You still get some attention, guidance, and observations, as well as the other pros I’m listing.

At the financial top (other than risky surgeries) is one-on-one training. You sacrifice the pros of group training to sidestep the cons.

3. You get more eyes on you. This can sometimes be good and bad, actually. Usually in a group there are a couple of veterans who are familiar with the techniques utilized by the trainer. These vets are often happy to share their experience and help out new members. The only issue can come when the veterans and the personal trainer are not on the same page!

The Cons

1. Well, it’s group fitness so there is going to be less one-on-one attention. If there’s only one trainer and fifteen students in the class then the trainer’s attention will clearly be limited. A good instructor should be able to run an efficient class with quite a few members, though. Martial arts classes have had this format, quite successfully, for a very long time. Fitness is no different in this regard.

2. It can be hard to separate fitness levels in a group fitness class. Many classes are set up for beginners or advanced athletes, but even among these groups there can be broad variations in fitness levels. Some degree of self-motivation is required for true success in a group fitness environment. If you’re the fastest person in your class, be sure you’re really moving at your best speed, not just slightly faster than number two. On the flip side, if you’re the one behind then keep on pushing, You will get there.

3. Scheduling isn’t just on you; it’s for the best overall fit. The class has to be scheduled so that the most people can attend, not just you. So if you have an unusual schedule it can be hard to consistently find a group. In this way one-on-one training definitely has the advantage as you just have to schedule directly with your trainer.

Group exercise is catching on and I am a big fan. It is going to bring more people into the guided exercise world, which will greatly enhance their chances of fitness success. If you’ve never tried a boot camp or group training session before, give them a shot. Find a club team sport or become a member of  martial arts class. I think You will be surprised with the workout you get and how much fun you have. It is a far cry from the old group exercise classes that you’re used to.