This year’s theme is “Training With a Purpose,” and it means throwing out one-size-fits-all tactics and targeting every client session for the most powerful impact possible, whether the goal is to rehabilitate an injury, elevate athletic performance, advance daily functionality or improve health and fitness measures.
5 Top Focus Areas
The diverse, comprehensive program at the 2012 IDEA Personal Trainer Institute will feature five key areas of focus:
1. Equipment-specific training. Todd Durkin, MA, presenter and author of The Impact! Body Plan(Rodale 2010), notes that fixed, heavy pieces of equipment used to dominate fitness, but today there is a wider variety of lighter and more portable options. “We’ve gotten away from machines that limit us,” he says. “Now equipment allows for a much more dynamic training environment in a variety of movements and planes, and allows for more time efficiency—it has followed the trend of the industry.”
Choose from a broad range of equipment-based sessions featuring alternative functional equipment, including kettlebells, clubbells and power ropes, and take a first look at brand-new equipment, including the TRX® Rip™ Trainer, Power System’s Fit on a Rope®, the Mega™ Medicine Ball and many other items.
2. Expanded nutrition sessions. The nutrition program has been increased to provide education on effective nutrition coaching, one of the top 10 programming trends that emerged in the 2011 IDEA Fitness Programs & Equipment Trends report. Sessions will explore how attendees can effectively help clients to follow the rules, transform their bodies, understand dietary supplements and speed recovery.
3. Business and professional development. This popular category has also been expanded this year and will feature more ideas and tips from the world’s most successful trainers. Topics include avoiding common mistakes, driving revenue from top program trends, improving your business culture and using social media effectively. Nicki Anderson, presenter and owner of Reality Fitness Studio, says, “In today’s world of ‘Lose weight fast!’ too many fitness professionals are compromising their businesses by pushing ideas such as ‘Lose 20 pounds in 20 days.’ We’ll discuss how you can defy that and maintain a relationship with other medical and fitness professionals as the best way to take your business to the next level successfully.”
4. Performance and sports conditioning. This is a hot area of training right now, and sessions will include metabolic conditioning, rotational and planar training, vertical core training, sport-specific drills, the latest research on high-intensity cardiovascular and resistance training, and body weight leverage training. Brett Klika, presenter and director of athletic performance at Fitness Quest 10, says, “Athletic injury prevention is probably the fastest-emerging field of interest in sports performance training. In addition to athletes, the diverse demographics of clients seeking personal training today require a deeper toolbox of exercises and programs to stay motivated and successful. At the conference, we’ll look at how to create a training plan and environment for kids, weekend warriors and full-time athletes that build success in their physical, mental and emotional lives.”
5. Injury prevention and recovery. More than 15 sessions will focus on helping clients avoid and recover from pain and injury; cutting-edge techniques in fascial training; self-myofascial release; assessment; and corrective exercise. “With more older adults in fitness, trainers see more people with joint issues, replacements or orthopedic issues or who are on multiple medications,” says Sue Hitzmann, MS, presenter and creator of the M.E.L.T. Method®. “Functional training is not always able to achieve the benefits we need with these clients–and may enhance compensatory patterns rather than eliminate them. Using hands-off bodywork developed through manual therapy methods of self-care, trainers can advance their potential to help clients live an active, healthy, pain-free life.”