I just wanted to stop by and say hi to everyone. I do stop by from time to time but haven't had much going on with this slow economy.
I actually FINALLY have some folks to train (a husband and wife, friends of mine who I'm VERY excited to train, it was a birthday present from the husband to his wife at her request) who will be starting soon, but it's been very difficult to get clients right now. I have people who are interested but have no extra income to spare on training.
I can relate because we've been hit hard personally as well by this economy, both my teaching income and my wife's business.
Still, I used the time and got my CEC's all done and I enjoyed that process. It's all been stuff I'm really interested in so it was fun for me.
The CEC's I did (in order): ACE'S guide To In-Home Personal Training. I liked this course a lot, just a DVD but I took extensive notes explaining each exercise on the DVD (it's only .2 credits but was very much worthwhile).
Then I did ACE's Guide To Kickboxing Fitness (DVD/BOOK). Also very good as well (.4 credits).
Then I did ACE's Stability Ball Course which I liked a lot (.4 credits).
That was followed by "Medicine Ball For All" which I thought was pretty average (at best). I would not recommend this course since the next one I did blew it away! (.2 credits).
Finally I did "Strength Ball Training" w/ Peter Twist and Lorne Goldenberg which was incredible! (.8 credits). This book will be a sort of fitness bible for me because it's amazing, creative and has a great dvd. There are exercises that would definitely be beyond most people but there's a lot that are definitely useable as well. Many are geared towards athletes but they explain modifications for all to make them easier or more challenging.
I guess it's obvious that most of what I did is related to core/functional fitness which is my overall favorite type of training and something very applicable to In-Home training w/ the equipment I have for traveling (can't bring lots of heavy weights and benches :)).
I've also been studying more Resistance training as well, one text I study regularly is Douglas Brooks "Effective Strength Training" which is amazing, lots of great biomechanical info in that. I also really like his "Program Design for Personal Trainers" as well, which of covers a ton of stuff related to all aspects of program design and exercise science in a very practical way.
Another book I purchased and have been studying regularly is Everett Aaberg's "Resistance Training" book. I feel it's a great compliment to the Brooks book (it's the Resistance Training text for the Cooper Institute) because he talks about things Brooks doesn't like the muscular subsystems:
1. The Inner Unit (core) 2. The deep longitudinal system (DLS) 3. The lateral subsystem (LS) 4. The posterior oblique subsystem (POS) 5. The anterior oblique subsystem (AOS)
I still have a lot ot learn to really understand those and apply them to training but if anyone is interested I did a summary of those that I can post here.
Paul Chek wrote some good articles about those which you can read online. One is "The Outer Unit"
http://www.coachr.org/outer.htm
and that has a link to his article on "The Inner Unit"
Oh yeah, another book I've just really started digging into is the "Manual Of Structural Kinesiology" (Clem Thomson/R.T. Floyd). It's the 15th edition (they have a 17th edition now but I couldn't afford that one). I bought it fairly reasonably via amazon marketplace during my study for the ACE exam as a secondary reference. It's an amazing book and extremely detailed. I'm just doing a little each day to really absorb it. I want to study it cover to cover, do most of the exercises and stuff.
Anyway, I'm glad that at least I used the time productively while trying to build my training business but I'm hoping that things will improve for everyone (in the whole country, the world in fact) from an economic standpoint.
I am doing a Health Fair next week, purchased a booth for a week from today and hopefully it'll have a great turnout (last year was over 1,500 people). It's a free event and open to the public. I'm doing a drawing where folks can win 5 free training sessions plus an additional health screen. Plus anyone who enters the drawing can get 10 percent off of any of my training packages (which I've reduced a lot anyway due to the recession).
I figured it would be a great way to hopefully get folks to know about me. A registered dietician I hooked up with (I wanted someone who I could recommend to future clients who is an expert on nutrition) is doing it also.
Well, this is getting long winded, but it's been a while so I had a lot to mention. :)
I hope you are all well, I always think about you all and how much you helped me get through the whole studying/certification process and I can't thank you enough!
If anyone wants to get in touch with me you can through my website http://www.time4youfitness.com
