How long have you been working out and watching what you eat, only to see little or even zero results? How often have you modified your exercise routine and diet, all with no concrete idea of what would suit your body type and metabolism the best for losing weight? If it isn't working, it could be time to call on a personal trainer!
This scenario has been happening more and more, as more people grow concerned with their health and fitness. To meet that demand, fitness professionals have been putting their knowledge of exercise science and passion for physical activity to use to help you reach your fitness goals with a programme adapted specifically to your needs.
In this article we've put together all of the best counsel from Superprof fitness trainers in one handy guide for you to follow.
Read on to learn the proper way to build your muscles and tone your body.
When to Engage in Personal Training Sessions
Working your body demands motivation, just like any other strenuous physical activity. In spite of your most fervent desire for toned thighs and tight glutes, talking yourself into a session at the gym, doing solitary workouts and designing a fitness programme on your own can kick any motivation you have out the door.
Struggling for motivation or not getting results? It is at that point that a fitness specialist should be called in.
A certified fitness instructor fulfils several functions, the first being a motivator. It isn't easy to work out in front of an audience in a gym, to dream up your own fitness programme – regardless of how much you know about kinesiology and nutrition, and then follow that set regimen day in, day out, all on your own.
Job One for your personal fitness trainer is to take all of that off of you. Once you've met with him/her, putting it off is more difficult, and if you choose an in-home personal trainer, they even come to your home for your personal training sessions. What better way for a nudge to carry out your training? No more excuses! No more putting fitness off!
Not only will your fitness coach guide you to your body-shaping goals, but they will also push you to your endurance limits and beyond in order to attain results faster. Besides motivating you, your certified personal trainer will adapt an all-encompassing fitness program, just for you.
Say goodbye to those group workouts you reluctantly participated in!
In fact, in line with your objectives and based on your history of physical activity, your coach will propose an individualised workout and nutritional guide, tailor-made for you. They should know exactly what moves will work for each of your muscle groups, and will counsel you on training techniques to attain muscle mass and definition safely.
Injury Prevention
Injury prevention is one of the best reasons to consult with a personal fitness trainer. To that end, it is great if your personal trainer has undergone a certification program in several areas of fitness education before qualifying for the position.
- A Level 2 training certification qualifies any athlete to lead exercise programs in a gym or other fitness facility
- A Level 3 certification from an accredited program entitles exercise specialists to practice as personal trainers in-home.
- Level 4 is a master personal trainer diploma, the highest fitness qualification attainable.
Every trainer, no matter what level, is required to obtain a First Aid at Work qualification. As per the Health and Safety Executive, it must be renewed every three years. With these measured competencies and, most importantly the emergency first aid training requirement, it is clear that your chosen fitness professional is fully qualified to keep you from injury as well as instruct on proper movement and form.
With a personal trainer leading your development, you can't help but work yourself into the toned, sculpted body you want right now while developing healthy habits for life.
How to Select a Fitness Trainer Specialising in Building Muscle Mass
The fitness industry is booming in the UK! That means you have a wide selection of personal trainers to choose from, but which one to choose?
An effective coach must be endowed with certain qualities: patience and experience, but also being receptive and assertive.
Beyond that, you should ponder what method of instruction you prefer: in a fitness centre, at your home or online?
Here are the steps to follow in order to rest assured that you have found the right trainer for you online or at home.
- Search for fitness trainers – in newspapers, on bulletin boards, in gyms or online
- Request an interview: find out prospective coaches' areas of speciality, whether they would come to your home and, if so, whether would they bring the necessary equipment?
- Verify credentials: any physical fitness trainer must have attained at least Level 3 in order to qualify as an in-home personal trainer.
- From your first workout session together, your coach should conduct a physical assessment, adjust the proposed workout intensity accordingly and, at all times, monitor your level of physical, mental and emotional stress.
- Should you settle on a fitness expert for the short-term – just to get you started, s/he should advise you even on future workouts and detail all of the progress you've made so far: what muscle groups to continue developing, which poses to maintain and for how long...
What is Your Objective?
You want to build your muscles. Fantastic, but there are other aspects of physical training to consider on the way to your end goal.
A conscientious fitness instructor should impart functional movement aimed at your fitness goals. S/he should establish a workout routine suited to you, but also develop a nutritional programme for you to follow.
From the outset, your coach should establish three main objectives on the way to excellent fitness development:
- Muscle development: your instructor should formulate a workout regimen to your specifications. Say you want a flat stomach or tight glutes, defined pecs and six-pack abs... maybe you just want to tone your body. Your prescribed movements and reps will correspond to the goals you have established together.
- Nutritional awareness: the fact is, no one gains muscle mass without proper nutrition. Designing an effective eating regimen with your coach will involve when and how much to eat and, most importantly, what to eat. The right fats, the right foods, sufficient protein and water. When and what to eat post-workout should feature prominently.
- Proper rest: an integral part of your overall fitness education is not overworking yourself. During each session, your muscles will be rigorously taxed; it is imperative that you give them time to relax, a respite from their hard work.
Tips For Building Muscle in Your Workout
A personal trainer can definitely provide you with plenty of information regarding what might be the right techniques for you and may suit your own body. Below, we've also shared some tips for building muscle within your workout.
Focus on the Dorsals
The dorsal muscles are those in your back. Along with proper nutrition, body sculpting – a toned, fit figure, is essential to a positive self-image. Feeling good about yourself leads to better physical and mental health. Besides, engaging in physical activity can help prevent cardiovascular disease.
An essential part of health maintenance would undoubtedly be developing and strengthening your back muscles. Back pain sufferers will attest that every movement involves your back, from cervical to lumbar vertebrae and every muscle in between.
They will further tell you that injuring your back will lead to loss of sleep, nerve compression and its associated pain; reduced flexibility or, even worse: loss of mobility. And, of course, all of the stress and anxiety that comes from lowered productivity at work.
Thus it is imperative to have a strong back. You can work yours by developing these seven muscles:
- Lattimus dorsi – lats
- Rhomboids
- Trapezoids
- Deltoids
- Spinalis sets – muscles along the vertebrae
- Teres minor and major
- Lumbar
Working your lats permits more efficient breathing, and works with the trapezoids to maintain an erect posture.
Any corrective exercise that strengthens your back will improve mobility and even your sense of well-being.
Strength and conditioning of your thoracic muscles permit greater air intake and oxygen flow to every muscle through capillary action, giving you more energy.
Another benefit of strong muscles in your back: preventing lumbar injuries/pain – the number one complaint of back pain sufferers.
Precautions to Take While Exercising:
- Keep your back straight
- Bend at the knee to pick something up, rather than at the waist
- Warm-up prior to exercising: ride a bike, do some aerobics, maybe even jump rope
- Avoid hyper-extension – do not stretch/reach further than your body is currently capable of
- Breathe out through your mouth, pushing with your stomach muscles
- Protect your lower back at all times, even while walking!
- Do cool-down stretches after every workout
Six Recommended Exercises to Strengthen Back Muscles
- The low pulley draft
- Pull-ups (also known as chin-ups)
- Dumbbell shrugs
- Pelvic lifts and planking – lumbar strengtheners
- Rowing machines – standup and sitting models
- Back pulldown
Working your back muscles will make it easier to tone and flatten your stomach, reinforce connective tissues like ligaments and tendons, extender muscles around your spinal column, and will help stabilise groin and pelvic muscles.
Get the best fitness classes near me on Superprof.
Work Your Abs Smarter, Not Harder
The weekend gym enthusiast says: “Nothing to working your abs! Sit-ups are all you need.” - wrong! The resolution-buster says: “I was a proper pig this holiday season! I need to lose my belly fat.” - wrong again!
The wishful thinker says: “I would love to have titanium abs instead of this swinging gut...” - wrong for the third time!
Personal fitness training is a whole-body experience that can target specific areas, not the wish for a specific area to appear fit at the expense of your overall well-being.
Let Us Delve Into Exercise Science
Before working your abs, you should know what muscles to target. They are the transverse and rectus abdominis, and internal and external obliques.
To get the desired abs effect, namely: that six-pack everyone so covets, the most important advice any fitness trainer could give is to work within your physical capabilities.
A certified fitness professional would first gauge the strength of your abdominals with three tests:
- The Shirado-Ito pose – a modified crunch position where your thighs are perpendicular to the floor
- The Sorensen test, otherwise known as the extensor muscles test
- Planking
The last is meant for beginner-level; those who are just starting out on their fitness trek.
The modified crunch is for the intermediate level; those who have already attained a measure of health and fitness.
The Sorensen is generally incorporated into workout routines for the most developed athletes; those at the competition level or who play sports professionally.
The biomechanics of abdominal muscles does not permit to work them any which way.
Anyone certified in exercise physiology will be quick to tell you that building stomach muscles requires a great deal of caution, endurance, and incremental work.
A personal trainer would impress these four rules for working abs during circuit training:
- Do not brace your feet, especially if you are doing sit-ups with extended legs.
- Do not lace your fingers at the nape of your neck. The preferable form is to place fists behind your ears
- Do not relax stomach muscles during reps; always flex and stretch them
- beware of spine curvature; always pull shoulders back for proper posture.
Stomach muscles are so vital that one could almost say: flex your little finger and your abs will twitch. Of course, that is an exaggeration, but the hyperbole shows how important it is to work your abs every day.
Please shelve your dream of being really cut, unless your personal trainer has already certified you at an intermediary fitness level or higher. Instead, get started with these low-impact exercises:
- Before getting out of bed, do a few sit-ups with legs extended and knees firmly together.
- Before going to bed, stretch your torso from side to side, 5 or 10 times per rep, and hold the pose for thirty seconds on each side before finishing
- laying flat on your back, breathe deeply and then expel the air, using your stomach muscles to force it all out.
- Keep tension on your stomach muscles while you walk or jog.
One final piece of advice: ask your fitness education specialist to demonstrate proper breathing techniques.
How to Develop Firm Thighs
Let's move on down to your legs, now. Cellulite is the number one ruiner of toned thighs To vanquish it, you don't need any particular fitness program or even strength training.
Sometimes, a few sessions on an elliptical will do. Continuing education in personal fitness indicates that sculpting and toning your thighs can be done at home or in a gym: an aerobic workout or simply kicking a bag, fueled by adrenaline, will work.
The first step in a good thigh workout is warm-ups! The long thigh muscles need good blood flow and stretching before working them to avoid any injury such as avulsion or tears.
Sports medicine experts aver that the greatest cause of muscle damage occurs when there is too large a temperature difference between the quads and hamstrings. A certified personal trainer will always advocate conditioning the tissue with a warm-up routine prior to working those muscles.
And, while doing squats to work your quadriceps, you would be working your glutes, too!
To prepare your thigh muscles for intensive exercise, you could:
- Do a few short-stride laps
- Raise your heel to your glutes – at least, as close as possible, and hold
- Alternate those with other leg stretches, including flexing your abductor's muscles
At the risk of being monotonous, let us remind you of what any fitness industry expert would tell you: Keep your back straight, posture firm and head raised, as though looking toward the horizon.
Again, Superprof fitness trainers pitch in to compile this non-exhaustive list of exercises, they would recommend to their in-home clients and those at the gym:
- Lunges
- Squats
- Deadlifts
- Isometrics
- Resistance training
Besides these, there are plenty of other strength training exercises to sculpt your thighs!
How About Those Hamstrings?
Often neglected, frequently overlooked: anyone working out without an online personal trainer seldom considers that muscle group. Kinesiology experts are adamant that they must be worked at least as well as the quadriceps because hamstrings are vital to proper knee function and leg movement.
Any training program that works only on particular aspects of the body while disregarding others is dangerous. A V-shaped upper body carried on rickety legs could actually cause an injury.
Why would anyone practice bodybuilding and neglect to cultivate the ability to scoop a set of dumbbells off the floor? Every health fitness specialist will tell you that you must absolutely work your hamstrings because they are tied into hip and knee movement and flexibility.
Supple hamstrings provide mobility and pliability, even for senior fitness! To incorporate healthy hamstrings into your fitness goals, you only need to work them, much as you would your quads. That suggests learning good stretching and flexing techniques from your fitness instructor.
As a bonus for your leg workout routine, our fitness training experts recommend including the following in your training sessions.
Place one foot on a chair, the other stays flat on the floor with knee slightly bent. Slowly bend your torso forward.
You should feel a pull in the back of the standing leg. Change sides, and do again. This exercise program is most beneficial if done without strain, several reps at a time.
Another excellent exercise targeted to that area is called the hurdler's stretch. In spite of all your motivation, when you first start your health and fitness regimen, it may well feel like torture. Anyone engaged in personal training will assure you that feeling will pass, especially if you have a mate to train with and motivate you.
Whether you are a part of a group fitness initiative or individualized personal training sessions, you are sure to become healthier by incorporating these training techniques into your workouts:
- The glute-ham raise
- Squats with (or without) dumbbells
- The deadlift with straight legs
- Leg curls
- Thigh presses
- Lunges
- Pelvic lifts
After winding down from your workout, your fitness coach should instruct you on exercises to do on your own, to maintain conditioning until your next session together. They will suggest further fitness activities you could partake of, such as Pilates or aerobics in order to get a broader perspective on your personal fitness training – expanded ways to gain muscle mass, build strength, refine your nutritional programme, or simply stay in shape.
The Cost of a Workout Session
It is true that engaging a personal fitness trainer is more costly than working out by yourself. However, it should be understood that to achieve long-term results, it is best to seek the services of a trainer, one who will guide your efforts toward building and sculpting your body.
Should you settle on a fitness centre or health club?
There are advantages as well as drawbacks to going to a fitness centre or health club because you are paying both for the use of the gym and your personal trainer's fees. Starting from around £20 for a no-frills sports facility, you can make use of sports equipment, and perhaps participate in group sessions.
But, if your sole desire is to work one on one with a sports master, then your membership cost could be higher, averaged out over a one-year period.
If you prefer an in-home personal trainer
The price depends on your sports coach or trainer and his/her bespoke fitness plans. You should prepare to spend at least £60 on the average per workout session in your home. On top of this, there is the question of what equipment to buy: mats, weights, special clothing, shoes and accessories that will optimise your fitness gains.
Other than clothing and shoes, your fitness trainer may be able to make use of everyday items already in your home to provide strength and conditioning.
You could negotiate a lower rate for yourself with your fitness trainer by asking if they would conduct a small group session in your home for a few weeks. Invite a few of your besties to share the cost and you may get away with a mere £20 per workout fee.
A Superprof fitness expert, in your home or online, is a great way to go
A level, reasonable price is this solution's greatest appeal. Over the course of your subscription – one month, three months or a year, you stand to find rates as low as £15 per session.
Enticing for its price alone, this workout solution is tailor-made for those who find no problems with working out alone, at home, guided by their online personal trainer.
No matter which method suits you best, you now have decided reasons to find your perfect workout leader.
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