NESTA News – February 2009
In this issue:
• Business Tip: ‘Tis the Season to Improve your Resume
• Training Tip: Are you “Cardiac Drifting”?
• New Programs at NESTA: Triathlon Coach and Heart Rate Performance Specialist
• Training Connections: Additional Opportunities for NESTA members
• Live Training: NESTA PFT and Continuing Education Workshops
• Job Openings for Trainers, Coaches and Instructors
Business Tip: The Time is Now to Improve your Resume
From John Spencer Ellis, CEO
Although some trainers may be challenged by today's economic climate, after reading this article, you will know exactly what to do to get ahead - FAST! Many busy family-oriented people feel they need to put their fitness or athletic life on hold due to a perceived lack of time and energy. Are people that much busier? They are certainly more stressed. This down time with a smaller clientele creates an opportunity for you.
Your colleagues, other coaches, and fellow trainers are spending less time on business and education. Now is the time for you to close the gap. Imagine how far you could distance yourself from your competitors, and how much you could help your clients and athletes if you spent 60-120 minutes each day on your education.
Whether you are seeing a temporary decline in your business, or you just aren’t getting the level of income you want there is one thing you can do. Hit the “books”. Not just any books. What books can you read or programs can you take to improve your mind, your skills, and to increase the perceived benefits you offer others by having a “meatier” resume?
Utilize the winter months to do one or more of the following:
1. Go back to school to get a degree or advanced degree. Get your degree through distance learning online or in person at an accredited college or university. Expect this process to take you a minimum of one year and as many as three or more years depending on the program, your field of interest, and your level of commitment to the program.
2. Get certified as a personal fitness trainer. If you are already certified, and don’t want an additional certification, pursue one or more unique training specializations to separate you from the competition. Know the age, gender, occupation, goals, and personality types of the clients and athletes you wish to serve. Then pursue continuing education and specialization programs that serve these demographics.
3. Read books on business and training at least 60 minutes each day to know and be able to apply more than your clientele and your competitors (until you are as busy as you want to be you MUST read 50% or more of your time on sales & marketing and 50% or less of your time on training). As long as you don’t have enough clients, most of your time should be spent improving your business and communication skills. Once you have enough clients and want to improve your training expertise further, shift your learning more toward the training side. Most trainers spend 90% or more of their learning time on training and less than 10% on business. If this is you, don’t be surprised that you aren’t where you want to be.
In truth, you should pursue all three options. While there are certainly people who are very successful who have never had a formal education, successful people are constantly learning. You must do what is going to help you most in the coming months and years. Think long and short term. You don’t want to waste your money if you aren’t ready to get into a degree granting program, but you are wasting your time if you aren’t spending time improving your education and skills.
If you have further questions or would like professional advice in career direction, call 1-877-348-6692. Specials are available now. Get moving on your education. Other professionals are passing you by…
Training Tip: Are you “Cardiac Drifting”?
From Mark Baines, Senior Vice President of Program Development
Cardiac drift is the tendency for the heart rate to rise gradually throughout a workout due to dehydration and/or rising temperature within the muscles despite a fairly consistent level of effort or steady work rate. In 1990, a study was performed in Italy with 34 male, recreationally athletic subjects to assess changes in heart rate while training at the lactate threshold level. During a test requiring 60 minutes of work, the study found that heart rates increased significantly after only 20 minutes of exercise at the lactate threshold.
The authors of the study suggested that these heart rate changes, despite consistent work rate, may be due to a gradual increase in body temperature over the first 20 minutes. Depending upon the individual’s current conditioning, and other external factors, it was not possible to maintain the same heart rate and a consistent level of effort in almost all cases.
Cardiac drifting is very normal and typical in well trained individuals (an untrained or deconditioned individual would not see much consistency at almost any consistent level of effort). It should be expected that the heart rate will vary within 5-10 percent or so at a consistent level of effort after as little as only a few minutes of training. The implication for training is that it is not always possible to maintain a consistent level of effort if the heart rate continues to drift upward at a given intensity (particularly when the heart rate rises above the individual’s lactate threshold). At some point in time, with prolonged effort, the individual may be forced to decrease effort dramatically or reach the point of complete exhaustion.
Several years ago, the great endurance athlete, Ingrid Kristiansen, set out to run a 10k under 33 minutes. However, at one point in the race, her heart rate monitor let her know that her heart rate was drifting upward despite the consistent level of effort which she had grown accustomed to giving. It was quite hot that day. Fortunately, she was wise enough to decrease her pace and allow her heart rate to return to an expected level to avoid “blowing up” completely and she was able to finish the race, although not at a record pace. If she had continued to pursue the same pace, she might not have finished the race at all. While power output and pacing are obviously important variables to track and pursue, we cannot ignore the body’s internal responses for the sake of power output or pace, or we will experience lackluster or traumatic results.
Pay attention to heart rate AND perceived exertion. You must know both, you must understand booth, and you must constantly monitor both if you expect to provide the right training intensity for your clients and athletes. Whether or not your client is breathing hard is far from the ideal way to determine intensity in cardiovascular exercise or more intense training circuits.
The above information was excerpted from the NESTA Heart Rate Performance Specialist (HRP) manual.
We can never know enough, and there is no better time than now to learn more to help more people. It is early in the new year and it is a good time for a new beginning. You just might make a good living on the way.
New Programs at NESTA: Triathlon Coach and Heart Rate Performance Specialist
Triathlon Coach
NESTA provides the education. The ITCA provides the certification. If you are a triathlete, an aspiring triathlete, or a coach of endurance athletes, you will want to look into this program.
There are other triathlon coaching programs available, but no other program provides:
• Weekly online discussion boards with other triathlon coaches and students
• Guided online video lectures for each manual chapter
• Detailed biomechanical video breakdowns of running gait, swimming technique, and cycling maximization with lectures included
• The latest heart rate monitor/training computer – the Polar RS800CX – free!
Go to http://www.triathloncoachcertification.com to order or for more information.
Heart Rate Performance Specialist
Until now, there was no truly objective method for determining workout intensity, rest periods, and program adaptations during the training session. This program will now enable you as a personal trainer and sports coach to stop guessing and to be able to hold your clients and athletes accountable for doing what is necessary to meet their goals so that you can spend less time chasing after them and spend more time working TOGETHER to get better and faster results.
The NESTA HRP education program will teach you what no other training program can!
You will learn and know exactly how to:
• Design workouts with exact intensity guidelines
• Determine precise work/rest periods for each individual client or athlete
• Adapt exercises immediately based on constant heart rate feedback
• Assess VO2max, resting heart rate, and heart rate variability at will (without expensive gas exchange testing equipment)
For more information or to order go to http://nestacertified.com/metabolic-lactate-threshold-training-zones.html.
Training Connections: Additional Opportunities for NESTA Members
From NESTA Education Support Staff
Do you need liability insurance? EVERYONE does…
You need liability insurance whether you work as an employee at a club or you work as an independent contractor/entrepreneur. By working as a trainer, you assume the risk of taking care of your clients by helping them improve and by not causing any undue harm.
If for some reason someone gets hurt under your supervision, and it is determined to be your fault, you can still be sued and your assets (income or property) will be in jeopardy. This is certainly true if you work for yourself. The only thing that protects you from being sued while working as an employee in a case of negligence is that the company probably has more assets so the lawsuit will be first taken up with the company. But it is always up to the injured individual and legal counsel to determine who will be sued. Protect yourself by knowing enough and caring enough to help and not hurt your clients, but protect yourself by getting liability insurance as well.
For more information on getting insured go to http://www.nestacertified.com/insurance.html. Check out the process and make the decision for yourself.
New Year…New TRX Course
If you are looking for a new way to earn your CEUs, check out the new TRX Group Suspension Training Course. Designed specifically for group fitness instructors, this one day course not only teaches the fundamentals of TRX Suspension Training, it shows how to incorporate the TRX for all fitness levels in a group training format.
"We've altered our eight-hour CEC approved Suspension Training Course to meet the growing demand from certified trainers and group fitness instructors wanting to learn how to adapt the TRX in a group setting," says Fitness Anywhere's Head Coach and Director of Training and Development, Fraser Quelch. "Fitness professionals will learn two group class formats, cueing points and exercise progressions for the entire body. This will redefine group fitness.” Visit www.fitnessanywhere.com/education for the latest TRX Suspension Training Courses. NESTA members receive $25 off any course when entering coupon code NESTA25 at checkout. Expires 4/30/09.
How important is heart rate when you train?
It would be harder to find a reason not to get a heart rate monitor! But you don’t have to get one from NESTA and Polar. There are other options. Go explore other heart rate monitor purchasing options and we’re confident you’ll come back to using Polar as your heart rate monitor provider for yourself and for your clients and athletes.
With a Polar Heart Rate Monitor, as a trainer and coach you will now be able to:
• Monitor daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly progress through automatically recorded data
• Assess VO2max, resting heart rate, and heart rate variability at will (without expensive gas exchange testing equipment)
• Design the appropriate FITTRR (Frequency, Intensity, Time, Type, Rest/Recovery, and Rate of Progression) variables with helpful tutorials and specialized “plug-and-play” forms
• Create specific programs for each fitness client, and athlete based on sport or position in sport
Whether you are an experienced trainer or coach, or a beginner, you cannot rely on subjective performance assessments of the FITTRR variables in your programming. If you are to truly be an elite personal trainer or coach, you must add objective assessment measures to better program, monitor, and evaluate workout progress.
For more information about becoming a Polar Heart Rate Monitor Distributor go to http://www.nestacertified.com/polar/index.html (watch the video and click “About” tab) or email NESTA@polarusa.com.
Use your heart AND your head when you train yourself or your clients and athletes.
Live Training: NESTA PFT and Continuing Education Workshops
From The NESTA Live Instruction Team
The link for the NESTA live workshop schedule in the coming months can be found below. If you do not see a workshop scheduled in your area any time soon, please let us know. NESTA currently provides live, hands-on training workshops in the following states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Nevada, New York, Texas, and Washington (FL and OR coming soon). We realize that live hands-on training is perhaps the most useful form of training for any professional. Please be sure to sign up early as workshops often sell out. Let us know how we can be of greater service to you.
Only at NESTA PFT Workshops will you have the option to:
1) Take your PFT exam live, without traveling to a testing center location, and get your exam results faster than anywhere else
2) Gain more hands-on biomechanical breakdowns of bodyweight, machine, cable, medicine ball, stability ball, and free weight exercises than through any other certification program
3) Get detailed descriptions of how to actually meet, obtain, and keep training clients
4) Learn from instructors who currently work as trainers (not just in office or academia settings) with a minimum of five years experience as a certified personal trainer, two or more years of teaching experience, and a bachelor’s or advanced college degree
Nothing beats a combination of live training with solid distance education. Only those who continually learn new information and gain new experiences can call themselves experienced. Practicing the same things over many years does not give you experience, you must continually evolve. Sign up now and continue to build upon what you know and can apply at http://www.nestacertified.com/workshop-schedule.html.
Job Openings for Trainers, Coaches and Instructors
From Everyone at NESTA wishing you great success
If you are NESTA certified or have a NESTA specialization and are looking for a job or position in your local area, start here. NESTA wants you to be successful and find a place that you can further your career as a fitness professional in an environment that best suits your needs. Keep your mind open and your resume active until you find the job you are looking for!
Go to www.nestacertified.com/jobs.html for updated jobs availability and get working now.
Tags: certification, ellis, fitness, health, industry, jobs, john, marketing, nesta, news
Share
You need to be a member of Knol Stuff to add comments!
Join this Ning Network