Sunday, 24 June 2018

My Diploma in Personal Fitness Training - At Last!

It only took me 21 years! 
   In 1997 the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) in Edmonton held the first classes of its year and a half Personal Fitness Training certificate program. It was felt back then that there was a void of proper accreditation and training for Fitness Trainers. Some Fitness Trainers had Physical Education or Kinesiology degrees. Many had certificates from weekend courses. Many Fitness Trainers had no accreditation at all.
   At the time, I happened to be in a period of career transition and the NAIT program was a fresh start.
   It was an intense year and a half of courses with the reward of a college certificate, and national and provincial accreditation. Some confusion ensued with the general public and potential clients. How were they to differentiate between a certificate earned in a year and a half of intense study or a certificate earned for a weekend course?
 NAIT wisely decided to add another semester and turn the Personal Fitness Trainer program into a college diploma program. The program is now also available online as internet studies. I always wanted to update but never found the time. Finally almost 2 years ago I made the decision to go for it. After 20 months of online work involving video presentations, reports,  case studies, and exams, my diploma finally arrived in the mail.
 

My Personal Fitness Trainer Certificate from 1998

   There were some memorable highlights of my latest return to the world of scholastic endeavor:

  • I had to submit all of my assignments through the college internet system known as Moodle. A task that would take a child of the Millennium 2 keystrokes to complete often took me hours or days with many failed submission attempts along with the accompanying fits of blasphemous rage. Fortunately, the instructors understood the trials and tribulations of the pre-tech generation and were quite fair and benevolent.
  • I ran a 40 meter sprint for the Sports Performance course. Since I had a total hip replacement in 2006, I was quite pleased with my running time of around 6 seconds.
  • The next day when I got out of bed my hamstrings locked and I almost fell flat on my face. The obvious culprit was a pair of underactive Gluteus Maximus muscles.
  • A video of my sprint was to be submitted. Due to technical issues the camera was on still picture mode. That meant that I had to redo the sprint.
  • On the sprint rerun 3 days later I strained my quadriceps muscle. At my age, there is only 1 full out sprint per year left in the body.
  • Dating sites to meet Russian women popping up on my my screen as I was about to post a shared exercise group discussion admittedly caused me some anxious moments of stress. I don't know how my laptop was exposed to such a questionable link!!!!
  • My laptop froze during one of the online exams. Fortunately it kicked back in after a minute but not before I thought my heart tissue had gone into cardiac arrest mode.


The final product. My hard earned diploma!

   I wisely only took one course at a time. Given my work demands, any more might have been overwhelming. It took 20 months to complete a full semester worth of 5 courses.
I am glad that I did it. I am thankful that it is over.  That which does not destroy me  - strengthens me! (Neitzsche)
   Now I feel more confident in my knowledge and skills for sounding off on my blog rants. In the world of sports and fitness, there is much ranting that needs to be done.

Until next time ,  keep fit!

 Little Bobby Strong
 Links
www.fitnwell.com
Posted by at 1 comment:

Sunday, 3 June 2018

The Best Training for Power Production?


Believe it or not, I do read more than just comic books and muscle magazines. This was an interesting study that I came across that would be useful for fitness trainers that work with athletes.


The Effect of Six Weeks of Squat, Plyometric, and Squat / Plyometric Training on Power Production
Purpose
Adams et al from Oregon State University performed this study in order to determine if squat training, plyometric training and squat/plyometric training could improve physical power production as measured by use of the vertical jump assessment.
Subjects
The study used 48 subjects divided into 3 groups of 16. The subjects were intermediate level weight trainers with no more than a year of being in a weight room environment. The subjects had minimal exposure to plyometric training or power training.
Protocol
The subjects were tested before and after for power production using a vertical jump assessment as per the Sargent jump test or the CSEP PATH. The subjects performed 3 jumps from a stationary parallel squat position with full recovery between each jump. The best score counted as the official height achieved. The 3 groups were put on a 7-week training program consisting of 2 workouts per week. The squat group trained with parallel squats.  The plyometric group trained with depth jumps, double leg hops and split squats. The squat/plyometric group used the same exercises together with the same intensity but a reduced volume.   
Results
All 3 study groups improved with statistical significance on the final vertical jump assessment. The squat group improved by an average of 3.30 cm. The plyometric group improved by an average of 3.81 cm. The squat/plyometric group showed the greatest improvement with an average increase of 10.67 cm. The study concluded that squats and plyometric training can both improve vertical jump height. The greatest improvement occurs through a combination of squat training and plyometric training. Further research is needed to determine conclusively if this vertical jump increase corresponds to greater explosive muscular power in other activities. It seems likely that it would.

For safety purposes, you would want to assess your client for any muscular imbalances or dysfunction before putting them on either a heavy lifting or plyometric program.  Corrective exercises might be in order before moving on to power or strength. 


Image result for squat exercises with weights

              Squat Exercise 



Image result for plyometric jump squats

References
      Adams, Kent. O’Shea, John P. O’Shea, Katie L. Climson, Mike. The effect of 6 weeks of squat, plyometric and squat-plyometric training on power production, 1992, Journal of Sport Science Research volume 6, no. 1; p. 36-41

                                                                                                

Until Next Time,  Keep Fit
Little Bobby Strong
                                                                                                
Links




      



Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)