Designing beginners workouts really has more to do with psychology than with personal training. Not to say that beginners exercises don't require the special knowledge that only a personal trainer has. If a beginners exercise program goes too far, does not put enough emphasis on stretching or safety, or does not have enough instruction, it is worthless at best and dangerous at worst. Nonetheless, the main thing when working with beginners is figuring out what they want out of their exercise workout routine.
A lot of people first start going to the gym because they want to look good. In many ways, these are the hardest people to train responsibly. With a beginners exercise program, a person has to make sure to get the heart working and the body strong and limber before beginning to build muscle mass. It is not healthy for someone to be huge and bulky but have a weak cardiovascular system and a stiff body. This can increase the chance of injury and lead to long term health problems. When working with a body image fanatic, one must recognize that being healthy is as important as looking healthy. Make sure that when beginning an exercise program that it has has a lot of cardio!
Coming up with beginners exercise routines for couch potatoes can also be pretty tough. A lot of these people come into the gym after trying a lot of different quick fixes. They have tried dietary supplements, diets, and other so-called miracle cures, but they are still overweight and out of shape. They are gung-ho to get started, but they burn out too quickly. These kinds of people require a lot of encouragement as they do their routines, but should not push themselves too hard. If starting with unrealistic expectations about how quickly the exercises will work motivation will be rapidly lost.
Essentially, the thing to tell exercise beginners is that persistence is the key. It would be better see them jogging at the gym for five or ten minutes three days a week than for an hour or two once a week. If they can make sure to exercise every other day, it won't be long before losing weight and feeling better comes to those who work toward that goal. It is, at it's most basic level, primarily a matter of being dedicated to putting in the time.
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