PERSONAL TRAINING
Whether a client is starting up a New Year’s resolution or joining a work-related weight loss program to kick-start their health, any opportunities to increase physical activity leads clients in a positive direction. However, the most common reason for stopping these changes lies with lack of motivation and feedback. Strategies that provide immediate feedback are essential to ensure success; therefore monitoring progress is vital for establishing a baseline, setting appropriate and attainable goals, and tracking changes over time.
Monitoring changes with a simple weight scale or Body Mass Index provides limited ability to accurately track changes as they only highlight changes in weight and thus fail to encompass progress in muscle gain or fat loss. To support ongoing success through physical activity, understanding body composition with InBody is key.
In less than 45 seconds, the InBody 570 Test provides personal trainers with easy-to-understand, accurate and objective measurements to evaluate a member’s body composition:
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Assess muscle distribution and target areas weakened by injury
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Identify muscle and fat imbalances in each segment of the body
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Monitor changes to determine efficacy of an exercise program and diet plans to ensure long-term success
Maintaining weight while increasing muscle and decreasing fat
Monitoring a client’s muscle and fat balance allows trainers to identify imbalances between the two compartments and focus their attention on setting more appropriate training goals and create more effective plans for reducing health risks. With the use of Segmental Lean Analysis, trainers will be able to identify areas for training that will maximize progress. This equips trainers with the tools to understand starting points, target areas in need of improvement, set attainable and specific goals and optimize success and health improvements.
Decrease visceral fat and lower the risk of cardiovascular diseases
Determining client health risk can be tricky when encountering clients with high amounts of skeletal muscle mass. While the balance between the muscle and fat compartment heavily favors skeletal muscle, this client is still at elevated risk for developing health conditions due to their high overall weight– partially driven by above-normal body fat mass. While relatively young and fit, this client might believe themselves to be healthy; however, long-term, this trend will increase the risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes and even certain cancers.
As trainers encounter these types of clients, a complete body composition breakdown can guide what kind of exercise modality might fit best to improve the client’s overall body composition. While this client has adequate lean mass, incorporation of more aerobic exercise can help decrease overall weight, body fat mass, and visceral fat, which is approaching a level associated with higher risk of certain metabolic diseases. Combining aerobic and resistance exercise can assist with reduction of both overall and visceral fat while promoting muscle maintenance or growth. Both of these types of changes will improve disease risk in the short term, while also supporting long-term health for the client.
With the use of the InBody results sheet, trainers can better educate clients on the importance of different training protocols and how body composition is an important key to understanding overall health and wellness. Client’s who have a predominantly resistance based workout might still be at risk for health disease. Use of body composition can allow trainers to educate clients and show them the value of training programs aimed at overall health and wellness.