Assessing Your Fitness
Jul 12, 2010 Uncategorized
Although there are some variations in the personal training services you can receive, you should expect a comprehensive fitness assessment to kick off any personal training sessions or program. Assessing your fitness will give your trainer the baseline of your fitness level. It will also identify abilities ranging from excellent to poor. A fitness assessment will give you a comparison of improvements over time and allow you to gauge your fitness compared to other males or females your age.
The fitness assessment should begin with a comprehensive health, medical and fitness history. The personal trainer will want to identify things such as family history of disease, personal medical history including surgeries, injuries or any medication. They will also want to know your lifestyle information including your experiences with exercise, your current exercise program, and how many hours per day you sleep and sit as well as any concerns you have.
Once the lifestyle and medical history is assessed and reviewed, personal trainers will next determine which fitness tests are the most appropriate for the client. They typical tests include:
- Resting heart rate
- Blood Pressure
- Cardiovascular test (step test, bike test, treadmill test)
- Strength Test (bench press, squats)
- Muscle Endurance Test (pushups, sit ups)
- Body Composition (weight, body composition, circumference measurements)
- Flexibility (sit and reach, other joint mobility tests)
Additionally, personal trainers may test things such VO2 max, gait or posture analysis or sport specific testing for speed, agility, accuracy and so on.
Fitness can be re-assessed as often as a weekly scale weight or as long as 6 weeks apart to see measurable change. Knowing your re-assessment date is important to keep you on track to reaching your goals.
All of the information gained in a fitness assessment is confidential and only shared between you and the personal trainer. You can give permission to release the information to your doctor or other professionals. You will typically receive an electronic report with your results that also gives recommendations for improvements.
While engaging in a fitness assessment may not be a great experience the first time around, the re-assessment is a totally different experience as you are measuring significant improvements in results.
Improve Your Sleeping Posture With an Orthopedic Pillow
Jul 12, 2010 Uncategorized
It is well known that our sleeping posture has a major influence on our health. However, many people prefer to sleep on soft beds and pillows that are crushed easily during their sleep. This can lead to spinal deformation, causing many health problems. Back pain and neck stiffness are just minor symptoms of incorrect sleeping positions. Other common manifestations are leg pain and stiffness, snoring, insomnia, breathing difficulty and poor blood circulation.
In fact, improper sleeping is one of the main problems of our modern lifestyle. People enjoy the comfort soft bedding provides, without analyzing the possible consequences of their habits. The classical medicine and its ’symptom suppressing’ approach made us see only certain sides of events, without wondering how our actions relate. I’ve seen so many people complaining about back pain and stiff muscles! And most of them don’t even consider analyzing the causes of their problem. They start taking painkillers and allow chemicals to affect their health even more, when it would be so easy to feel good again: before addressing medication, try to improve your sleeping and sitting posture!
Fortunately, there is an easy way of solving this problem. The orthopedic pillows are specially designed to provide a good sleeping and sitting support, preventing spine deformation and all the resulting dysfunctions.
These pillows can be extremely helpful in different circumstances: when you sleep on your back or on your side, when you travel and don’t have the possibility to lie down for taking a nap, when you work at your desk and need a lumbar support or when your knees hurt. Pregnant women can also benefit from special body pillows that will allow them to sleep comfortably on their side, reducing the extra tension from the muscles and joints.
You can use an orthopedic pillow for prevention as well as for therapeutic purposes. Start using it as soon as possible – it will help you stay healthy and you’ll never know how a stiff neck feels. On the other hand, if you already have painful symptoms when you wake up in the morning, consult with your physician or chiropractor – he/she will help you choose the orthopedic pillow that will correct your sleeping posture, this way eliminating the cause of your problem.
