Why Fitness Assessments Tick Me Off
May 1, 2011 | Author Kevin Yates
What is it about fitness assessments that’s got the fitness industry divided?
Some say fitness professionals should be taught to use specific assessments to help their clients overcome nagging injuries and achieve their goals.
Others say doing so is overstepping our boundaries and that we should leave these assessments to physical therapists and doctors.
Well, I won’t get too deep into why doctors and physical therapists should NOT be performing fitness testing but I will say that I get pretty ticked off whenever I hear or read this kind of nonsense.
Cardiovascular, trunk curl-ups, push-ups, sit and reach and body composition have become pretty standard in our industry for clients who fit the ‘apparently healthy’ label.
But, it’s rare to find clients that fit into this category.
The reality is that most clients may come to us with weight loss goals but are hampered by physical ailments resulting from muscle imbalances that keep them from doing a number of exercises and activities.
Sure, we can simply modify things but as you know modifications are less effective, don’t always work and disempowers trainers.
It’s important for us as fitness professionals to be more than symptom managers and tackle the causes of muscular imbalances.
Eliminate the causes and the symptoms will go away.
The first step is understanding how to identify those causes which is where most Personal Trainer certification programs fall short.
They either teach general fitness tests that aren’t specific for identifying muscle imbalances, are thrown together in the wrong sequences or based on simplistic assumptions of ‘tight’ and ‘weak’ muscles.
The truth is that a muscle may appear to be tight or weak without that actually being the case.
Stretching a muscle or muscle group that is assumed as ‘tight’ isn’t going to be harmful but it certainly isn’t going to be effective either.
And, if it ain’t effective it ain’t gonna produce results!
If we are using our expertise in human anatomy, physiology, kinesiology and biomechanics to create exercise programs to help our clients improve their lives then what’s the problem?
For example, here’s a simple kinetic chain assessment that’s commonly taught however I added in a few extra pieces of critical information you can use that will provide instant feedback about the entire kinetic chain.
This is one of the client assessments I teach in my Advanced Kinetic Chain Assessment & Program Design Video Course.
>>Enter Your Information Below To Get The FREE Video Course<<
Leave a Reply
