If your clients have taken a good chunk of time off during the summer, then chances are they may be looking to invest in training on a budget. Focus on offering affordable training packages. Although discounted private training is a common promotion, partner and group training options will be a lot more wallet-friendly. If you don’t offer partner and group training, consider adding it to your portfolio of services. For pricing partner and group training, a general guideline to follow would be time and a half for partner training and double-time for group training. For example, if you typically charge $50/hour for private training, partner training pricing would be $75/hour split between two clients, while group training would be $100/hour shared among three or more participants.

If you all ready offer these semi-private training services, consider running a themed or goal-oriented workshop series. Fall can be a great time to exercise outdoors. An outdoor boot camp at a local park or as part of a weekend series of short hikes are a couple workshops you can run to attract outdoor-oriented exercisers. Workshops can also be structured around fitness goals shared among group members. Circuit training with bouts of high intensity exercises, free weight instruction, and functional training for winter sports are workshop ideas designed for fat loss, strength, and sports-specific goals.

Deciding what specific workshop series to use will depend on your specific clientele. Review PAR-Q’s and ask your clients to refresh your memory on their goals and activities of interest in order to determine what themed workshop to run. Also consider what training environments or tools are readily available to you—is there a park local to you and/or clients, do you have portable equipment to increase variety for outdoor training sessions? What space constraints at your facility should you keep in mind to determine how many clients you can accommodate for small group training? Try to strike a balance between planning ahead and being creative with workshops, and your clients will be more than happy to work with you in a budget-friendly, but effective exercise setting.

When designing flexibility and exercise programs for pregnant clients, ACOG has one important recommendation to keep in mind. For the pre-natal client, staying healthy during pregnancy is the most important thing–the priority is to continue being healthy, not to increase fitness as strenuous, vigorous challenges can often put the mother and unborn child in danger. For flexibility, avoiding most dynamic flexibility exercises along with deep stretches and extension of joints is not recommended as most of these exercises require the client to take stretches to a maximum, causing stress to the pregnant woman’s body. Stick to seated or supine stretches for safety and to achieve mild stretches in targeting muscle groups. However, keep in mind that after the first trimester, it is often recommended to avoid supine exercises because in a supine position, blood and oxygen flow is reduced to the baby due to a depressed superior vena cava. If you are do include supine exercises after the first trimester, try to have your client lie on their side in between recovery periods of sets.

Once your client has delivered her baby, keep in mind that it can take up to six weeks for biomechanical and hormonal changes due to pregnancy to return to pre-pregnancy states. Be sure to continue with seated/supine flexibility exercises, and gradually work up to active and dynamic flexibility depending on your individual client’s fitness level.

Testing agility agility in clients with chronic pain poses some challenges. Most traditional agility tests like the T Test and Hexagon Test require hops, shuffles, and running, which are often too stressful on all ready aching joints. The Edgren Side Step test is a good alternative to traditional agility tests as it involves stepping quickly while changing direction. Depending on the severity of a client’s symptoms or their cardiovascular fitness level, you may want to adjust the length between each mark. Rather than spacing each mark three feet apart, try 18 inches apart or use individual rungs of an ABC ladder to delineate distances between each mark. Whether or not you use the original evaluation or a modification, the Edgren test will provide a good benchmark for measuring progress in agility.

Similar to agility, coordination, although not a typical fitness component, is an important aspect of everyday physical movement. There is no definitive test for coordination, so completing a simple exercise should give you a good idea of your client’s level of coordination. A simple exercise like tossing a small stability ball while your client is standing is a good way to measure and improve hand-eye coordination–this activity can serve as both a test and exercise. Observe the relative ease or difficulty your client may have in catching the ball, and be sure to record these observations as they will provide a starting point from which to improve. Coordination deteriorates with age and inactivity, so including related drills in an exercise program will help in improving neuromuscular efficiency: the ability of the body’s nervous system to transmit signals to the muscular system to initiate movement (yes, this is just another fancy way of describing coordination!).

Be sure to set aside 20-30 minutes for a power-walk or moderate stroll. Start easy for 5 minutes for a warm-up, and then try a couple static stretches for your calves, hamstrings, and quadriceps, and hip flexors. Your legs will be thankful after hours of sitting at your desk, tight from immobility. Once you’ve stretched out, walk for another 15-20 minutes and repeat the same stretches you did for your warm-up. Depending on your fitness level, this may be a good active recovery session or cardio routine. Try it a couple times a week, throw it into your current exercise program as it relates to your goals, or do it whenever you can take a short break from work, and you’ll find yourself improving your flexibility and maybe even cardiovascular fitness!

For testing cardiorespiratory or cardiovascular fitness, assessments like the mile-run and even step test are too rigorous for chronic pain patients. Still, evaluating cardiovascular fitness is important for all clients as this fitness component provides a good gauge for overall fitness. We can establish a benchmark for clients with chronic pain through a modification of the conventional step test.

Before starting the step test, be sure to measure the client’s resting heart rate. Depending on the severity of a client’s symptoms, try the step test for anywhere from 10 seconds to a minute; be sure the selected time-frame will be challenging, but not exhausting. Immediately after completing the step test, measure the client’s pulse, and after the client has rested for one minute, measure the pulse again to see how much they have recovered. In a traditional step test, you would wait a minute before estimating a client’s heart rate and plug that number into an equation to determine cardiovascular efficiency. By measuring their heart rate right after the step test, you can get a good idea of how intensely they may be working with respect to their max heart rate. You can also observe how quickly (or efficiently) their cardiovascular system may be in returning close to their resting heart rate through comparing their pulse right after the step test to their heart rate after a minute of rest. This will be especially helpful in cardio programming for a very deconditioned client that may be drained after walking for a minute (or even less!). You will be able to use results from their step test to determine appropriate work:rest ratios to improve cardiovascular fitness and endurance over the course of their training.

NEXT: Agility/Coordination Assessments

More often than not, flexibility will be an important, functional component to improve on when training a client with chronic pain. Some chronic, muscular pain can be intensified with tight muscles. Stretching out will not only help loosen up muscles, but can also help reduce, though not completely alleviate, muscle soreness. Traditional flexibility assessments for hamstring, back, neck, and shoulder flexibility will help in measuring progress, but in this case, qualitative approaches should be employed as well. Ask your client to be aware of any changes in how limber their muscles may feel and make note of it.

Stabilization is another fitness component of importance as it is the foundation to functional strength. Due to inactivity because of debilitating pain, most chronic pain clients will have a deconditioned core. A typical core stabilization and balance assessment often involves planks and balancing on a single leg. Single leg balances are appropriate for most exercisers with chronic pain, but a plank will most likely be too strenuous. A quadruped progression can be used as an alternative

For this modification, your client will be in a quadruped position with both knees and hands hip-width apart on a mat. Have them perform a cat stretch, alternating between arching and rounding the back. Instruct them to hold their back right in between the mid-way point of arching and rounding movements, which should leave them with a relatively straight back. Have them hold this stance while engaging their core. The time they will hold this pose will vary depending on client, but for starters, ask them to hold it until right before they start to fatigue. This can be anywhere from five seconds to minutes, so if you have a client that can reach the 2-minute mark pretty easily, then you can probably substitute planks when it’s time for re-evaluation! For clients that do start to fatigue seconds after holding the quadruped, be sure to ask what muscle groups were starting to fatigue and make note of any muscle tightness or weaknesses.

NEXT: Strength and Cardiovascular Fitness Assessments

Many companies have a softball team open to every employee, regardless of athletic experience. Signing up can provide you with a chance to socialize with other employees while getting in a light workout. Yes, as much fun as a sport can be and as demanding as many sports are, softball is not among the most physically strenuous ones. But with a good warm-up and quick cool-down, a softball game can be a good active recovery day where you can focus on improving flexibility, coordination, and maybe even speed and quickness.

To get in a warm-up before a game, you’ll want to get to the field at least 10 minutes before you’re scheduled to play. Jog a few laps around the diamond to warm up your core temperature and before you try any stretches. Once you’ve warmed-up, be sure to do some a couple sets of 10 reps for each of the following dynamic flexibility exercises: leg swings, standing twists, and forward lunges. The following pictures of leg swings are provided by Personal Training on the Net, a resource for personal trainers. Here’s how you complete a standing twist or rotation: stand tall with feet about hip-width apart. Extend your arms in front of you about shoulder height with you palms touching each other. From here, activate your abdominals and focus on engaging your core and hip muscles to twist your torso, left hip and knee to the right–almost as if you were swinging a baseball bat! Return to the start position, standing tall, with arms extended straight ahead. Repeat on the other side for a total of 10 reps.

These prep exercises should warm up muscle groups you can expect to use during the game. Enjoy playing, and once your time on the field is over, be sure to do some static stretches for your legs and shoulders.

According to the National Pain Foundation, one in four American–that’s 75 million people–suffer from chronic pain. Considering those numbers, it’s no surprise that many clients with weight loss goals or any other fitness-related goals may suffer from chronic pain. Working with someone who is all ready in pain can be a challenge when helping someone reach their fitness goals is supposed to provide a noticeable amount of discomfort! To best help these clients, a teamwork approach to training is needed.

Networking with the client’s health care specialist is key as the doctor will be most familiar with the condition as it affects your client. Even though there are specific symptoms attributable to individual illnesses, the degree to which those symptoms affect clients will vary. So each chronic pain sufferer must be trained on a case-by-case basis. Reading about your client’s condition will be helpful for basic knowledge, but speaking with your client’s health care provider and communicating with your client will give you the best background for exercise programming.

As with most clients, exercisers with chronic pain want to see results, and like with any client, in order to achieve results, measurable goals must be set. Setting quantitative strength or weight loss goals and working towards them may prove challenging when a client’s energy and exertion levels will vary from session to session. They can still be established, but the process of reaching those goals will call for a lot of patience and more often than not, frustration. To keep progress in perspective, it’s often helpful to include a qualitative way of measuring these goals. Keeping a journal is a good way to subjectively measure progress.

With a journal, your client can track any changes in energy and exertion levels they may experience during the course of your training. This way even if the scale hasn’t changed after weeks working together, your client will have noticed changes in energy, strength, endurance, and flexibility. Journal-writing will also provide you with feedback on exercises or techniques that may not be right for your client given their individual experience with their condition. Reviewing the journal regularly will provide a good alternate way for measuring progress and give you information you may need for program design to better help your client.

Next: Fitness Assessments for Clients with Chronic Pain

The ideas of planning a training session ahead of time as opposed to delivering one off the cuff have supporters on each side. When I first started out as a trainer, working for a large commercial club, we had to write summaries of training sessions with clients, but there was no obligation to write down a detailed program for each session. Computer access was limited when there were a dozen trainers sharing access to half as many computers, most of which were often exclusively used by membership sales reps. Planning sessions was often a personal objective completed off the clock.

When I moved into a private, training-only setting, more of an emphasis was placed on delivering goal-specific, high quality training sessions. Knowing your game plan ahead of time, taking the time to program for unique needs and goals, is not just encouraged, it’s almost an imperative. It’s interesting how a matter of setting can change you day-to-day responsibilities for the same job!

Even though many clients may be impressed by a trainer with a planned exercise chart in hand, there are pros & cons to both planned and spontaneous approaches. Planning ahead is considered professional, good for record-keeping purposes, and helps you avoid having to think about what you’re going to do during the actual session! But some trainers think well on their feet, and detailed planning would create a training experience for your client uncharacteristic of your style. Many great fitness professionals train in the moment, thriving on the energy between coach and client.

Aside from what’s compatible with your training style, sometimes planning ahead may not be practical if you are working at a huge club during peak hours when you don’t know what equipment or space may be available. In that case, you have to think on your feet. Not all professionals have the convenience of a private studio conducive to set workouts.

So what’s best? Regardless of your training style and space and equipment restrictions, most professionals would agree that some degree of planning and record-keeping is always helpful. No one can completely remember every single training session, so writing down what you do can be helpful to track progress so you and your client can see how far you’ve come together towards a common goal.

If you enjoy training spontaneously, stick to that, and take a few minutes to record your client’s workout after each session. You can keep the chart on file in case your client would like some homework, and you can refer to the record right before the next session to make sure your clients’ routines stay consistent with their goals. This same strategy will work if you’re a trainer at a large club working with clients during peak hours. If you’re consistent with programming ahead, and you enjoy having your clients’ routines designed ahead of time, there’s no harm in continuing to do so. Everyone deserves some play time with their hard work, so be sure to regularly include new exercises and fun drills!

Lastly, planning sessions takes on even more importance if you are an independent trainer. When you have your own business, especially starting out, exercise programming and regular updates carry more importance as you grow your business. Every thing you can do to distinguish yourself from the competition will pay off–literally!

If you’re a beach dweller, walks and jogs on the beach can give you a great cardiovascular exercise and strengthen muscles in your legs and feet that you can’t target walking around the block or on the treadmill. Next time you make plans to spend a day working on your tan at the beach, take 20-30 minutes to go for a walk or light jog. You can also go for a swim for a total body muscular endurance workout. If you’re not a fan of swimming or the water, you can always crank out a couple sets of push ups, dips, body rows or pull ups, squats, and lunges. Throw in some static stretches for your legs, back, arms, and shoulders in between bouts of sunbathing and you’re on your way to a complete workout.

Lastly, if you’re looking for some more structure to your outdoor exercise, try an outdoor beach boot camp. If you can’t find a boot camp all ready being taught at the beach you frequent, you may be able to talk your fitness professional into holding one regularly for you and a couple friends.

Not a fan of the beach, but still enjoy enjoy getting outdoors in the summer? There are other options aside from the beach. You can read a couple previous posts for other outdoor exercise tips, and see some upcoming entries for more.