Los Angeles Personal Trainer

Beginner Workouts

The beginner workout program starts with compound muscle exercises (multi-joint exercises) to get the body going, to work as much muscle as possible to increase muscle strength, muscle flexibility, and muscle health, plus to increase metabolism, and most of all to prepare the body and the muscles for more intense exercises. Examples of compound exercises are squats, leg press, dead lifts, bench, military press. The duration of utilizing compound exercises will last from the first session to as many as required depending on the initial fitness of the client and their fitness goals.

All the while the personal training client is exercising, the personal trainer will be watching for any muscle imbalances and the compound muscle exercises are excellent for this. Each joint has a proportional strength of muscles, and if one side is stronger than the other, imbalances occur, which decrease strength of the joint, and increases possibility of injury. These joint imbalances are corrected through the personal training. Plus if a muscle is tight and weak, the old saying is true, the muscles is as strong as your weakest link, therefore, the muscle must be properly stretched and strengthened, which is also corrected through the personal training.

It is very important throughout the personal training to correct these joint imbalances, since they are many times the cause of injuries. I hear many times a client was performing an everyday task like bringing in the groceries, reaching for something high, gardening, etc and get injured. The injury is many times not felt for one to two days since there is such a lack of nerve endings to joints. They usually feel the pain 24 to 48 hours later due to inflammation, and therefore have a difficult time ascertaining as to what is the cause of the injury.

Therefore not only do imbalances slow your progress, sometimes to a halt, but also can be a cause of injury which will even more decrease the progress of your goals.

Then the beginner personal training client moves to more advanced workouts in order to get more and more out of each exercise session. The personal training changes from the multi joint exercises to single joint exercises which concentrate more on the specific muscle. All this depends on what was learned from the initial workouts, the individual’s unique body, and how their body reacted in the progression, and the individual’s fitness goals.