Were you one of the hordes of people who made the New Year’s resolution that you were going to get into shape in 2013?
Want to put a ‘personal’ touch to your new-found fitness goal?
Personal trainers Tracy Thorogood and Candice Lee are convinced they can tailor the perfect program for anyone who walks through their doors.
“A lot of people are intimidated coming in the door,” said Thorogood, who has been whipping people into shape for the past five years.
Offering affordable fitness programs to Cochranites of all ages, Thorogood and Lee believe that people of all fitness levels, whether peeling themselves off the couch for the first time in years, or experienced gym rats, can benefit from having an exercise program custom-made to achieve their specific goals.
Incorporating cardiovascular, weight-training and a balanced, nutritional diet, a personal trainer can help hone sports-specific skills, drop unwanted pounds and build lean muscle tissue.
“Cochrane is a very fit town,” said Lee, pointing out that perhaps the most common myth many women face when considering a workout routine is that they will ‘bulk up’ under a weight-lifting program.
“There are benefits to doing both,” Lee said of cardiovascular and weight-training regimes, adding that every person is different when it comes to how their bodies will respond to various types of training.
Both Thorogood and Lee said they see a move toward older adults either returning to the gym or becoming members for the first time, with Thorogood admitting that even she did not start living an active lifestyle until her early 30s.
“Strong is beautiful.”
This, Lee said, is one of her main challenges when it comes to convincing her female clients why a balanced fitness program, that incorporates both cardio and weight training, is important.
Growing in popularity, an emerging weight-training routine is the practice of taking a functional movement we use in daily life and adding a little more to it, such as TRX suspension training or the use of kettlebells, which originated in Russia and are used to perform ballistic exercises, incorporating cardio, strength and flexibility training.
Lee said that by combining cardio with strength training, one will see overlapping benefits to both – cardio strength makes lifting weights easier, and vice versa.
“Everything becomes easier at home,” said Lee, of one of the main benefits to a workout routine.
Another hurdle Lee said she faces in assuring women that the gym is not ‘a man’s environment.’
Both Thorogood and Lee said that from their perspective, men can appear more confident when stepping into a gym, but that more and more they are seeing their female clients gain the necessary poise when tackling a new fitness goal.
The cost of a personal trainer can vary depending on one’s goals and time commitment. A one-hour session ranges from $54-$62.
