Europe Active's Essentials for Fitness Instructors

Book excerpt: EuropeActive’s Essentials for Fitness Instructors contains the most comprehensive information and materials to guide fitness instructors towards best practices in helping clients achieve their fitness and health goals. Endorsed by EuropeActive, the fitness and health industry’s standard-setting authority in Europe, this manual is essential for all aspiring and qualified fitness instructors. This resource includes fundamentals and best practices of concepts, procedures, duties and responsibilities that individual and group fitness instructors perform on the job, covering the knowledge, skills and abilities needed for level 3 classification in the European Qualifications Framework (EQF), the baseline standards for registered fitness instructors in Europe. It provides mechanical and physiological information with hands-on techniques and practical examples to ensure that all fitness instructors deliver enjoyable and effective exercise sessions. Authored by renowned experts from all over Europe, EuropeActive’s Essentials for Fitness Instructors supports fitness instructors in promoting healthy lifestyle management and exercise adherence. Current and future fitness instructors will learn ideal ways to do the following: • Build rapport and motivate participants. • Identify participants’ motives and goals. • Prepare appropriate choreography and use music. • Provide effective and safe instruction; display and provide feedback on technique; and give advice on intensity, progressions and adaptations. • Deliver excellent customer service and be a positive role model for participants in a clean and safe environment. The book begins by addressing customer service and communication. By first detailing the principles of customer service, the importance of communication in teaching and how to provide and receive feedback, fitness instructors can receive the information that follows with the proper mind-set. The book then delves into the core of physiology of individual fitness training, giving instructors a solid base from which to work with clients. Chapters on cardiorespiratory exercise and resistance exercise explain the science and training methods specific to each type of workout, including optimal warm-ups and cool-downs, adaptations and matters of safety. A chapter on principles of training, including progression, dose–response relationship, specificity, overload and reversibility, ties all of these concepts together. The second half of the book deals with effective group instruction, specifying how to incorporate the science of training with the art of class leadership. Preparing for, delivering and even ending a class come with particular strategies that will boost retention and results, and three chapters on music and choreography take the guesswork out of structuring a routine. Finally, a chapter on stress management offers an overview of the effects of stress on health, symptoms to watch for and relaxation techniques. The book concludes with an appendix of the EuropeActive EQF level 3 standards for reference. Aspiring and qualified fitness instructors have a duty of care to keep up with the latest health and fitness standards. EuropeActive’s Essentials for Fitness Instructors ensures instructors are properly serving their industry and their clients. For those who promote physical activity and healthier lifestyles, there is no other title with more authority in Europe.