Do Athletes Make Boring Clients?
In personal experience, athletes - especially hobbyist or aspiring athletes - require little in terms of unique training methods, but are demanding and impatient in their relationship expectations with their trainer(s). “General population” clients have a huge range of limitations and needs, which makes their programs more tailored and specific, giving the trainer an opportunity to learn more about a wide range of fitness options. Of course some athletes can be great and interesting to work with, and general clients can be frustrating or boring. Every person is different and it’s important that as a trainer, you are open to learning many styles and continuously improving your knowledge of health and fitness.
Developing The Delts
The deltoids are an important muscle group that work in conjunction with the back, shoulders, and pectorals. They are a small muscle group and therefore they grow more slowly. Training them is a long term goal that requires patience, strict form, and more patience. The trapezius muscles (traps) are also key in developing the delts and are also difficult to isolate and train individually. There are many excercises that help specifically build up the delts and traps, but they can also be trained during your normal lifting routine. The posterior delts are the least targeted during regular training so if you want to develop the delts, make sure you focus on this area.
Training For The Hypermobile
Hypermobility is a condition where joints are unusually loose or unstable and often presents itself in people as excessively flexible bodies with poor proprioception (the sense of knowing what space your body is taking up and what it’s doing). The risk of injury that comes with hypermobility means that clients should focus on stability rather than flexibility, avoid extreme ranges of motion, be careful with controlling movement and form, and be aware that their strength will grow slowly. Personal trainers should familiarize themselves with common conditions like hypermobility in order to best support the wide range of individualization their clientele will need.
How To Avoid Loss of Progress During Time Off
It’s harder to lose muscle mass than we think it is, people can go up to a month off without noticable muscle mass loss. Strength is harder to maintain in off periods, but once training resumes, strength quickly returns. The most important thing you can do, whether your break is due to traveling, injury, or something else, is to continue doing whatever physical movement you can until you training starts again.
When Do We Physically Peak? (Peaking Part 2)
Olympic weightlifting is the main professional lifting competition, but Olympic athletes cannot be used to assess averages for lifters. The people who make it to the Olympics have genetic and social advantages that make them the best in the world.
The margin of winning at these high levels is so small that even the most dedicated and talented athletes may never make it to the Olympic Games and could quit trying to compete well before their physical peak.
Research in masters lifting has shown that most lifters were physically peaking between ages 30-35, and although their abilities do start decreasing, it’s at a much smaller and slower rate than people tend to expect.
Career peaking is a social construct and should not be used as the only way to measure expected performance and growth.