New Directions

Lucky me: I got some new opportunities to work in the field of sports and fitness. Since January I have the chance to teach two Martial Arts classes, Shinergy, on a regular basis. One for children and one for adults. At the end of February the University of Krems offered me a chance to take over a Functional Circle class, once a week. In addition I was asked to give Personal Training to a client with the goal of losing some weight, so there are new challenges waiting for me.

Mostly the challenges are new responsibilities that I have to deal with: making decisions for people who are trusting me to make them better, stronger fitter and leaner. Until now I usually followed orders, what to do in classes, which exercises to teach, how many reps, sets in a specific time the people have to do. It was perfect in the beginning because I could focus on my didactic skills and had a safe place to grow confident. Sometimes when I had the chance I changed, or optimized the program a little, but never have I had the chance to develop my own concept for a class until now.

I want to write one specific post about each class: Shinergy, Krems and Personal Training, because I have a lot to go through and a lot to sort out. Today I will start with the Functional Circle Class in Krems.

At the beginning I was a little afraid of the Functional Circle class. I was told to teach for 90 minutes, about 12 people with very little sports experience, with very limited equipment. I was used to train around 8-10 people mostly with a lot of experience, a but load of equipment and a strict guideline of what to do. My first thought was: how am I going to challenge everyone for 90 minutes? I was told that before I took over, the class usually ended after 60 minutes. Everyone was too exhausted to go on, so there was some stretching at the end and then the class ended early. So I needed to focus on getting the people to workout for 90 minutes. Even if it's with low intensity. They pay good money for this class, that's why I really want them to get the most of it.

So I sat down and thought about what to do. I double checked and got a little help from a good friend and finally came up with the following concept:

- 15 Minutes Mobility with 6 exercises 2 Minutes each, 1 Minute per side

- 15 Minutes Stability with 6 exercises, 2 Minutes each, 1 Minute per side

- Agility Training 10 Minutes with the Agility Ladder

- Strength Circle 25-30 Minutes, 2 Groups with 3 exercises each, 8-12 reps, 3 sets

- Lactic Capacity Endurance: 3 exercises, 25 seconds on, 35 seconds off, 3 sets

After I decided on how to do the class I had to think about what to do. I knew, that I wanted to focus on the Human Movements: Push, Pull, Squat, Hinge. Also I wanted to focus on Core Training, because what I experienced in earlier classes was that usually the weakest link when it came to training was core strength. So especially with the students participating in the Functional Circle, who were sitting all day almost all week, using almost none of their core muscles, I wanted to give the opportunity to get a stronger and eventually prevent pain.

So I went to see the place and noted that there is only limited equipment to use:

- one barbell

- some dumbbells bars

- barbell weights, all in all maybe 80 kilos

- a couple of stability balls

- 1 sling trainers

and a couple of things I am bringing myself:

- 2 slide pads

- 2 superbands

- 2 minibands

- 1 slingtrainer

- agility ladder

- 2 elastic therabands

The next challenge was to choose specific exercises. I have no chance to screen the people before the training, so the exercises have to be suitable for everyone. I can't do overhead presses, because I don't know if everyone has the shouldermobility to do so. Same thing applies for hip mobility, knee stability and so on. So I prepared for the most common injuries, limitations and restrictions. Also I tried to find exercises which were correctives too, to maybe be able to make the mentioned problems better. The result was the following:

1) Mobility:

- Cook Hip Lift

- Hip Flexor Stretch

- Side Lying T-Spine Rotation

- Spiderman Walkout

- Squat to Stand

- Wall sliding miniband shoulder Mobilisation

2) Stability:

- Ball Leg Curl

- Deadbug

- Fire Hydrants

- Pallof Press

- WTYL Rows

- Sumo Walks

3) Strength:

- Inclined/BW/Weighted Push Up

- Inverted Row

- Body Saw

- Heart Beat Squat/Prying Squat

- Glute Bridge

- Bear Crawl

4) Endurance

- Mountain Climber

- Burpees

- BW Squats/Jump Squat

I couldn't figure out a solution how to get the group to lift heavy. Even if two people are lifting at the same time there is only 40 kg left for one person. For bilateral lifts that's almost nothing. The solution is to include unilateral lifts which I want to do in the future. But if I do unilateral lifts there has to be technical coaching from my side. Unfortunately the equipment is to small to get everyone to do the same exercise at the same time. So me standing in front of a class explaining the most important aspects step by step is not an option. I have to continue thinking about this problem and most importantly I have to come up with a solution.

All in all I had 6 weeks until now and I have to say that the class runs just fine. I even got new people to join and from what I hear the feedback is very positive. But there is one thing left which is bugging me. There is one trainee with rheumatism in my class and there are weeks where the limitations take over and I don't know what to do anymore. So for the next 6 weeks I need to find more alternative exercises to do, even if more than one joint is limited.

What I really enjoyed during class was to see how movement quality improved each session. When we started everything was really hard for the group, but they listened carefully and transferred most of my explanations to their movement carefully. Also they want to go outside after easter break, which means that I have to adapt the program and work with even less equipment. There will be a follow up post when I decided what to do next, so I will keep you updated on this topic.