More About Custom Strength Training
Your assessment
Will include a Functional Movement Screen (FMS) to find any weak links and asymmetries that you might have (most people have some!).
We'll also spend some time talking about your:
- goals
- activities
- health history
- schedule (for athletes this will include discussion of your competition schedule for optimal periodization).
Your custom training program
Will be created based on your assessment, and is based on the concept of functional and sport-specific training. This means we train movements, instead of muscles. Think about pushes and pulls instead of biceps and triceps (click here if you are interested in better understanding functional training).
Your custom training program will include:
-
corrective exercises to address any imbalances the FMS uncovers
-
Additional warmup exercises to prepare your body to work
- Strength exercises selected based on your ability and your need. All exercises can be progressed or regressed!
- Depending on your goals, it may also include power, speed, agility and conditioning
- Our goal is to help you get stronger and more fit, but we want you to have fun too! Look for things like agility ladder drills, medicine ball tosses, and general TRX-fun in your program.
We will progress your training program every 4-6 weeks, based on your progress and your schedule.
Coached training sessions
Every coached session is another opportunity to get a step closer to meeting your fitness goals. Sessions take place in a semi-private environment under the coaching of our head strength and conditioning specialist, Elsbeth Vaino.
During these 60 minute sessions you will do your own custom program with cueing and encouragement from Elsbeth. She will help you to decide when and how to progress your exercises as you find yourself getting stronger.
How long will it take to notice changes?
You should notice a significant difference in your first month. Our clients typically are MUCH stronger, more energetic, feel fitter, and move better in less than a month.
As long as you are eating healthily, you will likely also notice fat loss.
What about nutrition?
I am happy to discuss nutrition with you during any of your sessions, but I strongly suggest that you go to Ottawa's top Sports Nutritionist, Beth Mansfield, for an Energy Balance and Body Composition Workshop. These workshops are only $50/person and provide you with your baseline body composition (using multi-frequency bioelectrical impedance analysis), specific guidance on how to calculate your energy balance, and a wealth of great information about how to eat well. (click here for dates - next one is Saturday April 16th at the Heart Institute).
