Thread: Personal Training question for the trainers...

Female client, early 30s, gave birth to twins about 8 months ago, hasn't worked out at least since before she was pregnant with the twins, not overly overweight, but lots of "baby fat" in the stomach area, and obviously some stretched out skin, but nothing too drastic. Fairly strong in the upper body, probably as a result of picking up kids all day long, but not an ex athlete or overly athletic, probably just in the normal range.

what is the best course of action for training her? Goal is the standard "lose the baby fat, get in shape and look good" goal. Will be working out at home, so equipment will be limited to dumbbells, exercise ball, an exercise bike, and household props like steps, etc. Hoping for 3 sessions per week with her, but might be two to start.

Should I go full body 3x per week in a circuit type fashion, or break it down to your standard upper/lower split and hit 3 sets of 10 reps on all the exercises? With some other clients of mine, we do 30 minutes of weight training and then 30 minutes of cardio work per session, usually a high intensity protocol like interval training, or suicide sprints, etc, but this protential client probably isn't up to doing that type of stuff yet. Can I have this client do interval training on the exercise bike at her own intensity levels, or should I just tell her to go with the standard 30 minutes of moderate intensity cardio?

Originally Posted by Stewart14

Thanks, P.

In regards to what I bolded, how would I go about this with the limited equipment like I mentioned. She may have some 10 or 5 pound dumbbells laying around, and at first may be reluctant to spend the money on more equipment.

Do you have any weights you bring to your clients homes - a few kettlebells or dumbells that may be heavier than they have? That would be your best bet. If you are that limited, I would vary the days by having a day where you do more rep tempo specific work and lower reps, a day that is more in the "hypertrophy" rep range and a day that is more work capacity based (IE, circuits or an EDT approach.

I also have the feeling she may fall into the category of someone who is "afraid of heavy weight", meaning, she thinks she will get big manly muscles. Obviously, I can tell her till I'm blue in the face that this isn't true, but if they are hesistant to change their thinking, how do you design a decent program with just a couple of weight choices?

I would design it as I stated above if I had only a few weight options. Also, body weight is very challenging to most people starting out. Just getting them to do split squats, push ups and interverted rows (if you have a set of TRX straps, that can help out a lot) is a huge benefit.

As far as her being "afraid", that is where your ability to educate comes into play. Lots of woman are afraid and you can give them all the info about testosterone and not getting big, but in the end, they probably don't understand that anyway. I would have her tell you what she thinks is an appropriate look for a female (maybe get a picture of what she thinks looks good). Instill in her the confidence that your training program will help her achieve that sort of look. And, preach the importance of a healthy diet.


Moondogg,

Come on down!

Patrick