Did you know that Two-third of the UK population is currently overweight? This means that there is a high chance that most of your personal training and nutrition clients will be overweight.
Weight loss is usually the number one reason people get personal trainers, but it is a challenging feat for both the trainers and the clients.
Your job as a personal trainer is to understand your clients’ bodies, create tailored plans for them, and lead them to become better and stronger versions of themselves.
Sometimes, this isn’t always the case, as clients can get uninspired by non-functional or boring exercises. Besides, you have to constantly update your workouts if you want your clients to reach their desired fitness goals.
If you want inspiration or know the best exercises you can incorporate for weight loss, keep reading.
In this article, we will discuss several proven weight loss exercises you need to add to your plans.
So, let’s get right to it.
Running is an effective weight loss exercise that helps build endurance and increase the heart rate, but the calories your clients will burn depend on how much energy they use and their form.
You can decide to take the workout up a notch by taking your client outdoors to run on a hill or increasing the incline on the treadmill – this will work their glutes and legs as well as other muscle groups.
However, you must ensure that your clients have the correct form to avoid any injuries.
When running up a hill, the proper form is to keep their hands open and their arms at 90 degrees, while driving their knees as high as possible. They should try to avoid crossing their arms over their body; rather, they should drive their arms forward to save energy.
Walking is a good way to introduce your clients to exercise – especially if they have never exercised. Even though it may not seem like a lot, consistent walking is an effective weight loss exercise. Walking requires no special equipment, and your clients can do it anywhere at any time.
Just like running, you can introduce walking outdoors, but if your client prefers indoors, they can also walk on the treadmill slowly.
Additionally, because of the low exertion rate from walking, your beginner clients will be more motivated to be consistent with it.
Swimming is a great calorie-burning exercise that uses a lot of muscle groups without the risk of joint wear and tears. Including swimming into your clients’ fitness plan is a good way to keep things exciting. You can include a few laps at the pool as a way for your clients to cool down after an intensive workout or make it a compound workout, where they train at the pool.
However, you must ensure that you are a professional swimmer before introducing your clients to the pool.
Like running, a higher-intensity cycling ride will burn more calories while activating different large muscle groups. Most gyms have stationary bikes so that you can introduce your clients to them.
You can start at a lower intensity and increase it as your clients get more consistent. If your client prefers to work out at home, they can invest in at-home stationary bikes like the Peloton or go outdoors for a good old-fashioned bike ride every day.
Whichever option you and your clients choose, you must ensure that they are active about their form and intensity.
Rowing is a good exercise to include in your clients’ plans, especially if they have joint issues or a knee injury history. It is a full-body workout that targets many of the body’s muscles, from the core to the arms, back, and others. With rowing, your clients can perform high-intensity workouts with minimal impact on their joints.
This workout combines cardio and strength training, making it a good way to increase their heart rate while building their strength.
However, the effectiveness of rowing is only as good as the technique your clients use.
To avoid injuries, proper form and technique must be used;
Jump roping, or skipping, is a good way to get your client’s heart rate up before a workout, but it is also a very effective full-body workout. It improves heart health and coordination, which can be done anywhere – all you need is a jump rope. If your client has never used a jump rope, you can start them off with fewer sets and increase as they go.
As stated earlier, skipping is a full-body workout involving the calves, hands, quads, hamstrings, and other body parts.
However, it can get boring easily, so you have to find a way to keep it interesting for your clients. You can do this by including advanced or intermediate skipping techniques, making it high-intensity, or switching it from a warm-up to a finisher exercise.
Additionally, you must ensure that your clients are properly dressed before using a jump rope – they should never do it barefoot.
Battle ropes are very effective calorie-burning equipment—research shows that they provide the same heart rate increase as a full-body sprint. However, just like every exercise we have discussed, intensity determines the number of calories burned.
To ensure maximum calorie burn, your clients must step towards the anchor point, but they must be slack in the ropes to avoid shoulder injuries. Plus, your clients can use the battle ropes in different directions, as the up-and-down motion is one of many ways.
Boxing is an effective calorie-burning exercise, but the mistake that most people make is to punch using only their arm strength. You must ensure that your clients use their core and oblique muscles when boxing, as most of the power comes from the former.
Proper form is also essential, especially if you want your clients to get the best from their workout.
Additionally, you can increase the boxing intensity by introducing dumbbells to the workout.
While doing yoga alone will not make your clients lose weight, it is a great addition to their workout plan. It helps them increase their flexibility and prepare them for more intense workouts like HIIT and CrossFit. Yoga also helps with stability, balance, strength, and cardiovascular health.
With yoga, you can teach your clients how to control their breathing and their body through different exercises. They can carry over yoga techniques into other workouts – this way, form and execution will be more effective.
Besides, you can also incorporate yoga as a recovery workout for your clients during their rest days.
Almost every YouTube fitness instructor adds mountain climbers to their workouts because of their effectiveness in losing weight. It is a full-body workout that builds muscle and elevates the heart rate – a good combination for your clients. They are good for fat loss and help your clients build their stability and core strength, especially as the core muscles stay active throughout the workout.
As continuously mentioned, your clients need to have proper form for effective fat burning:
Your clients can also try intermediate or beginner versions of mountain climbers if this proves to be too difficult for them.
Incorporating dance fitness into your clients’ workout plans is a good way to keep things interesting while ensuring your clients stay motivated. Dance workouts are a good way to get your client’s body moving and help increase flexibility.
They are also a good way to get your clients; heart rates going and one of the best exercises to introduce beginners to fitness.
Besides, dance workouts are only effective at weight loss if they are done consistently.
High-intensity interval training is effective for weight loss because they help your clients to burn calories in a short period. This workout also keeps burning calories long after your clients are done with their workouts. However, if you have a beginner or an obese client, HIIT may not be the best exercise to add.
HIIT workouts put pressure on joints, which were previously at risk with overweight clients. So, you must ensure that you understand your clients and what their bodies need to avoid the risk of injury.
Low-impact cardio is a good alternative for high-intensity workouts if your clients have joint issues or previous injuries. They are safe, and a good way to lose weight, and low-impact cardio can include workouts like power walking, jogging, cycling, and others. You can add light weights to increase the intensity of the workouts as your clients get stronger.
You can also combine low-intensity cardio with bodyweight exercises, resulting in elevated heart rate and your clients burning off high calories.
If your clients don’t have enough time to work out, you can introduce Tabata into their workout plan. This workout consists of four minutes of HIIT, where your clients give 20 seconds of full-on effort followed by 10 seconds of rest, repeated more than five times.
You can add different exercises using this technique, from squats to mountain climbers, jump rope, burpees, and others.
You must ensure that you don’t make this interval a constant, or your clients’ bodies will adapt, and you will need to either increase the intensity or the volume of the workout.
While cardio is a good way to lose weight, cardio intervals are a more efficient way. With cardio intervals, your clients can do any exercise they like. Some exercises they can choose from include cycling, walking, jogging, or running, but they will do it with alternating periods of high intensity and low intensity.
You can plan the intense periods to be shorter or longer than the lower intensity, depending on the type of workout your client chooses.
Besides, the active rest period is very important as your clients need to reduce the intensity before ramping it back up again.
Steady-state cardio is another way to make your cardio exercises more efficient for your clients. It involves doing any cardio exercise, like cycling or running, at a steady pace. Your clients can use this exercise to build stamina and endurance while burning calories. Just like cardio intervals, your clients can choose the cardio exercises they want to do at a steady pace.
Strength training, whether by lifting weights or using your body weight, is an effective way to lose weight. Unlike cardio, strength training will help your clients to lose fat while building their muscles. You can start your beginner clients with strength workouts that involve using their body weight, like squats, push-ups, sit-ups, and others.
Additionally, you can incorporate weights, resistance bands, and more reps as your clients get stronger.
Every personal trainer should have strength training as part of their plan to help clients burn calories even when they are asleep.
Compound exercises involve combining different sets of exercises, like cardio and strength, ensuring that your clients burn calories and build strength simultaneously. These exercises target different muscle groups simultaneously and are a good way to keep your clients motivated while changing their body composition.
Some compound exercises you can add to your plan include jump squats, burpees, wall balls, push up to renegade row triceps kickbacks, burpees to bicep curls, and others.
As a personal trainer, you must keep things interesting for your clients, so they can stay motivated to continue.
If keeping things interesting for clients in personal training seems to be difficult, then let out experts at Future Fit teach you how to do it.
Including these workouts discussed is a sure way to get results.
However, you must ensure that you know your clients and understand their bodies before creating a workout plan.