As we move towards summer and have more sunlight it’s great to see a lot more people out and about exercising, whether it be jogging the streets, riding their bike along Beach road or competing in triathlons. That’s the great thing about Melbourne and even Australia, we have the ability to enjoy and/or participate in a variety of different activities and sports.

Talking about “variety”, last weekend as part of our Certificate IV curriculum, we focused in on the broad range of equipment which is used by Personal Trainers. We talked about all the standard, pilates equipment, swiss/fitness balls, medicine balls, dura discs, body bars, wobble boards, chi balls etc. However there was one piece of equipment that I didn’t know too much about which is huge in America called the TRX.

We had Shannon White from Suspension Fitness Training Australia come in and tell us all about the TRX, which was just recently brought to Australian soil. Suspension Fitness Training Australia has big plans for the TRX and they expect it to grow as big as Pilates and Swiss Balls. In its short time in Australia it has already been adopted by many AFL and Rugby League clubs.

What is Suspension Training/TRX you ask...
Suspension Training is a unique training modality that uses our own body weight and gravity as resistance.  Contrary to the rings in gymnastics, TRX Suspension Training has one anchor point and is ground based; therefore we are able to recreate athletic movements freely.  The simplicity of the TRX allows us to transition fluidly from exercise to exercise and work endurance, strength, power, balance, coordination, core, and flexibility in one piece of equipment that does over 300 exercises for a little over $200! It’s small and portable weighing less than 1kg.

As a Personal Trainer, Fitness Instructor or regular gym goer, what’s your favourite piece of equipment to use, submit your answer by following 2 easy steps: Click View/Add Comment, below, fill in and submit. Results of survey to come in next blog.

Congratulations to recent graduates

Certificate III in Fitness
Adriana Garcia Rossi
Peter Lechte
Dale Rogers
Monique Aza
Mark Scotland

Certificate IV in Fitness
Vivienne Derwent
Linda Vaccaro
Shannon Lyons
Natalie Martin
Andrew Tsouparidis
Elizabeth Braithwaite

Past & Current Students

For past and current IHF students the 75% off Educational CD’s is only available till the end of November.

Yours in health and fitness

Chris Alexander

This entry is focused on a catch up with a couple past students and where they are now.

After completing his Certificate III & IV in Fitness, Daniel Keane, has been able to train himself and turn his passion into a career as a Personal Trainer at Malvern Martial Arts mma.org.au. Daniel has also applied his knowledge to his own training, recently he become the first ever Victorian Light-Heavy weight mixed martial arts champion. Congratulations!!

Darren Mozes completed his Certificate IV in Fitness last year and now has two successful gyms, DJ’s Gym djsgym.com.au located in Wangaratta and South Melbourne. He has over 10 Personal Trainers training under him and rapidly growing.

Christine has been in the IT industry for a long time and has wanted to become more involved in kids fitness programs, she had this to say. "I am now a girls gymnastics judge and an assistant coach for boys gymnastics, with head coaches fighting over me to run recreational gymnastic classes for both boys and girls."
"All the work and experience doing Cert III and IV in Fitness is now paying off.  Gymnastics coaching is very much directed at disciplined training and coaches struggle in creating fun programs for recreational classes.  The Cert IV course has given me the skills to create fun and interesting programs in gymnastics for recreational groups".

If you are happy to share your story after graduating from the Cert III and/or IV please contact me .

Yours in health and fitness

Chris Alexander

Following my last blog I have found the students have been sitting more upright within class, at least for the first session. A couple students have quizzed me on what is a basic effective way to strengthen the core. Read below…

Moving with the times we have also developed our easy-to-use website store, enabling the public to purchase a comprehensive number of carefully selected and scientifically sound, health and fitness products and resources. IHF students will soon be able to get discounts on all products within the shop, stay tuned.
 
Congratulations to the following recent graduates:

Certificate III in Fitness
Robert Farrugia

Certificate IV in Fitness
Tai Tran
Nathanial Levett
Andrew Ian Brenton
Christine Jones
Lee Matheson

And also well done to students that recently sat their exams with 100% passing the practical and 95% passing the theory exams.
 
Try this core exercise…
Core stability training begins with learning to co-contract the Transverse Abdominis (TvA) and Multifidus (MF) muscles effectively.

• Start by lying on your back with knees bent (~100 degrees). Your lumbar spine should be neither arched up or flattened against the mat, but aligned normally with a small two finger gap between the floor and your back. This is the ‘neutral’ lumbar position.
• Breathe in deeply and relax all your stomach muscles. Breathe out and, as you do so, draw your lower abdomen inwards as if your belly button is going back towards the floor. Pilates teachers describe this as ‘zipping up’ – as if you are fastening a tight pair of jeans.
• Use your fingers on either side of your abdomen to feel the tension, hold the contraction for 10 seconds and stay relaxed (continue to breathe in and out), allowing yourself to breathe in and out as you hold the tension in your lower stomach area. Remember return to the neutral position each repetition  
• Repeat 6-10 times.

Ensure that you don’t let the whole stomach tense up or your upper rectus abdominals bulge outwards, as this means you are not contracting TvA.

Once you have mastered this exercise lying on your back, practice sitting and standing. Try to implement this exercise at work, give your self a minute break at work and practice this.

The ultimate aim of core stability training is to ensure the deep-trunk muscles are working correctly to control the lumbar spine during dynamic movements, such as lifting children or jogging.

Yours in health & fitness,

Chris Alexander