Most fitness programs are designed with the goal of helping you to lose weight and body fat, to make you look better. The majority of people certainly want this in their fitness program, but it also doesn’t make sense to ignore the importance of being able to move freely, without pain.
Beating up your body with overly long sessions and not enough recovery between sessions for your joints and muscles, might help you lose inches and look better, but you will eventually get injured and feel like crap. Simply programming bodybuilding exercises and elliptical machine workouts might make you leaner, but might not make sense for long term health and happiness.
My recent focus has been to offer the most well-rounded program I can, within the constraint of only having contact with clients for a few hours a week. I include a lot of core exercises to make your lower back stronger and less susceptible to injury. Our dynamic warm-up part of the sessions is designed to make your body move better and move pain free. To ensure that clients don’t “skip” mobility work, I have also started to insert mobility exercises into the main portion of our workouts. So a circuit might consist of step ups, chest press, a core exercise, followed by a spiderman crawl for some mobility work.
We still do a good deal of strength training that will add lean muscle to your frame, while melting some body fat along the way. We will do some tough cardio and interval work which will improve your fitness level. But we will also always emphasize our ability to move freely, without pain. Better mobility will help you get better results in your training due to more range of motion, and better mobility just feels good!