Facilities: Page 655

Fueling Change

A number of design schemes and alternative-energy strategies can help operators beat the price of natural gas.

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Adaptable Aquatics: How to Overcome Seasonality While Protecting Your Budget

DynaDome Retractable Enclosures

Facing growing pressure to balance tight budgets with member expectations, forward-thinking institutions are adopting three key strategies to get the most from their aquatic spaces.

Adaptable Aquatics: How to Overcome Seasonality While Protecting Your Budget

Put Things in Context

"The number-one rule guiding the specification and placement of park and playground equipment? Do what feels right for the site."

Go, Team, Go!

"Effective fundraising at the collegiate level is a lot like sports; it requires strategy, skill and spirit. "

Immune Efficiency

A university's court victory against a coach it fired may lead to changes.

Boot'r Call

Can something called "Ice Soccer" really be a professional sport with franchised teams by 2015? Doug Taylor thinks so.

Torch Reform

A legal team from Valparaiso University's Sports Law Clinic provides pro bono legal assistance to Winter Olympics athletes.

What a Wild Ride It's Been

Climbing walls come under new scrutiny after rash of accidents.

Novice or Expert: How Professional Are Your Trainers?

Knowing the educational and experience background of your trainers and instructors can help you to hire and train them.THE FITNESS INDUSTRY is maturing and growing, and continued change is inevitable. It was not too long ago that there were only a few organizations certifying and recognizing fitness professionals such as personal trainers. The work of teaching weightlifting techniques, exercise routines and personal training was left to "gym-rats." In those days, it seemed that the only relevant credential for becoming a personal trainer was a muscular physique. Much has changed since then. Biomechanists, physiologists, certified athletic trainers, and other experts on pathology, exercise physiology, nutrition, health and the body are teaching and mentoring the new generation of fitness practitioners.What is a professional and how is a professional defined? These questions have broad implications in the fitness industry, and become central factors when discussing the future of the industry and its standing as a credible and desirable field to enter. These questions are also critical to effective management. The answers influence how managers and owners hire new staff, treat annual performance evaluations, determine raises, determine continuing education needs and many other management-related issues.Classically, there are five levels that professionals progress through in their career. These five levels are novice, beginner, competent, proficient and expert.Experience is not simply the passage of time. An expert personal trainer can take a new client for the first time and immediately fall back to a novice level. For example, say an expert personal trainer with 12 years of experience working with obese diabetic adults is asked to head up a new fitness program for prepubescent athletes. Having never worked with that population, that expert is now a novice all over again, although the learning curve may be much shorter. Experience is based on the contact time, and based on how much refinement and how many life-learning lessons have occurred. FMWhen hiring new fitness personnel, what is it that is most desirable to you? A degreed candidate, experience, personality, leadership ability? As the fitness industry continues to evolve, degreed candidates will become the norm, and eventually will be the standard. So, how do you find who is best in a hiring situation? The answer lies in how they answer your interview questions. If they answer with the proverbial "textbook answer," chances are they are a novice. If their answer is, "it depends," chances are you may be getting someone with real experience. However, if the answer is "it depends," always probe deeper and ask how their answer would be applied in one situation versus another. This can help weed out the novices (if you don't want to hire a novice, that is).Experience is not merely the linear progression of time. Obviously, quality of that experience is a central issue. Even after 12 years of experience, if, for 12 years, it has been done the wrong way, that 12 years of "experience" is worthless. The first year may prove to be worth three years (or more) of normal experiences if those lessons are critically analyzed and learned from. This is where effective mentoring can enhance and accelerate the learning curve, making experiences and failure valuable.

A Friendly Waiver?

Waiver laws change, and so do waivers. Here's what you need to know to protect your facility.

The Gravity Factor

Looking at gravity and its effect on the human body from a different angle."BIG GUNS AND small buns" used to be the motivation behind starting a fitness program. Over the years, the focus has shifted from cosmetic to functional, which has changed the way people work out. One of the most important aspects that came from the "functional fitness" movement is the notion of optimal biomechanics. However, this is not a new concept. This age-old wisdom unites the body's form and function. In exercise, form precedes function, and both are affected by gravity.Gravity was once considered the enemy in the struggle toward fitness and looking younger, but the recent emphasis on body mechanics has helped fuel a re-examination of gravity's role in the functional fitness quest. Today's discussions examine gravity's constant molding pressure and how it can be employed to the benefit of exercisers.Life and motion are constituted through an infinite number of postures. Posture refers to "any position in which the body resides," and can be divided into three common categories: flexed (sitting), upright (standing) and horizontal (lying down). There are also three uncommon postures: extension (leaning backward), brachiation (hanging from the limbs) and inversion (upside down). In the past, extension was considered contraindicated, but it is now widely accepted and practiced. Brachiation has always been welcome in gymnastics, but only recently found mainstream refuge on climbing walls and other emerging off-the-ground equipment innovations, and inversion has found a home in yoga classes across the globe.Dr. Robert M. Martin writes eloquently in gravity's defense. He invented inversion boots and employed a variety of gravity-based innovations in the 1970s and 1980s. "We are living clay, and gravity is like the potter's hands," says Martin. "This is nature's unchanging relationship, so we must move ourselves in ways that allow us to benefit from it."

Where Technology Is Taking Fitness Management

Technology has improved fitness center operations with better tracking methods, and convenience for members and managers.NOT SO LONG ago, the majority of fitness centers made the transition from paper-based accounting and client management to a computer-based system. The next step, already being used by many, is the transition from PC-based software packages to Internet-based, or "hosted," online services. This transition is in step with the general increase in public demand for businesses to offer web-based services. In the last 10 years, people began using the Internet to shop, pay bills, purchase plane tickets, reserve hotel rooms and much more. In fact, a 2004 eMarketer study indicated that 101.7 million Americans shop online. That number is expected to reach 120 million by 2006.Rick Stollmeyer, president and founder of MindBody Online (www.mindbodysoftware.com), credits the move toward web-based solutions to the need for fitness centers to satisfy members. "The clear trend is toward web-based solutions, which allow fitness club management and staff members to connect in real time with members and clients, focusing on their needs and making their experiences more enjoyable," says Stollmeyer. MindBody Online's web-based program, called PT Manager, allows fitness members and personal training clients to schedule classes and appointments online, as well as pay for services.Fitness center members and the public are not the only forces driving web-based solutions. More fitness facility owners and operators are beginning to recognize the benefits of using "hosted" business management tools as opposed to packaged software programs.Jai Lewis, program director at 360 Health Club (www.360healthclub.com) located just outside Los Angeles, Calif., lends a unique perspective with a background in IT and previous work as a computer consultant to San Francisco-area start-ups. When he began working in fitness, he was surprised by the lack of technology in use. 360 Health Club uses a two-system scenario, applying two different products to cover all the facility's needs: Aphelion's PC-based software package and MindBody Online's web-based product. Lewis sees the software industry getting closer to developing one perfect-fit solution. Lewis also believes that web-based programs that allow member interaction will become the norm for all facilities.Software and Internet developers are constantly seeking new innovations and ways to advance business-management programs. One emerging factor that will affect the fitness industry is the pressure for health insurance companies to cover activities deemed to be "preventive health" measures, such as exercise.

Weight Machines vs. Free Weights

Weigh the pros and cons of training with machines compared to free weights by using the following guidelines.WHEN I WAS in eighth grade, I broke the school record for chin-ups. I still have the certificate of achievement from the school's principal proudly displayed on my wall. Heck, I still brag about the accomplishment to others. It doesn't matter that it was so many years ago, or that some tough kid has probably come along since to break my record. At the time, I had the strongest biceps and forearms in junior high. I used chin-ups to show off to the girls in class. My mother even bought a chin-up bar and attached it to my bedroom doorframe so I could train at home. I did chin-ups every day. What I learned from doing those hundreds of chin-ups is this: There is more than one way to train a muscle.Weight machines. Most traditional weight machines allow only single-joint exercises, with movement occurring in a single plane. Since weight machines guide movement, they do not recruit muscles other than those specifically targeted by the machine. This apparent lack of freedom does confer one advantage: Weight machines allow lifters to isolate specific muscles or parts of muscles, which is of interest to bodybuilders and others who want to shape a specific body part.Weight machines. Since the assessment of strength requires the use of either weight machines or free weights, the outcome of any experiment comparing the two types of weight training will likely favor the kind of training that uses the same type of equipment as the strength measurement. Studies testing strength (one-rep max) using equipment or a type of exercise different from that used in training have found similar gains in strength between weight machines and free weights.3, 4, 5Weight machines. Weight machines do not provide much flexibility in designing or performing workouts. For example, while manufacturers of weight machines try to accommodate as many different body sizes as possible, there is still a limit as to how many adjustments can be made in the seat or arm settings, rendering the exercise to be performed in a relatively fixed position. Since each traditional weight machine is designed for a specific exercise, only the intended exercise can be performed with each machine. In addition, training progression is often problematic, as many weight machines are restricted to 10- to 20-pound increments.Weight machines. From a management perspective, weight machines obviously represent a greater expense than free weights, including both their initial purchase and their maintenance. For a given cost, fewer people can be serviced at a given time with weight machines. Plus, you get a lot less for your money, with members only able to use the machine for one or two specific exercises.Despite the inability to alter their resistance at stronger joint angles, and the slightly greater risk of injury, free weights still have the overall strength-training advantage because of their training specificity, workout flexibility and superior stimulus for increasing strength. Possibly the most important reason for using free weights is that, while weight machines allow lifters to train muscle, free weights allow them to train movement.

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AB Show 2026 in Orlando

AB Show is a solution-focused event for athletics, fitness, recreation and military professionals.

Nov. 17-19, 2026

Buyer's Guide

Information on more than 3,000 companies, sorted by category. Listings are updated daily.