There’s a reason why athletes are trained to be agile instead of having big muscles. While working on strength conditioning and building muscles is important, having an agile body can make a person’s fitness journey much easier.
With agility workouts, your client can develop strength without the need to rely on weights. However, as easy as it may sound, training your client’s body to be agile is not so easy. The main issue with agility is strength. Since the focus is on lean muscle development, it requires the person to have more strength without increasing muscle mass. Here are some ways certified personal trainers can focus on agility and lead muscle development.
Additionally, if you’re interested in expanding your fitness training capabilities, check out our courses at W.I.T.S Education.
Running
Running is one of the best ways to improve stamina and agility without bulking up. Running is considered a high-impact cardio workout that works on all parts of the body. On top of that, running increases oxygen consumption in the body and improves the blood flow to the brain, which, in turn, increases focus and stamina. However, there’s one thing you need to be careful about when recommending running to your clients; it can lead to bone damage if a person has arthritis or already has mild symptoms of it. This is because of the forces on the knee that strains the muscles and the knee bone.
Swimming
If a person isn’t fit for running, swimming is what they should do. With swimming, the weight due to gravity is lower, allowing the client’s joints to relax and offer more movement. As a result, people can work out their mules, build strength, and increase their stamina without damaging their bones.
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Image Meta Text: Doing side planks
CrossFit
CrossFit is a type of workout incorporating several kinds of sports into a full exercise routine. Commonly CrossFit includes cycling, running, and gymnastics. These exercises are cardio-heavy and require good core strength. This is why doing CrossFit builds strength and increases lean muscle mass. At the same time, it also builds stamina and agility. If the exercises are focused on running and gymnastics, then it helps make the movements sharper to achieve better results.
HIIT
HIIT, or high-intensity interval training, is a high-impact workout that works on agility, strength, and speed. There are no predefined exercises for this workout, but it includes heavy high-impact workouts that are done in a rigorous setting. With HIIT workouts, you need to give clients plenty of rest time to let their muscles heal. Otherwise, they might end up with severe muscle damage. Another thing to be careful of when recommending HIIT workouts is keeping the client’s fitness levels in mind. These workouts are quite demanding and not fit for beginners or people with lower fitness levels.
Jump Ropes
Jumping ropes is a fun and easy way to build strength and agility. For the workout, your clients don’t need any fancy equipment or prep time. All they need is a sturdy jumping rope and an open space. Jump roping works on many areas that improve agility. For example, hand, eye, and feet coordination, mental focus, thigh and hamstrings, and cardiovascular fitness. The best part about jump roping is that your clients don’t have to be in a gym or fitness studio; they can do this from the comfort of their homes. Not just that, but they can do sets of jump ropes several times throughout the day to get better results.
Ladder Drills
Ladder drills or speed ladder drills are a form of HIIT exercise that uses small bursts of energy to increase the body’s lean muscle mass. With this exercise, you need equal rest and exercise time to prevent muscle damage. Also, this workout isn’t for beginner clients because it can strain their muscles and lead to muscle damage. The workout includes a ladder placed on the ground, and you can make the clients move in different ways through it. For example, you can ask them to jump to the end of the ladder or do high jumps. They can also do lateral runs with the ladder as the obstacle.
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High Jumps
High jumps are another great way to work out the thigh muscles and burn fat. With high jumps, you need your client to stand straight with their feet shoulder-width apart. Then start the jump by raising one leg as high as they can. At first, your focus should be on making the client comfortable with the raises, especially if they haven’t done them before. Once they get the hang of things, you can turn it into a proper jumping workout with more jumps per minute.
Balloon Drills
This exercise is a fun and challenging way to improve your client’s reflexes. For this, you need one or more balloons. The exercises are simple; a person only has to throw the balloon up and do a certain number of squats before the balloon comes back down. Once it reaches the floor, ask your client to throw it back up and repeat. This workout is great for clients who get burned out quickly. It also helps strengthen the hamstrings.
Lateral Running
As the name suggests, lateral running is side-to-side running. This workout helps stabilize the pelvis and hip muscles which are crucial for improving agility. For lateral running, a person has to stand straight with their legs shoulder length apart and then run sideways. As always, it’s easier said than done, so it’s better to place hurdles that prevent people from running straight. Since it’s a bit difficult to coordinate sideways running, it takes a while to get used to it. So as a fitness trainer, it’s best to keep the frequency low for your clients initially and gradually increase it according to their progress.
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Expand Your Fitness Training Capabilities With W.I.T.S Education
With W.I.T.S Education’s fitness training certification, you can expand your skills and make a name for yourself in the fitness industry. We offer courses related to personal fitness training, group exercise training, youth fitness training, and even senior fitness training. Not just that we also offer fitness management courses for people in the gym management industry.
Additionally, W.I.T.S Education is accredited by the NCCA and the American Council on Education, allowing us to offer course credits to college students toward their degrees. Our hybrid courses are conducted by 5-star instructors, along with hands-on in-person training in our state-of-the-art labs. We also have the largest network of colleges and universities. So hurry up, pick your desired course and enroll today!