Your Personal Trainer - Douglas Brooks

Your Personal Trainer

by Douglas Brooks

NEW, 264 pages

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About Your Personal Trainer

Are you struggling to develop an exercise program? Having trouble sticking with your current program? Dissatisfied with the results you`re seeing-or not seeing? Your Personal Trainer gives you customized, expert training advice that will help you get the results you want. And it does so at a fraction of the cost of hiring your own trainer!

Douglas Brooks-one of the top personal trainers in the United States-shares his no-nonsense, results-oriented approach to training. He offers no quick fixes, but what he does offer are proven effective exercise programs and techniques similar to those he prescribes to his clients every day.

Your Personal Trainer provides individually tailored programs, structured workouts, and planned training cycles, all featuring the latest exercise information available to help you achieve your fitness goals. Here`s just a sampling of the many features you`ll find:

• Guidelines for scheduling your workouts
• Recommended stretches and strength exercises
• Interval training models
• Warm-up and cool-down techniques
• Advice on cross-training
• Nutrition tips
• Hints for building in rest and recovery
• Self-tests for tracking your progress

Through it all, Brooks will keep you motivated and make your exercise program fun, not drudgery. Regardless of your fitness level, the time-tested techniques in Your Personal Trainer will give you a training advantage and empower you to take control of your fitness and health.

If you`re a personal trainer, you too can use Your Personal Trainer to better serve your clients. You`ll find state-of-the-art advice on how to build a training regimen around your clients` specific needs, limitations, and goals. Plus, you`ll learn Brooks` techniques for motivating clients.

About Douglas Brooks

Known as the "trainer's trainer," Douglas Brooks is one of the premier personal trainers in the United States. He's widely recognized through his numerous appearances on home shopping networks, infomercials, the Cable Health Club Network, and fitness videos. An ACE-certified personal trainer since 1983, Brooks is also the fitness training director at Snowcreek Resort and Athletic Club and the co-owner of Moves International, a provider of educational resources, continuing education, and live workshops for fitness professionals.

Brooks has also authored Going Solo: The Art of Personal Training-a landmark publication written during personal training's infancy-and Program Design for Personal Trainers: Bridging Theory Into Application, as well as numerous educational manuals. He is active in many professional organizations, including IDEA-The Health and Fitness Source, the International Sports Trainers Association, the American College of Sports Medicine, and the National Strength and Conditioning Association. He also conducts lectures and workshops throughout the United States and internationally on the topics of personal training, strength training, kinesiology, and exercise physiology.

Brooks enjoys fitness activities of all kinds. He is a competitive tennis player, marathoner, Ironman triathlete, alpine and nordic skier, in-line skater, rock climber, and mountaineer. He holds a master's degree in exercise physiology from Central Michigan University. Brooks, his wife, Candice, and their two sons live in Mammoth Lakes, California.

Review of this book

"When I want the answers, I turn to Douglas Brooks. He takes all the guesswork out of training. With his easy-to-understand approach, you are guaranteed to get maximum results from your workout."

Kathy Smith
International Fitness Authority

"This book covers all aspects of personal training and answers many of the commonly asked questions. For the person who cannot afford a personal trainer, this book is the next best thing."

Kathie Davis
Executive Director
IDEA, The Health and Fitness Source

About Fitness

Physical fitness comprises two related concepts: general fitness (a state of health and well-being) and specific fitness (a task-oriented definition based on the ability to perform specific aspects of sports or occupations). Physical fitness is generally achieved through exercise.

In previous years, fitness was commonly defined as the capacity to carry out the day’s activities without undue fatigue. However, as automation increased leisure time, changes in lifestyles following the industrial revolution rendered this definition insufficient. These days, physical fitness is considered a measure of the body’s ability to function efficiently and effectively in work and leisure activities, to be healthy, to resist hypokinetic diseases, and to meet emergency situations.

Physical exercise is any bodily activity that enhances or maintains physical fitness and overall health or wellness. It is performed for various reasons. These include strengthening muscles and the cardiovascular system, honing athletic skills, weight loss or maintenance and for enjoyment. Frequent and regular physical exercise boosts the immune system, and helps prevent the "diseases of affluence" such as heart disease, cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes and obesity. It also improves mental health, helps prevent depression, helps to promote or maintain positive self-esteem, and can even augment an individual's sex appeal or body image Childhood obesity is a growing global concern and physical exercise may help decrease the effects of childhood obesity in developed countries.

Types of exercise: exercises are generally grouped into three types depending on the overall effect they have on the human body. Flexibility exercises, such as stretching, improve the range of motion of muscles and joints. Aerobic exercises, such as cycling, swimming, walking, skipping rope, running, hiking or playing tennis, focus on increasing cardiovascular endurance. Anaerobic exercises, such as weight training, functional training or sprinting, increase short-term muscle strength.

Your Personal Trainer