Fitpro Spring Convention 2011

This weekend I was at the FitPro Spring Convention at Loughborough University in the north of England – and it was an amazing event!

Spring Convention is a massive, annual fitness conference, with hundreds of sessions and classes and workshops led by leading PTs and instructors, and its crammed with people who live and love everything health and fitness.

TRX equipment in the sun at Convention

I came away realising just how much I think I know is only the tip of the iceberg. Two lectures in particular have really changed my view of exercise and how I train my clients.


Who’s playing the game?
Scott Hopson

I really enjoyed Scott’s lectures on biomechanics – it was a total eye opener into looking at exercise as full-body movement, compared to isolating body parts as with body building exercises and fixed resistant machines.

It’s amazing how many exercises you can come up with if you pick one ‘traditional’ exercise such as a lunge and manipulate the movements. For example, lunge around an imaginary clock face on the floor, with your leading foot touching 1 o’clock, 2, o’ clock and so on with a different variation at each hour:

Lunge to 12 o’ clock with a shoulder press
Lunge to 1 o’ clock with a bicep curl
Lunge to 2 o’ clock with a lateral rise

Such a simple exercise, but by manipulating the movement you increase the number of muscles worked, increased metabolic output and just have an opportunity not to get bored with your workout!

All my clients want to work their abs, and I came away with loads of exercise ideas featuring a bungee rope: I tie the rope around their waist creating momentum to pull them back or to the side forcing them to use their abs and core to stabilise themselves. They love it!

What is balance within the body?
Douglas Heel

Doug presented a great lecture that opened my mind to movement. He spoke about a sphere of movement and the importance of having correct posture and balance within the body to create strength.Your sphere of movement is when you take a lateral, sagittal and posterior lunge and reach as far as you can. Imagine this to be a dome around your body with the highest point being how high you can reach or jump. I now look at the sphere and what movements (exercise) I can create within these boundaries.

I can’t wait for next year’s Convention!
In the meantime, check out powerclubs - just one of the demos in the trade show.