The Fitness Instructor's Handbook: A Professional's Complete Guide to Health and Fitness

The comprehensive resource for personal fitness trainers.

The Fitness Instructor's Handbook meets the needs of the wide audience of fitness professionals, aspiring trainers and individuals with a keen interest in fitness and sport. Morc Coulson discovered the sparsity of comprehensive references promoting industry professionalism. They had little practical information on designing gym-based cardiovascular and resistance exercise programs for clients.

This second edition is updated and revised to address the needs of the "special populations" that trainers are seeing in greater numbers. This group includes children, older adults, those recovering from a stroke or heart attack, and sedentary, overweight, obese, pregnant or handicapped clients. There is also new information on diet and nutrition as well as safety and injury prevention, customer service, client screening, program design and exercise evaluation. All the references and recommended readings have been updated.

The book is presented in two parts:

Part One, "Theoretical Knowledge for Health and Fitness" examines the Skeletal System, Joints, the Muscular System; Cartilage, Ligaments and Tendons; the Nervous and Endocrine Systems, the body's Energy Systems, the Heart and Circulatory Systems, the Respiratory System, Core Stability, and the Components and Principles of Fitness.

Part Two, "Practical Application of Health and Fitness" covers Screening for Exercise and Safety Issues, Behavioral Change and Goal Setting, the Components and Induction of an Exercise Session, and Monitoring Exercise Intensity (exercise, cardiovascular and resistance) along with program designs for Free-weight and Resistance Machine Exercises.

Addressing the requirements common to most fitness professional certifications in the U.S. and Canada, The Fitness Instructor's Handbook is filled with case studies, checklists, need-to-know reminders, mini tests and sample programs. Tables and anatomy drawings support the authoritative text. All in all this book is an ideal reference for both new and established instructors as well as individuals in search of a sound, structured fitness program for personal use.

Morc Coulson is the program leader for sport and exercise science at the University of Sunderland in England. He designs and implements fitness-training courses and has written several other books including The Advanced Fitness Instructor's Handbook, Teaching Exercise to Children, Teaching Exercise to Special Populations and Training the Over 50s.