Incorporating HIIT on Your Personal Fitness Menu —
Who is the Ideal Client?
As a personal fitness expert, you’ve likely heard the buzz about the latest and greatest of all fitness trends —HIIT.
If not, we’ve got to warn you, you’re really missing out on a great, efficient, and wonderful workout that can truly help your clients along on their journey to meet their goals
HIIT (high-intensity interval training) is a top-notch workout style that can help burn fat, boost heart health, and aid your clients in fitting a killer workout in a tiny span of time.
It sounds perfect, right?
For a lot of clients, it really is an exceptional addition to their exercise schedules.
If you’re considering adding in some hyped-up HIIT as a type of workout to integrate into your clients’ exercise regimens but you aren’t sure who it might work best for, we’ve got you covered.
Check out the types of clients we believe that HIIT is perfect for, why it makes sense, and how you can implement it into their weekly routines.
What is HIIT
Before we dive into it, though, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page about HIIT.
High-intensity interval training is all the rage. In fact, in 2017, it was listed by The American College of Sports Medicine as a Top Fitness Trend, and it continues to ride that wave into 2019. HIIT is a training technique where a client is giving their 100 percent effort (going all out) for a quick, intense burst of exercise. Then, they take these tiny recovery periods following the bursts—often, these recovery periods are more an active rest and less of a sit-down-and-take-a-breather rest. The idea is to repeat this process a few times over the course of a 20-30-minute period.
HIIT is effective because it causes a tiny disturbance in your metabolism, causing you to burn calories at a higher rate, reduce insulin resistance, give you some cardio gains, activate fast twitch muscles, and even boost your endurance levels.
Who is the Ideal Client?
Overall, HIIT is a great exercise technique for all kinds of clients. But it can be more beneficial for some than others. Check out who we believe to be the perfect candidates for HIIT exercises in their weekly (or daily) routines.
Busy Clients Who Require Efficiency
One of the cool things about being a personal trainer is that you get to come up with creative ways to help all kinds of clients—even the busiest ones who have very limited time in the gym. HIIT is the absolute perfect workout for busy clients who need to maximize efficiency while they’re in the gym.
If you already have a client who struggles to keep up with their personal training schedule because they’re so busy or pressed for time, you might want to try to implement HIIT in their workout. Not only can they do some of this at home, but it can make their time in the gym with you all the more effective and efficient.
Further, this kind of exercise routine is known to energize clients as well as gift them faster recovery periods, meaning they won’t have major burnout between their sessions while they’re running around being busy. That means they’re more likely to be effective and present at every one of their sessions because they’re not dealing with an overworked, overtired feeling.
Clients Who Hate Cardio (But Know They Need It)
HIIT is an insanely great way to introduce cardio into your clients’ exercise routines—especially for the ones who absolutely can’t stand cardio. As a certified personal trainer, you understand that cardio isn’t everything when it comes to health and fitness, but you also know it does play a part and every client you work with should implement at least a dash of it into their routine.
That’s where HIIT can help.
HIIT does what “cardio” does without making it feel like cardio. It elevates your heart rate and helps your body burn calories even after the session is over, but it doesn’t need to include things like running, biking, swimming, etc. Get your clients doing some rowing sessions, maybe some burpees, even weight lifting can be turned into HIIT. Whatever you can do to get your clients’ hearts pumping for a solid but brief HIIT session is going to dramatically improve their cardio (without feeling like they’re stuck on a treadmill for hours).
Those Who Are Transitioning From Bulking to Cutting
Clients who have spent a few months bulking up that are now transitioning into their cutting phases are definitely going to want to look into HIIT. When it comes to cutting, the goal is to maintain muscle while dropping down in weight because you’re cutting fat — most clients think that means they need to step on the treadmill, the stair stepper, or the stationary bike for a few hours and sweat it out every day.
The problem with that?
It’s not super-efficient and very few clients are going to be on board with that kind of boring cardio.
HIIT is the solution. Not only does it take less time, but it’s also far more efficient and a lot more entertaining. In fact, you can even use weightlifting as HIIT. You can come up with creative ways to get your clients to boost their heart rates and blast fat without making them ever step foot on a treadmill.
HIIT is going to help your clients who are cutting by burning calories more effectively, boosting their metabolisms, and helping to target fat loss.
Clients Who Can’t Get Into the Gym
HIIT is great for clients who you maybe don’t see on a regular basis or who don’t come into your gym (or any gym) at all — that’s right, we’re talking about online clients. Helping online clients (via email, social media, whatever it might be) is a huge trend for personal fitness trainers, and in all honesty, it’s pretty awesome for everyone involved. The challenge with that comes with gifting your followers or online subscribers enough exercises to help them improve without ever needing a gym or gym equipment.
This is another place where HIIT can really come in handy.
Even if your clients never step foot in a gym, you can come up with hundreds of different HIIT exercises they can participate in. Just make sure that you’re always explaining the purpose of HIIT, what they should be aiming for, and how to do a HIIT exercise properly.
Clients Who Love a Challenge
HIIT is an amazing exercise technique for folks who are looking to burn fat, boost their heart health, accelerate their metabolism, improve cardio, or complement other types of exercising —that being said, it’s also an insanely challenging type of exercise. If you have clients who love a good challenge, always want to improve, and are constantly seeking out ways to become better versions of themselves, you’ll definitely want to introduce them to HIIT.
Conclusion
In conclusion, providing effective and engaging fitness content is important, but protecting yourself is just as crucial. Insure Fitness offers comprehensive coverage to safeguard your business from potential risks. If you’re teaching high-intensity workouts, it’s essential to have HIIT instructor liability insurance to protect you from any incidents that could occur during classes. With the right insurance in place, you can confidently focus on helping your clients reach their fitness goals.
