What is Exercise Physiology (EP)? Do I need this, isn’t it just a trainer?
Not many people are at all aware of what an EP is, the common person has more association with a personal trainer which is fair, they’re everywhere. The main influence towards personal trainers being the more talked about profession in society in general originated form the push for people wanting to lose weight. Its no wonder that has occurred, Australia is very high on the list when it comes to obesity.
Lets break down the term ‘Exercise Physiologist’; Physiology refers to the term ‘ the study of how the human body works. Lets now throw in the word exercise in front of that which can be described as the assessment, planning and implementation of exercises/stressors that are aimed at managing injury and conditions as well as managing chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease diabetes.
There we have it, an Exercise Physiologist will assess you (test you) to determine YOUR starting point, whether it be a knee, shoulder or back injury, or even a chronic illness as mentioned above. They will take into consideration a persons current limitations and abilities and formulate a program to advance their current conditioning. Just to summarise, they will assess where you are RIGHT now and improve that current level.
The difference between a personal trainer and an EP is that an EP is required to pass certain criteria created by Universities and must been their curriculum standards to be awarded a degree…Well why does this matter it is just a piece of paper?… Well that is true, you get a piece of paper from any degree or any personal training course you complete. The difference is, the curriculum that an EP has to complete allows him the privileges of working with injuries and conditions/illnesses, that is what they learn about during their degree. I would feel very comfortable knowing that the person training me has been exposed to fundamental teachings of how my body works 🙂 …
There is a common misconception in the exercise world that you must be trained and flogged by a personal trainer to lose weight. Firstly, its all in your lifestyle and eating habits, so if you want your weight fixed you need to take a good look at your patterns and get hard on yourself. Secondly, there a numerous research articles out there (DM me for these articles) that suggest resistance training in a individualised progressive manner has more effect on % of body fat loss compared to ‘cardio’ only training.
What are your biggest limitations ? Yourself or who you are engaging to help you reach the goals ? Maybe its both… although now you are aware of the effect an EP can have on your life, I’ve helped you with 1 of your 2 problems… That’s a start…
What are you going to do about it? Are you serious about making a change and taking yourself to the next level or do you want to be blissfully ignorant and feel the short term serotonin effects of being flogged, or would you like to add some ‘smarts’ onto that?
Reach out to the team at Insync Health and lock in a time to make a plan.