Every Trainer Should Know 10 Expert Fitness Tips and Strategies

Are you frustrated that you aren’t seeing any noticeable results despite spending hours at the gym? Well, you’re not alone. There are plenty of folks in your situation with enough drive, determination, and relentless effort, but still can’t reach their goals. In this situation, the most logical step for you to take is to find a personal trainer with proven experience. But if you think that hiring a personal trainer is not an option for you at the moment, it is still possible to get fit by going it all alone.

Below is a list of ten expert tips and strategies that specifically designed by various personal trainers and fitness marketing professionals to help you lose excess body fat, build strength, gain muscle mass, boost your endurance, and maintain healthy eating habits and lifestyle. Let’s begin:

1. Always Eat Healthy

Let’s be honest—if you think exercise alone will help you lose weight and improve your fitness, you’re making a mistake. Exercise will only compliment with your goal of getting fit. Ask any personal trainer and they’ll all tell you that regardless of your training program, there is no alternative to healthy eating. Food fuels your body and only through proper nutrition from quality foods will help you reach your goals. Therefore, eat a balanced diet with fruits, vegetables, complex carbohydrates, proteins, and healthy fats such as fish oils.

2. Prepare Your Meals In Advance

According to Micah LaCerte, a personal trainer and fitness champion, preparing your meals ahead is the perfect way to accomplish your nutritional targets. It works because if you prepare your food in advance, there is little chance of you missing or skipping meals or chomping down on unhealthy foods when you’re busy.

3. Eat Clean Food

Are you someone who only has three daily meals? If yes, then it’s not a great idea. Mike Duffy, a veteran personal trainer says that most people have a difficult time shedding excess weight simply because they don’t eat enough. Duffy suggests his clients have five daily meals. He advised his clients to have a meal after every three-hour window to stimulate their metabolism. Duffy’s meal plan includes two mini-meals between three basic meals. As activity levels keep decreasing throughout the day, he says his clients to each less as the day progresses.

4. Restrict Your Portion Sizes

We already mentioned that if you’re serious about losing weight and gain muscle, you need to eat more than three meals daily. As you’ll be eating more often, pay attention to your portion sizes. This is extremely important. Jay Cardiello, a personal trainer says, chicken breasts, and other types of meats should be no larger than your palm, whilst portions of pasta should be of the same size as your fists. Cardiello, who trains celebrities and professional athletes suggests to use smaller bowls, cups, and plates because many studies have shown that people tend to eat 20-40% more food if it is served in larger plates or bowls. So, keep your food portion sizes small.

5. Eat Only Nutritional Food

No matter what your food preferences are, always consume food with the highest nutritional value. Everything you put into your body should have some nutritional purpose that will refuel your body, help you through your workouts, and improve your overall mental and physical wellbeing.

6. Familiarize Yourself With The Fundamental Of Muscle Building

If you aren’t aware of the basics of how muscles grow, learn about it. You can ask any professional trainer or bodybuilder, and they’ll tell you there are certain muscle-building techniques. At first, you need to increase your caloric and complete protein intake to ensure that your body has sufficient building blocks to get bigger.

When training at the gym, focus on your form. Emphasize of performing compound movements than isolation movement, and train with weights, and overload yourself as you progress. We suggest that you train four times a week on average. Have adequate rest. Remember, rest is extremely important if you’re looking to build muscle because muscle tissue grows when you’re giving your body enough time to relax and recover after your workouts.

7. Workout With A Full Range Of Motion

Many people fail to grow muscles because they don’t focus on the full range of motion while performing their workouts. Shortcuts never help. Lee Boyce, a Certified Personal Trainer, says the largest range of motion during any workouts yields the best results. Lee says. “Your muscles will do more work per rep, and it will result in your breaking down more tissue by the end of the workout,” source.

8. Never Go Too Heavy

Want to get the most from lifting weights? Then use a weight that you can lift and which will not let you fail on the set between the 30-40 second mark. Despite what most people say, it the time under tension that causes those micro-tears in the muscle fibers that causes the muscles to grow. So, if you’re failing within 20 seconds of completing a set, you know that weight is too heavy for you.

9. Don’t Take Cardio Too Seriously

If getting huge muscles is your mission, then maybe you need to throttle back on your cardio workouts. The reason is if you’re doing too much cardio, it’s very likely that you’ll be burning way too many calories. So what should you do? We won’t advise you that you quit cardio at all given the fact that you still want to do some cardio. LaCerte thinks light jogging for 20 minutes few days per week is adequate for most people.  If your main goal is to lose fat, it’s far more fruitful for you to increase your protein intake every day. The golden rule is typically one gram of protein per pound of your body weight. This technique will not only maintain your overall caloric intake low but will also help you lose excess body fat.

10. Choose Your Supplements Wisely

Some bodybuilders and personal trainers suggest taking supplements is helpful in boosting muscle gains. If you buy into that assumption, then chances are, you’re already consuming protein shakes and other supplements. Maybe you’re taking creatine too. Creatine is popular to be a very effective strength and muscle size building supplement. You can also consider using peppermint to boost your performance.