When you made the decision to improve your health then you need to get yourself ready first and think about designing a program. A well designed program is the foundation of your succes. It ensures that you will not only do your workouts safe and effective, but also with pleasure. It helps you to stay motivated while you experience progress week after week.

But as I mentioned; before taking up exercising you need to get yourself ready. You want to know whether or not it is safe for you to begin with an exercise program and if you need to talk to your doctor first. To find out about that questiion you need to answer the 7 questions of the "Physical Activity Readiness-Questionnaire" (PAR-Q). You can see an example of the PAR-Q here.

If you answered "yes" to one or more questions, then you must have a PARmed-X completed by your physician. You find an example of that form here.

"What a fuss" you might think. Nobody likes paperwork, but it is essential for your safety and your success to have it filled out properly. Your safety and success are worth it, so don't let these forms withold you from your resolution to improve your health.

It is important to strictly follow your doctor's recommendations, to keep in touch with your doctor about your exercise program and to contact your doctor when your health changes or when you change your exercise program.

After filling out the forms, I will ask you as a personal trainer some more questions about your health. Perhaps you have a medical condition like arthritis, diabetes, osteoporosis, obesity, back pain, a heart disease or another medical issue that requires attention. The more information I have the better I can design a program especially geared to your specific condition and situation.

With already a lot of information about your health I am going to take you through a full body postural and movement analysis. I want to know which muscles are strong and which muscles are weak. It will help me to determine which exercises I need to include to strengthen muscles and which not to include to avoid worsening an existing issue.

Now we have all of the information in place and can start designing the training program.

It required some preparation, but your health is worth it and it is the best guarantee to get the best possible results that last.

The final step before desiging a training program is to define what you would like to achieve. Goal setting is important, it gives something to focus on. Goals may vary from getting stronger legs to walk the stairs up and down more easily to participating in a running contest. I doesn't matter.  

What does matter is to keep in mind that goals have to be realistic. Take time to set your goals and talk about your goals with people around you.