If you want to be a better trainer, you can up your game in no time by diving into the right fitness resources. These apps, podcasts, videos, blogs, books, and more will give you the guidance, skills, inspiration, data, and information to become a better personal trainer and help your clients meet and exceed their health and fitness goals.
Apps
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of health, wellness, and fitness apps available for iOS and Android devices. You need the best fitness resources to sharpen your personal training skills, and here are three that we think will help make you a better trainer:
Aaptiv
This app features more than 2,500 audio-based fitness classes with 20 trainers in 12 categories, including rowing, yoga, running, and more. Aaptiv offers trainer-led, music-driven workouts for all skill levels—with more than 30 new workouts added every week. Whether you’re looking for a short class or a complete training program, this app will inspire you with fresh ideas to enhance your own training and deliver new options to your clients.
Nike+ Run Club
This app is an excellent resource for building strength, endurance, and speed—all with the goal of mastering challenges and “competing” against other runners using the app. By downloading the app and urging your clients to do the same, you can work together to tackle challenges. This will help you become a better trainer because you’ll be guiding your clients, review their running records, and helping them move up the leaderboard.
Lose It! – Calorie Counter
You know better than anyone that a journey to healthy living requires a commitment to both an active lifestyle and making healthy food choices. This app is a great way for your clients to start tracking their daily food choices. With a huge database of products and the ability to snap a photo or barcode to pick an item and track it, Lose It! also offers meal planning and challenges focused on exercise and weight loss.
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Podcasts
The next time you’re working the elliptical, doing CrossFit, or out running, pop in your earbuds and listen to these podcasts. These fitness resources will undoubtedly make you a better personal trainer by giving you the inspiration, insights, and tips for helping your clients on their wellness journey.
Motivated
In this podcast, Emmy Award-winning ABC news correspondent Mara Schiavocampo shares her journey toward a healthier, happier life. After struggling with being overweight for most of her life, Schiavocampo lost 90 pounds in 2011 and has kept it off. She now shares her experience, focuses on lifetime maintenance, and talks about all things health and wellness with top experts and regular Joes in order to help people live happier, healthier lives. [Listen]
The Rich Roll Podcast
Every week, Rich Roll’s podcast tackles wellness with some of the most famous and forward-thinking minds across fields including entertainment, spirituality, health, fitness, art, nutrition, entrepreneurship, and more. At 50 years old, Rich is an Ivy League-educated ultra-endurance athlete who advocates a plant-based lifestyle and inspires people around the world as a model of healthy living. In each podcast, Rich connects with others on a deep and intimate level through conversations to educate and empower others to unleash their healthiest, most authentic selves. [Listen]
Ted Talks Health
Ted Talks are well known around the world for educating, motivating, and empowering through storytelling. With Ted Talks Health podcasts, experts in the health field share their thoughts, research, and experiences on everything from “The future of medicine” to “How we study the microbes living in your gut.” Knowledge is power, and these podcasts will give you the facts and data you need to provide your clients with reliable information. [Listen]
YouTube Channels
With so many YouTube channels focused on health and wellness and fitness tutorials, it’s hard to know which ones offer the best fitness resources.
Physiques of Greatness
This YouTube channel is committed to bodybuilding and fitness and offers motivation, inspiration, success stories, and more from personal trainer Chris Jones. [Watch]
CT Fletcher Motivation
On this channel, CT Fletcher provides motivation—like you’ve never experienced before—that is applicable for bodybuilding, weightlifting, fitness, and life in general. [Watch]
Spotify Playlists
If you have clients who are hesitant about fitness or flat out aren’t enjoying exercise, these Spotify playlists might be the way to having happier, healthier clients. Researchers have been analyzing the effects of music on exercise since 1911, and most studies have found that listening to music has a positive impact on both the person and the efficacy of the workout. In fact, in one study, participants who cycled in time with music needed 7 percent less oxygen to do the same amount of work as cyclists who weren’t synchronized to background music. In another study, researchers in London found that participants who listened to music enjoyed their workout 28 percent more than those who did not listen to music. Here are three Spotify playlists we recommend to get moving—and enjoy it, too:
Blogs
The amount of health and wellness blogs on the web can be overwhelming, and figuring out which are selling themselves versus selling a lifestyle and inspiration can be hard. Here are three blogs we love:
Carrots ‘N’ Cake
Back in 2008, Tina Haupert was getting ready to get married and wanted to make a sustainable lifestyle change, so she started Carrots ‘N’ Cake to hold herself accountable. Today, Haupert is an avid CrossFitter whose healthy-living blog is focused on encouraging and inspiring others through a balance of fitness, nutrition, self-care, and a generally holistic approach to lifestyle change. She even has tons of blog articles about staying fit throughout pregnancy, which is a great fitness resource. [Read]
Workout Nirvana
On this blog, Suzanne Digre delivers tips, advice, and guidance for women who want to “own their power in the weight room and beyond.” This blog offers a unique perspective on women in fitness that can help make you a better fitness trainer—no matter who your clients are or what their fitness level is. [Read]
Born Fitness
Born Fitness’s blog offers science-based answers to nutrition and fitness questions that are designed for real people. Urging readers to never, ever Google fitness questions, the Born Fitness blog provides more clarity and assistance and less confusion—all from experts you can trust. Whether you’re trying to gain muscle, live longer, eat healthier, or lose weight, Born Fitness is focused on providing stress-free blog articles about common health and fitness issues. [Read]
Books
You didn’t think all of the best fitness resources were online and on mobile, did you? Steep some tea, kick back, and go analog with these fitness resource books:
Fitness Nutrition: The Ultimate Fitness Guide
Available on Amazon Kindle and in paperback, Fitness Nutrition truly is the ultimate guide to fitness, providing guidance regarding how your body uses calories, the role of carbs, which foods are the best for you, how to determine your meal frequency, the best exercises for your goals, and more. Additionally, this guide is chock-full of alternative exercise options, which can provide the fitness inspiration you’re looking for. [Get the book]
Run Fast. Eat Slow. Nourishing Recipes for Athletes
Regular exercise has to be matched with a healthy diet, and this book contains more than 100 recipes that show that food can be nourishing—and indulgent. The book’s authors are world-class marathoner and four-time Olympian Shalane Flanagan and chef Elyse Kopecky and, in addition to offering flavor-forward recipes, the book includes nutritional wisdom and inspiring stories for anyone on the journey to healthier living. [Get the book]
Get Moving!
No matter where you are in your personal training journey, these fitness resources will make you a better trainer and help your clients get fit and healthy faster. If you’re ready to turn your knowledge, experience, and passion into a career as a personal trainer, then download our 7 Step Guide to Becoming a Personal Trainer.
With online and in-person options available, AFPA’s yoga courses are designed to be flexible and convenient, allowing you to learn and grow at your own pace and on your own schedule.
