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Fitness and Body Imagery
Published in: “How Can Trainers Help Clients Get Past Body Image Hang-Ups…?” IDEA Personal Trainer Feb. 2001: 55-59.
Thanks in no small part to the media, people are now more fitness savvy than ever. Unfortunately, because perfect bodies seem to boost sales, with the same media sources comes an unprecedented emphasis on, and preoccupation with, body imagery. As personal training educators, our responsibility to our clients requires that we de-emphasize the sometimes over-zealous attention that the media gives to the external advantages that we reap from fitness, and concentrate instead on its internal benefits.
As we work with out clients, we need to remind them that, whether their goal be to maintain or to improve their fitness level, fitness itself works from the inside out and consists of training the breath, mind, and body. We also must reiterate the fact that fitness is always individual-specific, and that genetics play a role in individualized results. We must make sure that our participants know that common fitness goals such as balance betterment, improved muscular strength and definition, breath awareness and control, improved functional stability, and increased proprioception, all occur on the inside. Training itself has nothing to do with external body changes; they are a secondary effect. We also should discuss with our clients the fact that so much of “media fitness” is computer enhanced and does not always display models with average, realistic bodies. “When someone shows me a picture of a model with something like 4% bodyfat,” Lawrence Biscontini states, “I always ask my client how healthy and fit this model probably is in real life.”
Personal trainers can help clients avoid preoccupation with unrealistic body imagery by managing how they track their clients’ progress. Tracking fitness progress should use criteria that includes subjective, non-quantifiable factors instead of exclusively using weights, numerical measurements, and fitness tests. Using open-ended questions will help, such as “How do you feel with this weight?,” “How do you feel now on the stability ball compared to a few weeks ago before we began?,” and “Tell me about how your clothes are fitting you compared to a month ago before we began our program.” Such a technique will avoid promoting body-image hang-ups because it focuses on fitness from inside, on what the client can do and feel, instead of what the client can see. Personal trainers further can help clients avoid distorted body imagery in fitness by manipulating the physical environment. First of all, magazines and posters that display “perfect” proportioned individuals should not be posted everywhere in a facility because people with body image hang-ups, already very vulnerable in the gym setting, will only feel more uncomfortable discouraged by seeing such media-enforced imagery. Trainers who want to recognize its successful clients may wish to replace traditional, media-generated (and graphically enhanced) posters with pictures of their actual clients on their trainer bulletin board, for example.
Trainers should also consider carefully the use of mirrors. Many people who feel self-conscious about their body imagery are already uncomfortable with facing themselves on their own free time in the mirror. If we as trainers spend the majority of each routine having these uncomfortable clients face the mirror consistently, we may increase their discomfort. Instead, develop their proprioception and increase their body awareness by depending less on the use of mirrors and more on their internal awareness. Since part of the trainer’s responsibility is to assess a client’s form at all times during specific exercises anyway, removing the mirror does not mean removing the trainer’s guidance.
Trainers should be aware when clients display a preoccupation with body image to the extent that it inhibits their quality of life. Although the job of the personal trainer is not to serve as counselor with body image disorders, recognizing when a client may need a referral to a trained mental health professional is key. The internet holds valuable resources for self-education regarding distorted body imagery, and the following resources provide assistance in promoting an understanding of healthy body imagery: www.calstatela.edu/faculty/nthomas/index.htm, http://www.guidedimageryinc.com/, http://www.datehookup.com/content-beyond-physical-appearances-a-guide-to-anorexia.htm, and http://www.anad.org/.
In dealing with clients, personal trainers should always promote positive reinforcement that deals with process and progress instead of perfection. It’s important to be able to play down the media-generated role of fitness as an “image” and emphasize instead the role of fitness as an internal function that is not image-dependent, but based on the general, internal quality of energy in one’s daily life activities.
Lawrence Biscontini, M.A, works as Group Exercise Manager and Dietary Counselor for the Golden Door Spa in Puerto Rico. A Resist-A-Ball International Master Trainer, AFAA Specialist, Reebok Resolution presenter, and creator of Yo-Chi,™ Lawrence forms part of major fitness continuing education faculty, and writes for fitness sources as ACE Faculty News, AFAA Theory & Practice, and AsiaFit.
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