Our Services
SYNERGY Fitness Professionals
Synergy Fitness Systems was designed with the idea of putting the “personal” back into personal training. Each Fit Pro at Synergy Fitness Systems designs their workouts for their clients individually to ensure greater success. We have also adopted the 6 Components of Fitness and the NASM OPT Model. The gym is a tool, and like with any tool, you will only achieve your desired result when that tool is used correctly.
Accountability
All clients are given daily workout cards along with daily food logs. The client is required to keep these cards in a binder, which will become their new “best friend.” Every time that the client comes to Synergy Fitness, they are to log their workouts. Everyday the client is expected to accurately log what they have eaten. If you bite it, write it!
Prior to every appointment the trainer will review each client’s binder and discuss their recent workouts and eating habits. There are 168 hours in a week. If you are working with your Fit Pro for 3 of those hours, what are you doing outside of the gym during the other 165 hours to ensure your success?
Measurements
You and your Fit Pro will decide how often is right for you to take your circumference and body fat percentage measurements. We generally recommend every four to six weeks.
At Synergy Fitness Systems, our Fit Pros don’t do anything ‘just because.” There is a rationale behind every component of our client’s fitness profile. Work smarter, not harder. Get off the machines and get to your goal sooner.
Cardio/Conditioning
You and your Fit Pro will discuss the type of cardio that is right for you. After determining your target heart rate, the F.I.T.T. (frequency, intensity, time, type) Principle must be utilized in order to not only get you to your goals safely, but also in the shortest amount of time possible. The human body tends to move in four to six week adaptation cycles, which makes adjusting your F.I.T.T. very important. Your Fit Pro will know just the right combination for you to keep your body from adapting to your cardio program and keep you on track to reaching your goal.
Warm-up
Each client is given a warm-up that has been individually designed to correct any muscle imbalances that they may have in order to correct posture, improve muscle balance, and enhance muscle function. These imbalances are uncovered during the Fitness Assessment.
Flexibility
Flexibility exercises are incorporated into every warm up and cool down. Additional stretches can be added at your request or as your Fit Pro determines necessary.
Core and Balance Training
Core and Balance Training programs are designed specifically for your fitness level. The core is the beginning point for human movement and the center of gravity for the body. If the core is unstable during movement, it does not allow for optimal stabilization and force reduction, production, and force transference to occur throughout the body.
Balance Training is key to all functional movements. Balance is a component of all movements, regardless of whether strength, speed, flexibility, or endurance dominates the movement. Balance is often though of as a static (without movement) process. However, functional balance is a dynamic process involving multiple neurological pathways. If an exercise is performed without adequate stability and balance it will not be performed correctly, and the possibilities of creating muscle imbalance and possibly causing injury are greatly increased.
Integrated Strength Training
Traditionally strength training is thought of as using machines to throw heavy weights around. However for MOST, this is unnecessary to reach their goal. There are over 3,000 exercises to do in a gym without even TOUCHING a machine! For some clients with specific goals, machines can be a great place to start. For the vast majority of clients, machines are terrible. Think about it. When on a machine you are ALWAYS in an artificially stabilized environment. This does nothing at all for core strength, stability, or balance.
You are using fewer muscles, which will cause you to burn fewer calories, taking you longer to lower your body fat percentage.
You are almost always moving in one direction (front to back). The human body is designed to move in three directions. Front to back, side to side, and in a twisting or rotating motion. As explained above, your body tends to adapt to your workouts. It’s called the S.A.I.D. (specific adaptation to imposed demands) Principle. So if you want to get really good at moving front to back, keep on those machines.
Next, your range of motion is limited. Depending on your goal, a limited range of motion can be a very important aspect of your success, however for the majority of gym members, it’s not! Throughout life, your range of motion isn’t limited, so why train your body to function with limited range of motion?
On machines you are primarily working prime mover muscles. You have a lot of small muscles that surround your joins and they have a job to do. That job is to stabilize the joint. These muscles aren’t challenged to a great degree during machine exercises. The more muscles you activate during an exercise, the more calories of energy you will burn. Would it make sense that if you get off the machine and start to use more of these stabilizers that you will burn more calories and in turn lower your body fat percentage sooner?
Lastly, they are COMPLETELY non-functional (they don’t help you in your daily activities). How often throughout the day do you find yourself lying on your back trying to push 500 lbs. with your legs? Doing exercises that mirror functional movements (movements that you actually perform) can help you to avoid injury and enhance how your body moves and feels all while reaching your goals.
Machines would be awesome if throughout our daily lives we never had to stabilize ourselves, we walked like robots, moved on a computer track, and every movement we made was well calculated and scripted five minutes ahead of time. Since we are human, that’s not the case. We need functional training. You need to incorporate the National Academy of Sports Medicines Optimum Performance Training Model (NASM OPT Model) into your workouts.
Reactive Training
Reactive Training is separate from core and balance training because an individual must possess proper core strength and have an ability to balance efficiently prior to performing reactive exercises. The ability to react and generate force is crucial to overall function and safety during human movement. Reactive Training is sometimes referred to as “plyometric” training. Traditionally this form of training has been primarily associated with performance athletes, however anyone with any goal can benefit from reactive training. Whether you are catching a pass in mid air or simply stepping off of a curb, your body must react to this change in environment. There are many different levels of Reactive Training and your Fit Pro will progress you accordingly.
Cool Down
The purpose of the cool down is to slowly decrease your heart rate. The cool down is another place where clients are given stretches to correct current muscular imbalances as well as reset muscle length to prevent new imbalances from forming.