Taking Even Two Weeks Off From Your Personal Training Routine in Northbrook, Illinois Can Hurt Your Health, Studies Suggest

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If you’re thinking about taking a couple of weeks off from your personal training regimen, you may want to think again. Some studies and experts suggest that even just 14 days away from a regular personal training schedule can have an immense impact on your physical, mental, and psychological health.

After two weeks without a regular training regimen, your body’s fitness level naturally decreases. And, for those who take a two to eight month hiatus from training, an individual’s fitness level goes back to the level of someone who doesn’t exercise period. The consensus is clear—time away from a fitness training routine can hurt your health and result in lost gains. This is why it is so important to find a qualified and skilled fitness trainer who can motivate you to get started and to maintain a regular routine.

According to Men’s Fitness, after two weeks away from training, individuals not only lose muscle mass, but also are at risk of gaining weight. One exercise physiologist noted that in two weeks, individuals can gain as much as two pounds, if they don’t adjust their diets. After just two weeks, your endurance can go down both in terms of muscular endurance and aerobic endurance.

The effects are not just physical. Time away from regular personal training can also hurt your brain. According to the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, women who engaged in a regular resistance training regimen experienced less of a loss of white matter in their brains. As the brain ages, it naturally loses white matter—the stuff that allows you to think and learn. White matter connects and coordinates information processing in different parts of your brain. Exercising can actually slow down the brain shrinkage that occurs with ageing. We begin to lose white matter in middle age, but the effects of these losses aren’t evident until we are much older. By maintaining a regular fitness training regimen, you prevent these losses before the loss is evident.

The positive effects of seeing your personal trainer are not just cognitive, but emotional as well. When you exercise regularly, you increase the levels of dopamine in your brain. These are “feel good” brain chemicals. When you say goodbye to your fitness trainer for even two weeks, your dopamine levels can go down. The result? You might feel more tired and anxious.

Regular exercise not only improves your mood, your ability to think, and your physical health, it can also help you get a good night’s rest. People who exercise tend to fall into deeper sleep cycles than those who do not exercise.

William Hall, owner of Fit 4 Life Personal Training in Northbrook IL, believes in designing a fitness program that is specifically tailored for each of his clients. Taking into account a clients body type, available days to train, workout experience, and overall goal, he then can create a workout routing that not only gets his clients excited about training, but shows them the results they are striving for.

So, in the final analysis, once you start work with a personal trainer, it is important that you don’t take too much time off from your regular regimen. Furthermore, if you don’t already have a fitness trainer in Northbrook, Illinois, it is never too late to start to enjoy the benefits of regular exercise.