A Plea To The Fitness Industry

I am posting this on the blog with hopes you will add this link to your Facebook page, and that you will forward it to any fitness professionals you know.  Next week I will resume my usual posts.  Thanks for your help:

To all fitness professionals:

For those of you lucky enough to work in the fitness industry, I ask that you start to question about where the industry is going.  I know research backs the effectiveness of metabolic/interval/HIIT/boot camp type training programs.  I have read the studies promoting the effectiveness of HIIT for even deconditioned people, and yet I ask if this is the path the fitness industry should take. 

Look at any of the brochures for fitness conferences and you will see at least a three to one ratio of hard core type classes compared to those designed for the less fit.  Certainly a few sedentary people may brave (and succeed at) high intensity classes, but, we are preaching to the converted.  Most of those who love these high intensity workouts do not need us.  They would work out on their own.  We are missing the huge inactive population, and I believe, turning them off.  High intensity may be effective, but it is not going to draw the sedentary into fitness.  The beauty of HIIT may be that you can achieve better results in less time, but many in the industry seem to promote it as an excuse to workout harder and harder.

If you are only out to make money then you may not care whether we reach the inactive.  However, most of us got into fitness because we love it and want to share it with and help others.  We cannot reach the majority by training the minority.  I am not saying to give up on HIIT or on training the fit. However, we do not need to spend so much of our time finding new ways to make exercises harder and more complex. The inactive make up the majority of our population.  If we work together to find a way to reach them, we will have more clients and have made a real contribution to the health of our nation.