Kelsey Graham

For many new clients, weight loss is a primary goal. A number on the scale, however, is only a glimpse of what’s shifting in your client’s body (and mind) and offers limited information to inform his or her progress. This article explores alternative metrics that you, as a health and exercise professional, can use to assess your clients on their behavior-change journey.

Are you looking to expand your reach by incorporating health coaching into your practice? Get answers to some of the most common questions around health coaching and learn about the best practices of successful coaches.

To foster healthy, sustainable change, it’s not enough to simply offer nutritional education or exercise programming. Rather, clients need to feel safe discussing and dismantling their fears around changing their eating, movement and other lifestyle habits. This article explores the challenges many clients face when addressing their health behaviors and offers strategies health coaches and exercise professionals can use to navigate them.

For many new clients, weight loss is a primary goal. A number on the scale, however, is only a glimpse of what’s shifting in your client’s body (and mind) and offers limited information to inform his or her progress. This article explores alternative metrics that you, as a health and exercise professional, can use to assess your clients on their behavior-change journey.

With the increased recognition of the value of health coaching, many health and exercise professionals are looking to expand their reach by incorporating coaching strategies into their practices. This article explores some of the most common questions around health coaching and highlights the best practices of successful coaches.

Chronic stress often disrupts health behaviors and has a profound impact on overall well-being. This article explores the behavioral consequences of stress and highlights strategies coaches and trainers can use to boost clients’ stress resiliency, bringing them closer to their health and fitness goals.

Learn about the physiological underpinnings of stress, its impact on various bodily systems and useful strategies for navigating it.

Chronic stress often disrupts health behaviors and has a profound impact on overall well-being. This article explores the behavioral consequences of stress and highlights strategies coaches and trainers can use to boost clients’ stress resiliency, bringing them closer to their health and fitness goals.

To foster healthy, sustainable change, it’s not enough to simply offer nutritional education or exercise programming. Rather, clients need to feel safe discussing and dismantling their fears around changing their eating, movement and other lifestyle habits. This article explores the challenges many clients face when addressing their health behaviors and offers strategies health coaches and exercise professionals can use to navigate them.

Abdominal bracing cues like “Stomach tight!” and “Squeeze your core!” tend to encourage an abdominal bracing strategy in which individuals produce large amounts of muscular force to stabilize the spine. When used too often or in the wrong context, however, this strategy becomes problematic. This article explores the effectiveness of core bracing cues and offers alternatives for achieving spinal stability during movement.

Core stability—and the muscles and methods to achieve it—are hot topics in the health and fitness industry. We program corrective exercises designed to facilitate the transverse abdominis or activate the spinal erectors, but pay little attention to the dome-shaped muscle between them. If you want to help your clients develop core stability that comes from the inside out, it’s time to turn your attention to the diaphragm.

Don't overlook the impacts your mindset can have on your overall health. Learn about how your thoughts affect your health and the science behind this.

Abdominal bracing cues like “Stomach tight!” and “Squeeze your core!” tend to encourage an abdominal bracing strategy in which individuals produce large amounts of muscular force to stabilize the spine. When used too often or in the wrong context, however, this strategy becomes problematic. This article explores the effectiveness of core bracing cues and offers alternatives for achieving spinal stability during movement and sport

Core stability—and the muscles and methods to achieve it—are hot topics in the health and fitness industry. We program corrective exercises designed to facilitate the transverse abdominis or activate the spinal erectors, but pay little attention to the dome-shaped muscle between them. If you want to help your clients develop core stability that comes from the inside out, it’s time to turn your attention to the diaphragm.

Your clients and participants look to you to be the fitness expert, but do you ever feel more like a fitness fraud? Imposter syndrome is especially common among newly certified health and exercise professionals, but even those with years of experience are not immune. This article explores these uncomfortable feelings and highlights the strategies other health and exercise professionals have used to overcome them.

Health at Every Size (HAES) is a weight-neutral approach that refutes the idea that overweight and obesity cause adverse health outcomes. This article explores the research supporting and refuting HAES, and offers strategies to encourage healthy behavior change among clients who struggle with excess weight.

Your clients and participants look to you to be the fitness expert, but do you ever feel more like a fitness fraud? Imposter syndrome is especially common among newly certified health and exercise professionals, but even those with years of experience are not immune. This article explores these uncomfortable feelings and highlights the strategies other health and exercise professionals have used to overcome them.

The gluteus maximus may get all the attention, but you shouldn’t overlook the gluteus medius. Here are six glute med exercises to add to your workouts.

While sticking to a New Year’s resolution can feel like an impossible task, positive change in health and fitness is achievable. The key to your success is to shift your focus from what you resolve to do to how you’ll do it. Here are four proven strategies for making sure you actually follow through on your resolutions this year.

As a health and fitness pro, one of your most important jobs is keeping your participants safe and helping them develop proper exercise form. However, when offering safety and form cues, you could be inadvertently worsening participants’ confidence in their ability to perform the exercises. Rather than ignore potentially unsafe situations, use the following strategies to improve participants’ perceptions of their own abilities, while also providing them with safe and effective workouts.

Diabetes has become increasingly common in the United States, which means that, as a health and fitness professional, you likely work with clients who have type 2 diabetes. To kick off Diabetes Awareness Month, here are six important factors to consider when working with clients with type 2 diabetes.

All participants come to your class looking for a great workout, but they also arrive with unique goals, preferences, limitations and fitness levels. Faced with such diversity, it can be difficult to create a class that is safe, motivating and challenging for every individual. Learn the keys to creating a health-enhancing experience by looking beyond the masses and personalizing your clients’ group fitness experience.

You’ve likely heard of the metabolism-boosting, blood sugar-lowering and cardioprotective benefits of exercise, but are you aware of its powerful depression- and anxiety-reducing effects? Here are six proven way to improve your mental and emotional health through exercise.

Motivational interviewing is a client-centered counseling style that encourages healthy behavior change. Whether you are helping clients adopt healthier eating habits, stress-reduction strategies or regular physical activity, you can use these motivational interviewing strategies to enhance client autonomy and success.

Self-esteem is a strong factor in individuals’ overall wellbeing and happiness. As an instructor, you have an incredible opportunity to improve the self-esteem of every individual that walks through your door. Here are six ways to improve participant self-esteem in your group fitness classes.

If you struggle to find time for activity, it’s time to think beyond the sets and reps. Here are seven ways to get more movement into your day.

These 5 effective balance exercises will strengthen your core & improve your balance. Learn more with ACE!

When it comes to sticking with an exercise program, even the most devoted fitness enthusiasts face challenges. To avoid a fitness relapse, it’s helpful to recognize potential barriers to exercise and develop plans to overcome them. Here are some of the biggest obstacles you may face in maintaining a physical activity regimen and strategies to avoid them.

A little pre-exercise prep and post-workout replenishment go a long way in improving your health and fitness results. Here are six strategies that can help you avoid injury, maximize training and reap the greatest benefits from your workout routine.

Losing weight isn’t easy, but keeping the weight off often proves even more challenging for most people. Fortunately, researchers have uncovered some of the traits and long-term strategies that can help increase your chances of successfully keeping the weight off. Here are seven keys to achieving and maintaining a healthy weight over the long term.

If you’re looking to enhance your mood, save money and avoid the time and trouble of getting to the gym, look no further than the great outdoors.

Hunger is your body’s way of telling you it needs food, but if you’re like most people, you sometimes eat for reasons that reflect other forms of hunger. Understanding the complex nature of hunger and appetite can help you differentiate when you’re truly hungry and when your hunger signals may reflect other needs.

Low-back pain is a common and debilitating condition. With a proper routine, however, you can strengthen your core and gluteal muscles and reduce your injury risk. Try this effective and efficient core-strengthening workout, which can be performed with nothing but your body weight—at home, in the gym or at the office.

Health is holistic, and an excessive focus on the physical can discount or disrupt other areas. As a group fitness instructor, you can have a deeper impact on your participants’ lives by incorporating the following strategies, which target multiple components of health.

After the whirlwind of parties and obligations that mark the holiday season, many of us start the New Year feeling totally wiped. It’s time to make a change. Here are four ways to avoid burnout this holiday season.