MANILA, Philippines - Pick up any health or fashion magazine and you will find fitness tips are a dime a dozen. Finding the right one that suits your body needs, however, is the real challenge.
Fitness guru Jamie Howell knows this.It was one of the many things she stressed during her visit to the country where she conducted an eight-hour workshop, which drew over 100 participants, as the global ambassador of Trigger Point’s revolutionary fitness and condition program called the SMRT-Core Grid.
Howell, however, admitted that programs require a certain level of enthusiasm on the part of the clients because of the amount of effort involved. In fact, she said, “Health is a lifetime commitment.”
And she should know. Her experience as a mother to three children has guided her through finding the right program for those fitness-seekers who knock on her door. She gives them various modifications with the SMRT-Core Grid, depending on what their interests are.
“I prescribe a program that the client enjoys. If you don’t enjoy the program, you won’t stick with it. You’ve got to go with your passion,” Howell said.
And after all of that is considered, she factors in one more important detail, one that allows the program to stay with your body’s range of capabilities.
“I also look at other factors like age and fitness level. For first-timers, I prescribe two to three days a week of light workouts before slowly increasing the intensity,” she said.
This is important because even with professional athletes, programs have to be sport-specific. These are guys who make a living out of being fit and even they are prone to over training. That is why Howell makes sure that every program she recommends does not push the client beyond his or her limits. And the program should always fit the client’s needs.
Howell is huge on the Grid because it dispenses with the notion that you have to be in a specific place to work out, like a gym. Normally, people with fitness problems tend to put off working themselves back into shape because of excuses such as having no time to travel to the gym, pay expensive gym fees or equipment or simply have no time, period.
The Grid eliminates all of those reasons. With it, all you really need is the unwavering commitment to get healthy and stay healthy.
This is the same reason why professional athletes also rely a lot on the Grid. Hockey, soccer, American football and basketball pros lug them around during travels. In the NBA, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Denver Nuggets have been known to travel with the Grid because it can be used practically everywhere.
Exclusively distributed by SportFit Inc. in the country, the Trigger Point products, including the Grid and other high-tech conditioning tools, equipment and facilities, are available at Sportfit Inc.’s Wellness Concept stores at Greenbelt 5, Powerplant Mall Rockwell, Shangri-la Mall, SM Mall of Asia, TriNoma and Ayala Center Cebu, according to Goody Custodio, business development manager of SportFit Inc., which organized the Howell workshop.
Of course, using the Grid won’t make one the next NBA superstar. Fitness is still a combination of a lot of things, with factors such as nutrition playing a vital role in it.
In fact, Howell urged clients to go to nutrition experts to help complement the programs that she created for them.
She, however, recommended that clients take more than just water to rehydrate themselves. Water, she said, does not replenish electrolytes and flush out toxins as effectively without other nutritional hydration tools.
What is certain is this: With her programs and the help of the SMRT-Core Grid, everyone, even beginners, can jump-start their way to a more fit and healthy lifestyle.