We have many goals and aspirations for our athletes at Adaptive Exercise, but one of the most important is on client progression to their fitness program. Progression can mean a lot of different things, and it may look very different from one client to the next. Some clients may be progressing by learning new exercises, others may be progressing by mastering movements in of course some may be focusing on improving their level of fitness. Whatever progression looks like for your child, it is our job as personal trainers help your child get there. We have many different strategies from ABA to adaptive equipment that aid our personal trainers in the progression of athletes through their fitness programs.
In order to determine if a client is progressing, we must first establish baseline criteria. Establishing these baselines is first done during the assessment period. The assessment period last several sessions, but may vary in length from one athlete to another. During this time personal trainers will administer both formal and informal assessments to determine your child’s level of fitness, abilities and preferences for learning. Similar to how ABA therapy works, our trainers can then use this baseline data and compare it to data over the course of their personal training. This allows us to easily see if a child is progressing through the fitness program. If they’re not progressing we can modify the programming so that they can.
The baseline data collected any assessment period it Is used when developing the Personalized Exercise Plan. The Personalized Exercise Plan is a collection of benchmark goals and objectives that your child can work towards over the course of their fitness programing. The Personalized Exercise Plan is one of the cornerstone tools we use at Adaptive Exercise and is critical in monitoring progression. Our trainers can see if a child is improving their form, learning new exercises accurately, increasing the amount of repetitions or increasing the sets performed in an exercise session. The goals in the Personalized Exercise Plan can then be modified as your child reaches them throughout the course of their training. If a child is not showing a trend of progression in their fitness program, we have many strategies we can utilize to help them reach these goals. One of the main strategies we use has been adopted from ABA therapy. This teaching strategy is known as physical prompting.
Physical prompting is when the personal trainer manipulates the client’s body to perform and exercise or movement. This ABA teaching strategy can be used to improve form, and learn new exercises. Physical prompting can be a very intrusive form of teaching or a less intrusive mode. More intrusive physical prompts should be faded over the course of training. In fact by fading the intrusiveness of a physical prompt, you are showing the child is progressing. Fading physical prompts altogether also shows progression through an exercise program. When physical prompts are utilized to improve exercise form, this process is known as shaping. Oftentimes a child may be able to perform the movement that is similar to the desired exercise, but performed with bad form. In these situations, physical prompts are used to improve the quality of movement. When a child shows the ability to improve this form, they’re showing another style of progression.
There’re many other strategies used by our trainers to aid our clients in progression through their fitness program. Visual supports or another tool used by our trainers at Adaptive Exercise. Visual supports can mean many different things. A visual support may be as simple as a trainer modeling a movement prior to the client performing it. This style of visual support is known as physical modeling. Physical modeling can be very useful inciting a clear exercise expectation, and to display proper form or technique. Sometimes these prompts I put replaced and used over the course of their personal training. Other times these physical models can be faded over the course of the personal training. In these cases a child is showing progression by increasing their level of independence by no longer meeting physical models to perform exercises accurately. Other styles of visual supports are through hand, foot, arrow, and spot markers. These markers are rubber cutouts of hands, feet, arrows and circles, that help clients understand the exercise expectation and the movements they will be performing. For example a child who is going to be forming a standing rotational movement, may have a circle spot marker to Indicate where they should stand and to arrow markers indicating the directions they will be turning. These visual supports make it so I trainer does not need to explain the exercise solely through language or physical modeling. Similar to other styles of visual supports, as they are faded the child is showing a another level of progression.
Auditory supports or modified language is another way we can prompt athletes to progress to their fitness programs. Some of these strategies are utilized in ABA therapy and speech therapy. One of the most significant auditory supports we use is modified language. Children on the spectrum display a wide range of receptive language abilities. Our trainers modify the language used in each session so who our clients can understand language easier. This means using fewer words and only the most necessary language. Instead of using complex verbal instruction to present a new exercise, the trainer can modify the language into a 3 to 4 word utterances to communicate the same message.
All of these strategies can help benefit our clients in learning and progressing through their fitness programs. Much of them have been borrowed from other autism therapies such as ABA, speech and language therapy, physical therapy and occupational therapy. They have been borrowed from these other more established therapies, because they have been proven to be effective. We strive to offer the highest level of adaptive personal training for people on the spectrum at Adaptive Exercise. No matter what level of support your child needs, it is our responsibility to support them in the progression through their fitness program.