 Are you an every-way woman? All right, so coming up, Heather is going to be talking to us about body blueprint. I have no idea what that is. Do you? Find out right here at Every-Way Woman. When you start working with a personal trainer, they need to do a whole body assessment. Our fitness expert, Heather Benz, is here to tell us about her body blueprint that she does with all her clients. What is a body blueprint? Well, for me, it's the term that I give to the complete fitness assessment that I do with my clientele. So, for example, not only does it involve a body fat assessment and a strength assessment, which is common for most trainers, but in addition, I do a cardiovascular assessment, a flexibility assessment, a physical and balance assessment, and a functional movement screen to really make sure I can make the perfect program for each and every client. So is that like day one? They need to do this with you? Yes, it's the first appointment. Okay, and so what kinds of things do they need to do for you to assess all these items? First, show up. Just comfortably. That's the key. And then it's nothing to be afraid of. It's nothing scary, and it's nothing that it requires a lot of work and causes any pain or anything. It's just me putting them through a series of movements so I can see how their body moves, what's happening in each joint area, so I can not only get them to their goal, whether it may be fat loss or building muscle or training for a race, but at the same time, helping prevent injury in the future because I'm correcting those dysfunctional movement patterns and the imbalances that we have from everyday life. Absolutely. So I don't need to like cram on push-ups if I'm meeting you for the first time? Well, not cram on push-ups, but you may do some. So, you know, I mean, I definitely have knee problems that, you know, I'm prone to those back problems. Are those things that you can tell? Yes, exactly. Based on when we do the screening and how your body moves and the certain movements that I have you go through, it's going to tell me what muscles are underactive or overactive. And basically what that means is which muscles are firing all the time and other muscles are hardly firing at all, so that we can create more of a balance in that muscular system in your body so that we can put you back in one piece so you're moving properly and you're not causing any pain and hopefully no longer feeling the pain that you were before. How much do your shoes matter in, you know, your gait and all that? Well, in regards to running, it's extremely important to have the right running shoes for running because you have to get a gait analysis and that's exactly the word to use. I'm surprised not everyone knows that. Well, you know, because I have my knee problem, so I wonder about that. So when you're doing the assessment, do you say, okay, you run a certain way, you need to get a different shoe before I can even start working with you? Well, that's more on the running side. In the side of doing the body blueprint and everything, that's more when I'm having a client come to me for whatever it may be, strength training. Sometimes it is range training, but then I send them to a running specialist that can actually do the gait analysis on them. I can see the precursors of it, but I actually let someone else do that who specializes in running shoes. I don't specialize in running shoes, but I get them there. But so that's not important with strength training to have? Well, you do want the right shoe, but it's not necessarily one that you have to have your whole gait analyzed. You just want a shoe that's stable. So for example, a lot of times I recommend a cross training shoe. So not only is it stable in a forward and backward motion, but also side to side. And then that's pretty much what you need in the gym. And how much do you work with people as far as what they're eating and their nutrition? All the time. Nutrition is a huge part of getting to any goal, whatever it may be. So I always give nutrition guidance to my clients because that's, to be honest, a majority of it sometimes. Because, you know, I know a lot of people who are like, okay, I'm working out so I can eat whatever I want, like me and chocolate is what I want. Is there truth to that? Yeah, that's true. There are people that do that. And to be honest, when someone does start working out, yes, you can splurge a little bit. And that's part of life. I mean, I'm not telling my clients they can't eat anything that they don't love, because then it wouldn't be realistic. I mean, we all have something. Thank you. We can work together then. Right, exactly. Perfect. But it's about moderation and you can still enjoy those little pleasures in life. It's just about definitely using moderation. But if you don't have your diet on track, can you get the results you want still? You can. I like it. I've never heard that. It's just going to take a lot more hard work on the other aspect, but nutrition is still a part of it. Okay. Because that's what I think about. I'm like, well, it's going to be, you know, like 20 more reps that I'd have to do to work out that little brownie bite. I mean, is that how it plays out, basically? Not necessarily, no. It's different with every client. It depends on what your goal is. It's kind of hard to say in the general terms, but nutrition is a huge part of it. But you still can get away with eating some of the good stuff. Okay. And when you have someone, how long does it take when you do the blueprint to get them on track to like where they can actually do the routine you want them to do? Okay. Well, the blueprint itself usually takes at least an hour, sometimes a little bit more, because I'm really going into the history of the client in regards to medical history, surgeries, physical fitness history, because between all of that and the results that I find, then I'm also finding out what is their goal, because the goal is to get them to where they want to get as quickly as possible. But at the same time, I'm kind of help fixing, correct at the same time. And then we go into a strength program, but the assessment itself is about an hour or so. Okay. So you see, you do it in conjunction. You like fix them and they don't even know it. Sometimes that's the case. All right. Well, I like that. I like your style. Good. So when you're thinking about working with a personal trainer, you really want someone who is going to do a full assessment on you. So whether they call it a body blueprint or whatever, you know, a bit full analysis, they need to make sure they're customizing their workout plan for you. We'll be back with more Every Way Woman. Come with Every Way Woman.