The fitness industry incorporates numerous disciplines, including yoga, into personal training. Fitness certification companies, such as ACE Fitness, now offer courses for personal trainers who want to use yoga for their clients. An experienced yoga instructor with a deep understanding of human anatomy and an ability to adapt teaching style to suit individuals is essential to yoga personal training. To find a personal yoga coach, contact your local yoga studios or gyms that offer yoga classes.
Significance
Having a personal yoga coach can improve your yoga practice in all areas, including breathing techniques, poses and meditation. It can also help you with other personal fitness goals, such as increased flexibility or balance. Typically, the instruction you receive from a group yoga class is less personalized simply because an instructor does not have time to align each student for each pose taught. In group exercise yoga, you receive more verbal cues and demonstration from the instructor, with occasional hands-on adjustments as time allows. With a yoga personal trainer, expect to receive modifications, physical adjustments and personalized cues according to your needs and goals on a regular basis.
Types
Yoga personal coaches work across a spectrum of needs. A private yoga instructor can help people with special needs or disabilities. Yogis may seek personal yoga coaches for more spiritual endeavors, looking to their instructor as a potential guru. Creator of Baptiste Power Vinyasa Yoga, Baron Baptiste, spent four years working on the coaching staff for the NFL Philadelphia Eagles, incorporating yoga elements to train professional athletes such as Randall Cunningham, Art Monk and Rodney Peete.
Sport Specific
Yoga personal training provides athletes from various sports with flexibility, breathing techniques and physical symmetry. A personal yoga coach might prescribe chest and shoulder opening exercises for golf, baseball or tennis players who work repetitive movements on one side of the body. Founder of Katherine Roberts Yoga for Golfers, Katherine Roberts, works to help golfers relieve common issues such as lower back pain and also does yoga coaching for the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres.
The Yoga Instructor
A personal yoga trainer may have other credentials along with a 200-hour or 500-hour certification from a Yoga Alliance-registered yoga school. Organizations such as the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Council on Exercise offer personal trainer certifications. Your personal yoga coach may have personal training certifications from other disciplines such as Thai massage or physical therapy. When searching for a personal yoga instructor, consider references from their current or previous students along with their education background and experience.
Considerations
A personal yoga coach probably costs much more than a group yoga class. Expect to pay more for an instructor with numerous certifications and degrees. As of 2010, expect to pay at least $40 to $50 per hour for a personal yoga session depending on your location and the instructor's credentials. To save on costs, consider getting another friend or two to join you for private yoga instruction. Your class will be small enough to allow for personalized instruction, while your cost will be a half or a third.
Member Comments