Ready to Work Out ... on Mt. Everest?
This New Year's Eve, Mercy Valencia, 49, plans to hike Peru's Machu Picchu with her sister and two brothers. Last August she began walking a few mornings a week near her home in Tucson, Ariz., to get in shape. By October, Valencia was worried she wasn't getting fit fast enough for the millennial adventure.
So she called Steve Canis, a personal trainer. A former bodybuilder and martial arts instructor, Canis, 51, is among a new breed of fitness coaches shifting the focus of training from weightlifting to heart-pumping aerobic regimes, often performed outdoors. Canis incorporates such diverse elements as yoga and karate moves into workouts.
A glut of personal trainers is making such private exercise sessions affordable for those inspired by Oprah and other celebrities who prance up mountainsides rather than heft dumbbells in the gym. The American Council on Exercise (ACE) estimates that the number of people taking its trainer-certification exam has risen by 200 percent over the past four years. Norma Shechtman, a trainer at the Sports Club/Irvine in Southern California, says requests for nontraditional instruction have doubled over the past five years.
Going faster. Jennifer Koffler, 34, of Corona del Mar, Calif., who started participating in sprint distance triathlons four years ago, says she hired a trainer to help her get in shape for the half-mile swim, 3-mile run, and 14-mile bike segments each race requires. This year, her finishing time in the Pacific Coast Triathlon was eight minutes faster than her first attempt.
Multitrainers often plan aerobic adventures for those they train. Michael Wood, the owner of Sports Performance Group in Cambridge, Mass., whose clients have included playwright David Mamet and public-radio-show host Christopher Lydon, leads fat-burning jaunts up the steep steps at Harvard University's football stadium. In Chicago, trainer Tom Cronin led a group in skipping along the city's lakefront.
At minimum, an instructor should have a certification from a top fitness group--the American College of Sports Medicine, the American Council on Exercise, or the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America. Give preference to those with a four-year degree in exercise science, physiology, or kinesiology. And always ask for references. On average, trainers charge $25 to $40 an hour, though they can cost $100 or more in some areas, like Los Angeles.
Aficionados say multitrainers can change your life. Public radio's Lydon, 59, who says he could still be mistaken for a 99-pound weakling, says his two years of regular training eased his way up Mount Madison in New England's White Mountains, his first serious hiking trip.
This story appears in the November 8, 1999 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.