What are the special fitness programs?

Common specialized fitness projects mainly focus on three major directions: the improvement of specific sports performance, the health needs of special groups, and adaptation to specific occupations/scenarios. They include specialized physical training for competitions, sports rehabilitation for chronic diseases, maternal and childbirth fitness, special physical fitness for teenagers, special occupational physical reserves, and extreme environment adaptation training.

I have been a fitness coach for almost 8 years. My earliest exposure to special fitness was working as a sparring assistant for the provincial sprint team. Only then did I realize how big the gap between special fitness and general fitness is - what ordinary people pursue when practicing deadlifts is heavy weight and good-looking hip and leg lines. We set up the equipment for athletes. When calculating deadlift variations, even the stance distance and hip angle must be adjusted to the angle of force exerted during running. The weight-bearing mode must also correspond to the force exerting characteristics of the three stages of starting, running on the way, and sprinting. All the training is about abilities that can be directly converted into competition results, without any pretense.

If competitive specialties are too far away from ordinary people, then you have most likely heard of or come into contact with special fitness for daily needs. Two years ago, I took over a client who was 3 months pregnant. She was pregnant with twins. She gained weight too fast while walking and was found to be at high risk for gestational diabetes. The plan I gave her was completely adjusted according to the gestational age: in the early stage, she focused on low-intensity aerobic training to control blood sugar, and in the mid-term, she switched to core stabilization and waist protrusion training. She specializes in labor and pelvic floor muscle control in the late pregnancy. Even her postpartum repairs were customized based on her 2.5-finger separation of the rectus abdominis. During the entire pregnancy, her weight only increased by 22 pounds, and there was no leakage of urine after the natural birth. This is the value of the special pregnancy and childbirth program. Ordinary fitness coaches would not dare to take it.

There are also some specialties that are more subdivided and even designed specifically for specific professions. Last summer, our gym received a training order from the local forest fire brigade. At first, I thought it was to train endurance and strength. But after I got the training, I realized that what they wanted was "physical fitness that can be used on missions": the continuous explosive power to climb a 40-degree steep slope while carrying 20 pounds of equipment, and wearing anti-virus protection. The cardiopulmonary endurance of continuous work under the high temperature of the mask, and the core control of crawling over obstacles while carrying a 120-pound person. All training movements are designed to simulate actual rescue scenarios. After training, I went to the mountainous area to train, and my performance directly improved by 15%. This is the meaning of special occupation specialization.

In fact, there is a lot of debate in the industry about the boundaries of specialized fitness. Many practitioners believe that any training with a clear goal can be considered a specialty, such as fat loss and muscle gain. However, many coaches who are deeply involved in vertical fields believe that only those that are out of the general goal of mass fitness and have clear vertical scenarios or special group attributes can be considered special. Otherwise, the threshold for specialization will be set too low and people with real needs will be deceived. To be honest, I myself have met many people who clearly have lumbar prolapse and follow Internet celebrities to practice high-intensity abdominal muscle training. The more they practice, the more severe the pain becomes. If they had found a special fitness program for lumbar spine rehabilitation earlier, they might have been relieved by most of it. To put it bluntly, whether it is called "special" or not, the training that can 100% meet your own needs and not blindly train is the most suitable training for you.