How to get the most from your fitness park visits
Getting the best workout from a gym, fitness centre or a fitness park is not as hard as you might think even if you haven’t worked out before. Your body has several built in sensory systems providing you with real-time feedback on your posture, your exercise form, and your muscular effort. Besides the feedback your body is providing you with, there are some important guiding principles to be familiar with. So, equipped with feedback from your body and an understanding of the guiding principles, you are ready to be your own personal trainer. Let’s take a introductory look at the Top 8 Training Hints to keep in mind whenever you work out:
Introducing the Top 8 Training Tips








1. Warm Up
2. Active Posture
3. Feel the Work
4. Big vs. Small
5. Go Beyond Names
6. Sequencing
7. Range of Motion
8. Recovery
Taking a deep dive into the Top 8 Training Hints








In this space over the next few weeks we’ll be taking a deep dive into the Top 8 Training Hints. These are important topics to consider now that you’ve embarked on a workout program. The Top 8 Hints will help guide you, give you a sense of control, and make you feel a little bit more like your own personal trainer. Each hint is worth exploring as a topic on its own beyond the limited introduction above. We’ll be devoting an entire page to each of these topics:
- Warm Up: Published
- Active Posture: Published
- Feel The Work: Published
- Big vs Small: Published
- Go Beyond Names: Publishing March 1 or earlier
- Sequencing: Publishing March 1 or earlier
- Range of Motion: Publishing March 1 or earlier
- Recovery: Publishing March 1 or earlier
– Windermere community fitness park (WCFP) presents –
The Top 8 Training Hints
Last month we published an article in the Our Story section titled "How to get the most from your fitness park visits". The article briefly presented 8 important training hints to keep in mind as you embark on workout program. Whether you to a gym or Windermere Community Fitness Park, knowledge of these 8 hints will help you to: make good exercise choices, train safely and effectively, and add variety and progressions. Over the next few weeks, we'll go deeper into each of these Top 8 Training Hints. As the deep-dive articles are published, they will appear below.

Top 8 Training Hints: Warm Up
Why is a warm up before exercise important? What changes within the body occur when we warm up before exercising? Will a warm up protect you from injuries? These are all important questions about an essential component of fitness that many people don’t pay a lot of attention to. Let’s take a deep dive into why a warm up should be the first thing anyone does when working out.

Top 8 Training Hints: Active Posture
This deep dive into “active posture” shows you how to recognize, establish, and maintain an anti-gravity stance while you’re exercising. Active posture supports your body under load, helps you sense what your body is doing, and encourages you to use good form while performing any exercise. In a few easy steps, you’ll be an active posture expert. Find out how easy it is to practise active posture in all your daily activities. After all, daily life is full of movement. Movement loves active posture.

Top 8 Training Hints: Feel The Work
Do you let numbers tell you when to end a set? In this training hint, we do an in-depth exploration of “feeling the work” as a guide to ending a set. What do we mean by the term felling the work? You’ll find out how this method pairs with counting, and how together they help to ensure you progress towards your goals. Learn to use your body’s real-time response to each exercise (i.e. local muscle fatigue) as an alternative method of determining the end of a set.

Top 8 Training Hints: Big vs. Small
In this training tip you’ll learn that not all exercises are to be treated equally. Find out how exercises that use a single joint like a biceps curl are contained within bigger, multi-joint exercises like a chin-up, as shown in the header image. You’ll learn how to watch for the active joints in any exercise to then be able to distinguish between big and small movements.

Top 8 Training Hints: Range of Motion
This deep dive into learning how to benefit from a full range of motion for each exercise is coming by June 15.

Top 8 Training Hints: Recovery
This deep dive into learning to pair adequate recovery with each workout is coming by June 15.
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These articles were written to help you make the most out of your Windermere Community Fitness Park visits. Equipped with the right information, you’ll be able to visit the fitness park, workout effectively, and head home knowing that each workout has improved your fitness level, increased your strength and endurance, and helped you maintain your motivation to continue. This kind of practical training knowledge coupled with a free outdoor gym to put these hints to use is priceless, and rare. Please consider donating to Phase Two of the Windermere Community Fitness Park today 🙂
This page was developed and maintained by WCFP Volunteer William Vrabel, NSCA-certified Personal Trainer with more than 30 years of experience working the front lines of Vancouver’s public fitness centres. By the time William retired in 2010, he’d taught 1000’s of citizens how to be their own personal trainer through the empowerment model expressed above.