Client Case Study

A Personal Trainer in Glasgow’s Thoughts….

FEMALE CLIENT CASE STUDY

Thought we’d look at an interesting case study from my new client Siobhan that started in January. The following results are after 8 weekly sessions of training at our personal training studio in Glasgow City training with myself.

SIOBHNAS BACKGROUND

• Female.

• Mid 30’s.

• Vegetarian.

• Body weight in the healthy BMI category.

• Noticed over the last few years a gradual reduction on her fitness levels, i.e getting out of breath going up stairs and just not feeling as fit as she used to.

• Had lost weight a few years ago but had regained gradually over time.

• Had done her own research prior to coming and with a medical background had good insights into her fitness needs. Siobhan felt she needed to put on more muscle but wasn’t averse to losing some body fat along the way.

• Exercise background is light running, yoga and Pilates but very little gym/ resistance training.

• Goals- improve general fitness, muscle health and body composition.

FIRST BODY COMPOSITION ANALYSES

• Healthy weight/ BMI

• 6 stone 11 pounds of lean tissue

• 39.2% Body Fat

• Level 6 Visceral Fat (abdominal fat)

Siobhan’s body composition results did indeed support her intuition that her lean tissue levels (muscle) were below the optimal range. The minimum range of optimal lean tissue score for her sex, height and weight should be 8 stone (approx 70%), while she scored 6 stone 11 pounds (60%). Ideally, we wanted to increase her lean tissue by 17 pounds.

Her body fat scores were above the optimal range, coming in at 39.2% body fat when an optimal range should be between 32%-21% for females of her age group. This is quite often the case in people with lower levels of muscle, as less muscle means any extra energy consumed in diet will be converted into body fat rather than metabolised in muscle. This is why we must always prioritise maintaining muscle when while losing body fat.

THE PLAN

When we analysed Siobhan’s diet, she scored low in dietary protein but doing great with plant sources. The low protein levels in her diet were making it more likely she would continue to lose muscle in the future. The low protein in her diet would also encouraging her to snack more often as meals weren’t as satiating.

Below are some of the process goals we set in order to help Siobhan start towards her goal of increasing her muscle mass.

• Increase dietary protein intake to a minimum of 1.6 grams per kg of ideal bod weight but aiming for ideally 2grams per kg of ideal body weight on weight training days.

• We helped her identify good sources of protein for vegetarians,

• One hard weekly advanced training session in the studio with me working on specific exercises suited to her needs.

• Specially designed home programme on the app that contained 4 workouts with just three exercises to stimulate muscle growth and get her into the habit of regular exercising without getting overwhelmed, designed specifically around her fitness and strength balance. These workouts would be gradually progressed and updated.

• Regular chats about nutrition to make sure she was on track and advice to address practical issues she encountered.

• Regular body composition weigh-ins to make sure she was on track.

SIOBHANS RESULTS

When we checked Siobhan’s progress on the body composition scales on her 8th session we were delighted with her progress. The results were as followed.

• 7-pound lean tissue gain to 7 stone 4 pounds of lean tissue.

• 3.6% body fat reduction to 35.6% Body Fat.

• Drop in Visceral Fat to level 5 (abdominal fat), which was a one level classification reduction.

CONCLUSION

Really pleased for Siobhan, she’s made a great start in the first 8 weeks of her personal training sessions, and well on her way to reaching her goals. She took on our advice and managed to integrate it into her daily habits and got some impressive results.

Siobhan’s results support my view that when you regularly stimulate the muscle with resistance training, even small amounts like three exercises a day, while delivering the necessary building block through diet, the body will respond and start to increase muscle.

As Siobhan starts to increase her muscle mass, she will also increase her body’s ability to burn body fat, as muscles are the main furnaces that burn energy. Our job will be to keep progressing her workouts sufficiently to keep those muscles stimulated and encouraging them to develop further.

If you’re a female looking to improve her muscular health get in touch with us.