Putting the personal in personal training
It’s been a long held belief thanks mostly to main stream media that a session with a personal trainer is going to be a smash fest! You are going to walk in and crawl out a sweaty mess. Now some people want that but often that isn’t what needs to happen. Modern life brings with it a sedentary bias of sitting for most work and sitting for most travel so we find ourselves starting to change shape both posturally and waistline if we don’t add in other activities that are going to reverse some of this over time.
At Fit 4 Life a holistic view is taken. No preconceived ideas. No ‘smash you’ workouts planned inadavnce. There is no pre-ordained session before the client enters the room. Yes, there is some planning but this needs to have flexibility in it depending on how the client presents on the day.
Initial assessments are the way in which we stay on track with goals but session to session there is a check in system which allows the client to communicate how they are feeling. These cover, SLEEP, NUTRITION, HYDRATION, MOVEMENT, ENERGY, BODY, and STRESS. Each is scored out of 10 to give a score out of 70. This is a great indicator as to whether the client is ready for a gentle session or a tougher session. We work to where they are at, all the time.
Understanding the systems of the body is crucial factor in being a good PT. That stress score at the end is something that affects every system in the body so if a client is highly stressed there is no point in piling more stress into their system with a really tough workout it’s just going to make them feel more tired and harder to bounce back from the next day.
If sleep is low and energy matches that then again it’s not wise to be hitting it hard in the gym until those levels are higher and the body is in a position to tolerate more challenging movements and loads. If there are injuries – which would come up in the ‘body’ score then again, this needs to be accommodated so movement can occur but not as intense. A draining session can keep you on the path to burnout potentially and that takes the fun out of exercising!
It’s always about where you are at coming into a session then maximising the opportunity we have during that time to achieve goals but also working on the things that may have come up in the assessment session so that you have a more robust and resilient body from head to toe. There are so many things that make up ‘Health’ and so healthy movement is a large component of that word.