Let me start off with a story about how I help match a client’s identity to a healthy lifestyle and let’s call him Fred.
Fred is a business and family man. He works 8-10 hours a day in the office and comes home to a wife and either plays or helps the kids with their homework. I’ve seen Fred 3 days a week, every single week over the last 2 years. We exercise early in the morning with a combination of cardio and free weights. While Fred sits the majority of the time he is at work we always start with a dynamic warm-up routine that is tailored towards increasing blood flow for exercise and increasing range of motion in key areas like core, hips, shoulders, ankles, low back, and even breathwork.
Following is a treadmill run or I’ll run alongside him outside during the spring, summer, and fall. It is important he gets outside for exercise to take in the sunrise and fresh air before heading into the office. All runs are done with intervals to better utilize the 20-30 minutes allocated for running during the session.
For the remaining time of the 60-minute session, here are Fred’s current exercises he is working on;
- Hanging Knee Tuck
- Barbell Deadlift
- Dumbbell Goblet Squat
- Dumbbell Lateral Step-up (just the foot, no step)
- Dumbbell Bird Dog Row (on the bench)
- Dumbbell Bicep Curl to Shoulder Press
And here is why and which exercise benefits (#, #); during the winter months, Fred is a downhill skier (treadmill, 2, 3, 5), an avid snowmobiler, and a newly jet skier which needs a lot of strength and stability in the shoulders to help steer (1, 5) and as well in the lower body to help maneuver (1, 2, 3). In the summer, Fred is a fun family man taking hiking trips (treadmill), loading up the pontoon (2, 3, 4), and tossing his 4 kids around in the water (2, 3, 5, 6).
Fred is not done with just exercise, he has made great strides with making healthier decisions about what he eats. Although being a hard-working businessman, his workplace doesn’t offer a situation in which he can eat a premade lunch. This forces him to eat out while at work. But, he has learned healthy options and portion control to better maintain his energy and fitness level. This helped him be able to keep his already set routine and proceed with his life- and work-style. When home, Fred makes good choices for breakfast and dinners, while keeping to the 80/20 rule and occasionally dipping into some of the kids’ snacks.
During our off days, Fred is active with family after work.
And that’s Fred.
Most often when I hear people talk about starting to exercise, it is to help them look and feel better; which makes sense. The fitness world advertises the positive benefits of regular exercise and its effects on the physical and mental state of a person’s well-being. While general activity is a great start; do the type of exercises you do matter?
Yes, it really does matter. A question a person often forgets to ask themselves when starting their healthy lifestyle is, ”how can healthy habits improve various parts of my life that I’m already living?”. You’re already living a life, so why let healthy habits take away from the things you already enjoy? Let me explain what I mean, and I’m sure you’ll be able to relate somehow.
Imagine a person who wakes up, goes to work, and then after work, they go to the gym for a few hours each day. They work out Monday through Friday and probably rest on the weekends. They eat healthier, see improvements from their nutritional and physical efforts, and like the progress they make. Months or a small number of years they stop all-new healthy habits, unable to maintain the lifestyle over the long term. Now, they are more out of shape than when they started, and the effort needed to start again is that much more. During this up and down process they’ve experienced loneliness, depression, unhealthy concepts of eating and how or where exercise comes from and can be financially tied to a gym.
Does this person sound familiar? Most likely. The world we live in today has pushed more and more people into situations that they cannot sustain for the long term. If you learn anything about health and fitness, it is a lifelong endeavor that constantly makes micro-adjustments to your daily life with a long-term goal to strive for. When a person fully adopts a healthy lifestyle change too fast or too much and it becomes something unable to maintain, that person loses a little bit of themselves. They start to question their choices and calculate if they were cut out for the healthy lifestyle everybody rants and raves about. They just lost a piece of the identity they were trying to create.
TWO contributing reasons people fail.
#1. Group exercise. I love the community aspect of sports and activities, but there is also a downfall. Let’s say you have a job, significant other, kids/pets, and personal goals and interests. You may start to dive in headfirst and eat up all the classes possible that fit your schedule. You’re loving the atmosphere, the people, and the motivation that comes with being in a group. You become reliant on coaches giving you workouts that don’t have long-term goals or intentions. You don’t really understand rep ranges or timing, or even where your heart rate should be at. You’ve become a drone.
Unless your significant other is in class with you, your relationship might be dwindling from the hours spent after work practicing new healthy behaviors with the new friends you’ve made. Those plans, events, or goals you had in mind before are nowhere in sight. The personal healthy behavior changes you initially had planned for are now group orientated instead of an individual. You’re hooked and will be until something breaks; an inability to take so much time out of your day, your significant other/kids are feeling neglected, you break; since all workouts are orientated for group goals instead of personal goals.
That is the worst. An Injury. The #1 fastest way to lose momentum and get set back. This is the reason why matching your healthy habits to your identity is so important. Your lifestyle and needs are very different from everyone else’s and require different kinds of attention to address them over time.
#2. You didn’t learn anything. I can’t even tell you the number of people who have talked to me about their fitness or nutritional programs over the years. And, when I ask them “why” about certain points they are clueless. I am not asking difficult stuff or stuff a personal trainer should only know. But, things that any one of my clients would be able to ramble off if someone were to ask them about their program. Too many people just believe whatever nonsense trainers or ‘nutritional coaches’ tell them and go with it.
Maybe it’s because I’m too business-minded and feel that I should have to make a point that people learn to fill in the, “why am I doing this?” void in their head. It could be that my programs are based on yearly goals around interests that are in common with the clients, instead of solely boosting their aesthetic appearance. It’s also an important note to make those fitness goals should include off-time, macro, and micro training blocks that probably would seem unappealing to most who just want a 6-, 8-, or 12-week program and hit the gym.
Are you thinking about if you have learned anything? I hope you have. To be honest, 100% of people should be able to consult with a health & fitness professional to obtain a yearly plan around personal goals. The most difficult part is to maintain momentum and focus on your own throughout the year and be able to adjust or pivot when you slept strong the night before or tweaked your back doing something. That is where the help of a health and fitness professional is VITAL, and I’m not being biased, it is their duty to adjust and keep you on track. Even if the workout is dialed back and added some key stretches to alleviate tightness causing that pain.
Whatever your goals may be, health and fitness should boost them. Don’t lose sight of what you want out of life and don’t get sucked into the all-or-nothing approach the industry is trying to sell. I believe everyone has it in them to strive for more, I believe everyone should ask for help when needed, and I believe in you.
You just have to believe in yourself.
