EVERY Workout Essentials by Gen Levrant

Had you asked me what the above were when I first became a Personal Trainer, I would have replied “warm up, resistance, cardio, core, cool down and stretching.” Six years and two diplomas later, my answer is now somewhat different!

This article hasn’t been written to instruct you on what you ‘should’ be doing when you work out. Everyone’s different personal goals make creating a universal instruction blueprint quite difficult! It is to share my thoughts from experience on what is essential in creating results from every workout.

Functional Purpose
What are you training for? Do you want to lose some stubborn inches? Improve your performance at your sport? Are you training for an event? Whatever your purpose, make your training functional TO it! For example, if you want to improve your soccer or tennis skills, do you really need to be doing deadlifts? If you want to decrease body fat, do you really need to pound the treadmill for hours and raise your cortisol (stress hormone) levels? Tailor your workouts to what you are trying to achieve. Even if your goal is maintaining your general health and well-being; purpose is essential to every workout. Using it to motivate you can be the difference in intending to work out and ACTUALLY working out!

Time
Planning is another essential of every workout. Enough of us start the day with good intentions but events and distractions end up taking priority; thus putting back or even cancelling our workouts altogether. Try scheduling your workouts in your diary as if they were appointments with someone.  Technically…they are! Put your phone in flight mode, close the laptop, turn off the iPad, remove all distractions and dedicate at least twenty minutes to yourself.

3D Training
Training the body three-dimensionally is a big essential in every workout because this is how we are designed to move. Training your muscles and proprioceptors in the three planes of motion; frontal (left and right) sagittal (forward and back) and transverse (rotational) can enhance your results whatever your goal!

So the next time you come to work out (with purpose and zero distractions!) think about the plane of motion in which you are performing each exercise and stretch, and see how it feels to try another. You may, as I was after embracing this style of training for myself and my clients, be pleasantly surprised!

Gen Levrant is a Faster Health and Fitness certified Personal Trainer and Advanced Functional Training Specialist. She operates out of a private studio in Southampton, UK. For more info please visit www.fasterglobal.com or email Gen@fasterpt.com