Fit Body:

Consider Small Group Fitness Classes

Check out small group exercise for a motivation boost. Exercising with 3-4 others, instead of 20 others as in group fitness, may just be the workout solution for you. Small groups are not only an economical choice, they hold you accountable and don’t let you get lost in the shuffle of a big gym or crowded class. You’ll get personal attention, a challenging workout and the motivation of others at the same time.  You’ll find:

New friends.

Maybe even a new training partner to meet for workouts outside of your small group.

Friendly competition.

Encouragement and support of your workout (and healthy lifestyle) goals.

Solutions to your fitness challenges.

A fitness mentor in your coach or instructor.

Is Small Group Fitness For You?

Get Strong!

Lifting weights yields benefits far beyond strong muscles. Pushing your body hard during a workout will inspire and motivate all areas of your life. GO WORKOUT!

Reaching goals in the gym, motivates you to reach goals in your daily life. You’ll dream big!

Feeling strong is empowering. You’ll be inspired!

Having a strong body builds body confidence and self esteem. You’ll feel good.

Pushing through a tough workout will strengthen your mind. Ideas and solutions will come to mind.

Committing to finish a workout reminds you how strong and capable you are! You can do anything you set your mind to.

Get Strong!

Get Fit Quick Tip:

Fitness is NOT one size fits all!

Not all workouts are for every body! Likewise, not all bodies are for all types of workouts! Just because you didn’t like a workout, or the workout didn’t work for you doesn’t mean give up on your fitness all together. Unfortunately, so many give up entirely! Fitness goals vary, capabilities vary, comfort varies, and likes and dislikes vary. Remember this! Try a workout at least 3 times, changing the format, order, load or intensity, and try different instructors if in group fitness, before eliminating the workout as a fitness option. And then choose another option, and then another option, and then another option, until you find what works for you, feels good, is challenging, and yield results. Keep at it, and never give up. Try and try again to find YOUR fitness!

Find YOUR Fitness

Get Fit Quick Tip:

Prepare and plan your 2017 fitness goals now!

It’s not too early or too soon to prepare for your 2017 fitness goals. Here’s how to get started:

Write freely for 5 minutes. Grab a pen and paper or your keyboard and write whatever health and fitness-related thoughts that come to your mind. The purpose is to keep writing to brainstorm. An important goal may not be at the forefront of your mind and may take some digging.

Pick your top 3 ideas to focus on immediately. Which of the topics you wrote down are the most interesting and inspiring to you? Which scares you the most? Which makes you the most nervous? Choose those topics!

Gather information to establish a starting point. Commit to take one action step each day, beginning TODAY! Make a phone call, do a google search, talk to your friends, ask around.

START! Go.

Fitness Goals: It’s not too soon…

Get Fit Quick Tip:

Celebrate YOUR fitness!

All the early morning workouts, the lunch time exercise, the weekend classes, packing your gym bag, planning healthy meals, filling your water bottles, and so on. You’ve worked hard for your fitness, celebrate your efforts! Recognize your progress no matter how far you’ve come OR how far you still plan to go. Your commitment is important, and you never know who you are inspiring. Celebrate your fitness by:

Pay it forward. Know a fellow exerciser who is struggling with exercise motivation? Reach out an offer a few encouraging words, a text, an email, a phone call or simply a smile.

Say Thank You. Say thank you to those who have helped your fitness journey.

Acknowledge your progress. Pull out your old workout logs for visual reinforcement of your progress. Pull out old race photos and relive your most fun fitness day.

Celebrate YOUR Fitness!

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

EVERY Workout Essentials by Gen Levrant