Is there a misconception that Personal Trainers are just born with a six pack? Well they aren’t, here’s a little about my fitness journey.
I was a sporty child, Sports Captain for my school, and played Netball, Volleyball, Indoor Cricket and was even a Shot-Putter (although no one ever believes me and it is far more technical than people believe, but I digress!).
I was really active, combining training and tournaments with a busy job in the City until my mid 30’s when one day I decided I was tired of spending all my time in sports clothes and driving up & down the country to tournaments of a weekend and I gave it all up.
I remember the day as clear as anything. I was umpiring a netball match, where my whistle was blowing every 10 seconds as the two teams seemed to have forgotten that netball is supposed to be a non-contact sport. I wondered whether someone was going to get seriously hurt (luckily no one did), however I had driven through crazy traffic in South East London for over an hour to get to the match, and I began to question whether this was how I wanted to spend my time.
That weekend I quit sport. I mean everything! I didn’t train, umpire a netball match or even set foot inside a gym for 8 years. I played the odd game of badminton, but only to be sociable, not for fitness. Up until this point I had never worried about how much food I ate, I didn’t really have to as I had always burned off what I consumed. In fact, I didn’t even consider what I was eating, food was my fuel to allow me to carry out my passion, being active, playing team sports and being part of a community!
You can guess what happened over a period. I put on weight, and began to feel not so great about myself.
I realised I needed to make a change. It was one of those ‘life events’ where you sit down and assess things and grasp that nothing was going to change unless I took action to counteract the years of inactiveness. So, I found myself a personal trainer to get back on track. I can still remember the first session, my lungs were bursting, my muscles were internally saying ‘Stop!’ but it felt so good to be active again. I look back on that session now very fondly, as I know I have come along way, yet also my passion for fitness was reignited.
I’d always played team sports and had never really been good at doing things on my own. I loved that sense of camaraderie yet I had a new-found love for running. For using the metronome of trainer on the pavement as a mantra to clear my head of a busy day and have some time out for me. As my fitness improved and I began to feel ‘back to my old self’ and I started training for half marathons and then Tough Mudders I realised I wanted to help others have the transformative journey that I had been on, so my journey towards fitness, was actually a journey towards qualifying as a Personal Trainer.
So Personal Trainers aren’t born with a six pack (well maybe the odd one or two are!), we are human beings, who will have struggled just like everyone else to reach a fitness goal, recover from injury or strive for a PB that is just that little bit out of reach, and in doing so, we get to pass on our lessons learned in the hope that you will reach your goal too!
Heather Lawson - February 12, 2018
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