My Philosophies about Exercise

When it comes to exercise some of my main beliefs include –

• Participation – Everyone should be doing exercise in some form and ideally something every day. Your body hates not moving, it loves movement with a passion. Your mind on the other hand…that may be a different story.

• Age – Forget the age excuse, everyone should be doing exercise in some form whether 9 years old or 90. I once helped an 88 year old double his walking speed, from very slow to slow. But still, the numbers on the treadmill don’t lie. He doubled his speed which improved the quality of his life.

• What Exercise Really Is – Forget being stuffed in a room like a battery chicken or 30 minutes walking on a treadmill. Exercise can come in so many forms everyone can find something they enjoy. This may involve a gym or it could involve simply doing exercise in front of the TV. It could involve jogging or may involve you sitting on a foam roller to do some massage release techniques.

• The 6 Types of Exercise – Assuming your main goals are to get fit, get in shape and feel good then exercise can be broken down into 6 different methods to use. Half of these can be done sitting in front of the TV, so really there is no excuse to not be doing something every day. The other three are the more traditional views of exercise such as aerobic fitness and resistance training.

• Aerobic training / cardio – The goal of aerobic training is to get fitter and enjoy the process of doing this. Therefore, your focus should be on learning the different ways you can exercise so that you learn to enjoy moving. It is also a tool to aid fat loss when in conjunction with the right eating habits. Do understand you cannot out exercise a bad diet. The maths don’t add up, the effort done from a 30 minute run for most people can be eaten in 30 seconds.

• Resistance / weight training – Everyone should be doing this in some form as the benefits on health are fantastic. For body composition changes it is also powerful. You do not need to use a gym to train as your body weight is more than enough for almost all exercises if you know how to do it properly without equipment.

• Massage technique – Feeling good is as much about posture and joint alignment as anything else. To get this into position you can use certain targeted massage strategies. Through using a lacrosse ball and/or foam roller you can really aid and improve posture.

• Exercise frequency – In the same way I call myself a practical nutritionist I am also a practical personal trainer. Exercise plans for most people need to be short and under 30 minutes. This allows daily exercise sessions to be much more realistic. I never have a minimum threshold on exercise, if 10 minutes is all you have, do it for 10 minutes.

• Exercise intensity – How hard you exercise has to be related to mood and motivation before the session. If you are feeling drained then the exercise should be easy and of low intensity. If feeling pumped and focused then step it up. The failure of people to match intensity to feeling is one of the top reasons they are inconsistent with their training.

• Enjoying exercise – Most people hate exercise because they do not know how to do it, or have never experimented with different types of training. You will find it hard to enjoy training if you feel you must do a “minimum amount exercise before it is worthwhile” or “you have to train hard every time you move”. When you address these elements everyone can learn to enjoy exercise. But like learning to drive a car, the first couple of lessons may not be the most enjoyable thing in the world but over time you can LEARN to enjoy it. You can learn to do anything!!

• Exercise Classes – There are pros and cons to classes. Whether they are right for you depends on your own circumstances. The pros are you may enjoy them more, you do it in a group, they force you to train harder. The cons are they take much longer than your own quick 20 minute session, you are restricted to certain times and the fitness progression over time is normally limited.

• Yoga/Pilates/Zumba/Hyrox/Cross Fit – All classes have pros and cons, the only thing that counts are results. The different classes will provide some or all of the exercise effects on the body, e.g. aerobic vs flexibility vs strength.

• Fitness testing – Fitness without fitness data is a bad idea. Without measurement you are missing out on the motivation of improvements and you are unable to measure the effectiveness of your fitness progress. I use the fitness profile test with all my clients.

• Fitness Profile Test – A comprehensive evaluation of 25 different fitness measures. This test can be done in about 45 minutes and will tell you all you need to know about your body and reveals which areas have weaknesses. The test is not tiring or fatiguing like most people imagine fitness tests (we are not in the army). It is more an observation over a stress test.

• Gyms – They serve a purpose, personally I love them. Most people hate them. They are a convenient location to get results but the same outcome can be obtained training in a park or at home for most people. The key is just doing some exercise, the location is a secondary factor.

• Outdoor training -The great outdoors gives you everything you need to get results. For most people, they will need to learn what to do as it is not quite as obvious as in a gym. Once you learn how to train outside you will be surprised at how good the results you can obtain are.

• Training at home – This can be like gym training or be more similar to outdoors depending on the facilities you have. The only thing that matters is getting the sessions done and you can do this at home, outside or in a gym.

Summary

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My personal training service combines nutrition, exercise, postural correction and behaviour change techniques to ensure you get fantastic results. Download my Body Transformation Guide to understand how these techniques are all brought together to ensure results.
The best way to understand how I help people get into amazing shape is to contact me for your Free sample session. Call Ben on 07915 397 703 or email me at info@one2onenutrition.co.uk
Watch me being interviewed on the BBC 1 Breakfast show discussing milk and the plans to stop milk for under 5 years old’s.