Horsham-based female personal trainer, Becky, has been working at a local gym for three years. Her own exercise routine is a powerful commitment for her, and she’s surprised herself recently by how it has changed…
I like the concept of life not being about the words “never” and “always”. If we’ve learned nothing else since the start of 2020, we’ve hopefully figured out that it’s impossible to know what the future holds. So I’m not sure why, having found a fitness regime that worked for me, I thought it’d last forever…
What my fitness routine used to be like
I was mostly inactive until shortly before I turned 30 in 2017. At that point, I began to get worried about ageing (I know) and looking after my health, and decided I really ought to do something to better take care of myself.
Having started with running – and never growing to like it – I quickly found my way to strength training, initially doing so once per week. I fell so hard in love with it, that I gradually built my way up to training four times per week, which I found to be my own physical and emotional sweet spot.
For five years – around a full-time job, a pandemic, and ultimately taking on the task of qualifying to be a personal trainer – that’s what I did. I managed three early morning sessions before work, plus one weekend session. When I changed my working pattern, moving to four days per week at an office job, and one day as a personal trainer, the rhythm continued pretty seamlessly. The only thing that changed was the addition of a monthly core and pelvic floor class a few years into my established routine, which then continued to tick along.
If you’d told me this time last year that my life now would look very different, I’d have laughed. And then…
My business expanded
After two years of hard work, I had built up a small roster of loyal clients, but things were starting to get tight. I was squeezing some in before a work day at my other job, and verging on having to turn down bookings. So I renegotiated at my job, took another little leap, and in January of 2024 opened up an additional day of personal training availability.
But there was a catch. My working pattern changed to the point that a session before work was far less viable. I now had two weekdays when I’d be at the gym anyway, so those were obvious ones to fit training sessions in. Then that left two weekend days so… easy, right?
Wrong.
For my own preference, training on both weekend days gives me far less flexibility to accept other kinds of social invitations, or try different things. I don’t think I even got to the end of January before I realised that trying to train four times per week with my new diary was setting myself up to fail. I felt slightly better than I might have, as I was also aiming to maintain my activity level via the new commitment of a 20-minute walk two days per week on my office day lunch breaks.
Fortunately, another opportunity came my way…
Trying something different
In February, I met a yoga teacher whose class I decided to try. I thought that, as is usual for me, it’d be a one-off, I’d remind myself how much I hate yoga, and write the idea off. Whilst I didn’t fall directly in love with it, I surprised myself by not hating it, and liking it enough to want to keep trying.
The other factor was that the classes are in on a weekday evening, near to where I live. I hate going to the gym in the evening – the atmosphere is awful, and I find that I’m too wired to sleep if I lift late in the day. However, a yoga class means I get to work on some of my big weaknesses, someone else takes responsibility for planning it, and my body has something different to do, at a time of day I can commit to.
It also helped me to forgive myself for not lifting four times per week. I decided that if I attended yoga class weekly, three strength sessions per week would be plenty for my body physically and mentally. So I signed up, and kept going.
The return of an old love
A few weeks after I started yoga classes, I got to get back in the saddle and go horse riding. Thanks to the privilege of being offered a friend’s horse to ride, this was again close to home and during the day at a weekend.
Things went well, and the arrangement has continued, with me riding more weekends than not, fitting this in around strength training and the ongoing monthly weekend class. Riding has always been fantastic for my mental health as well as my physical fitness, and I was only too pleased to have it back in my life.
Further evolution of my fitness routine
As I’ve blogged about a little, I picked up an injury during the summer, which has had a big impact on me. My lunchtime walks were suspended, and I cut back my strength training from three to two sessions per week.
The mental side of that has been as tough as the physical – I’ve clearly firmly conditioned myself to believe that a high level of activity is right for me, and nothing else will do. Stopping to rest and allow my body to heal has been very hard, but also essential – I do a physical job, and I have to look after myself.
I’m looking forward to being my idea of fully fit again, and continuing the routine that I currently enjoy the most. In the last year, I’ve been reminded of three important things: be realistic about what you can accomplish; factor in as much rest as your body needs; nothing lasts forever, and change can be incredibly positive.