Posted on September 27, 2018 by Jenny Cromack
National Fitness Day (NFD) was yesterday (Wednesday 26th September), so this article offers my fitness journey. Here I discuss my personal meanings of fitness and how these have changed over the years. Raising an awareness of fitness and physical activity will educate us on the benefits these aspects have on our lives. Our role as trainers at motive8 is to educate and guide others on their own journeys towards their fitness goals. To support NFD we have been offering a range of promotions and activities over the week.
What Is Fitness?
There are many definitions, but one that I have constructed is that fitness consists of “the attributes that an individual has or achieves that allows them to successfully fulfill or perform a given task/activity.” Given that this definition and other similar ones refer to “given tasks/activities” it is surprising that we still tend to attribute fitness on a global level. Most people assume fitness is linked to being able to run marathons, spending hours in the gym, and a collective possession of everything health and exercise related. Fitness will help individuals achieve these things, but fitness is much more specific than that and doesn’t have to encompass everything.
Fitness is something that is heavily linked to a specific task. For example, you put a rugby player in a boxing ring for 2 minutes and they will be blowing-out, but on the flip side get a boxer to run around a rugby field for 80 minutes and they will struggle. Does this mean that these two sets of athletes are unfit? No! They have a fitness for purpose, they train to be fit for their chosen activity. They work on key areas for that task and prioritise these. Why do more than we need?
So, What Does Fitness Mean to Me?
Fitness for me has significantly changed over the years and my approach to training has evolved with these changes. My role as a Personal Trainer has often been of detriment to my perspective of fitness. As a trainer we are expected to be “guru’s of fitness”, so when people realise that I cannot run long distances without nauseating exhaustion they question my levels of fitness. This is debilitating to my self-perceptions and resulted in me often working myself into the ground at the gym. I would engage in exercises and routines that simply did not translate into what I wanted to achieve. As a result, I would become frustrated, run down, burned out, and lose interest very easily. In recent years, I have developed a more self-focused perspective of fitness that has addressed several purposes:
Sports Performance
Pre-retirement, my rugby playing days guided my perspective of fitness towards performance-related features. Being fit meant I was strong, powerful, agile, and quick. These attributes meant I could successfully perform on the rugby field – recall my definition of fitness. To achieve these things I needed to spend at least 4 days a week in the gym, 2 days of rugby training, and one match day. This takes it’s toll, but I loved it and gave me a purpose. In the gym I would work on strength based exercises that targeted my legs and upper body, work on sprint intervals, and power-based circuits to help optimise my on-field performance.
Looking Fit
Cracking a hole in my skull forced me to retire from rugby and I suddenly had a void in my fitness purpose. As a result the next phase of my fitness journey was guided by what I believed people expected of me as a Personal Trainer. I felt the need to look a certain way. I felt I needed to be this muscular, abnormally lean, body type for people to take me seriously. In some cases this is true. My fitness suddenly moved from a functional perspective to a solely aesthetic agenda.
During this period I fell out of love with training because fitness became less about achieving things and more about what I didn’t have; the perfect body. Fitness was given a visual reference rather than a functional one. My training was never-ending, un-enjoyable, and took over my life; which caused me stress in other areas. This was not a healthy perspective for me and it took a change in life circumstances to alter this viewpoint.
Getting Through Life
My recent life experiences of getting married and having a child has put things in perspective regarding my fitness. I no longer feel the need to spend grueling hours in the gym trying to carve out the muscled, holy grail, of physiques. This is not all fitness is about. Similarly, I do not need to spend countless time doing things I do not enjoy, such as aimlessly running around the streets or on a treadmill.
Fitness for me now symbolises a life where I can do all my daily activities, comfortably interact with my family, walk the dogs, and get around the golf course with my mates. This life-focused approach to fitness means my gym sessions have halved in duration. My sessions include full body compound strength exercises that allow me to perform my daily tasks. I also slip in some circuits designed around my favourite exercises. My time is no longer wasted on things I feel others expect of me, or on aspects that I simply do not draw on in daily life. Do I need to be lifting over 100kg anymore? Do I need to have 6% body fat? No! So, why put my body through this stress?
Fitness is Personal!
The above are just my perceptions and you are likely to disagree, but that is your viewpoint. Fitness can be whatever you want it to be. Does it involve developing physical attributes? Do these attributes help you successfully perform a given task? If yes then this is YOUR fitness journey. Don’t be a sheep and don’t let others dictate your fitness otherwise you run the risk of developing an unhealthy relationship with fitness and associated behaviours! Pick something that is meaningful to you, you are much more likely to work at getting “fitter” in this area and have a healthy outlook on what fitness is!
Happy National Fitness Day!