My Journey To A Sustainable Career
In 2009 I quit my corporate office job to follow a passion to work in health and fitness.
Since then I’ve built three businesses, competed in marathons and IRONMAN events, coached Olympic level athletes, delivered over 10,000 personal training sessions, coached over 10,000 hours of group classes, written more training programmes than I can recall, completed countless workshops, courses and certifications, worked far too many hours, worked with a dodgy business partner and come close to burn-out multiple times.
I’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way and feel that the time has come for me to share my story and help other health and fitness professionals find a future that supports their passion in a sustainable, healthy way.
My Journey To Sustainable Training
Endurance training was once my passion. As an enthusiastic triathlete, I would train for 30-40 hours a week. I thought I was doing my body a favour but in actual fact, I was setting myself up for lingering injuries and low muscle mass. During my hardcore running days, I was only 68kgs (skinny-fat).
Fast forward to now and I embrace a varied approach to training. From weights to gymnastics with a focus on movement quality, strength, mobility and setting my body up for success. I’m happy to report that I train on average 6-8hours a week (rather than 40!) and weigh a very healthy 80kgs.
My Journey To Sustainable Health
This has been a hard topic to write about. Why? Because I went the wrong way about it. I pushed when I should have pulled. I trained when I should have slept. I sabotaged my body rather than nurtured it. Basically, I made all the mistakes.
It all started in 2008. I was working in a burn and churn gym. You know the ones that bank on the fact they’ll sign members who never attend? The ones that pump through personal training sessions focused on the number of sessions over the quality of sessions without actually teaching their personal trainers anything valuable? Yes, one of those.
Importance of Healthy & Injury Resistant Shoulders
Shoulder health is one of the top priorities in our ID strength and mobility programmes and building a strong and stable shoulder is essential to structural balance for posture and performance.
One of the most common injuries functional fitness athletes experience is a shoulder injury. Great demands of shoulder strength and mobility are often required to effectively and safely perform movements like pull-ups, muscle-ups, handstand, snatch, cleans, jerks, push-ups, bench press, and more.
Lower Back Pain Lifting Weights
At some point in life, we all suffer from back pain. For many, it is only a short term problem. But for some, it can be a crippling ongoing issue.
Lower back pain is a growing health problem worldwide affecting people of all ages and backgrounds. Back pain is the single leading cause of disability, preventing many people from engaging in work as well as other everyday activities. Experts estimate that up to 80% of the population will experience back pain at some time in their lives. Lower back pain can be categorised as acute, sub-acute, or chronic. Several risk factors have been associated with it such as occupational posture, obesity, depression, sleep, breathing abnormalities and the list continues. What is important to bear in mind is given these facts it is likely that the spine will be at a greater risk of injury within the training room if it shows movement limitations which is generally the problematic area for the majority.
Why 1% self-improvement can make a big difference?
It’s so easy to overestimate the importance of our goals and underestimate the value of our daily actions. Instant gratification somehow convinces us that accomplishing enormous success requires enormous actions. If we need to lose weight, build a business, write a book, learn a language, win a competition, or achieve any of our goals, we often jump the gun and aim to win the race with no idea how to get out of the blocks effectively and run with the most efficient technique. We just go for it, it’s an all or nothing approach these days!