Kathleen Trotter, personal trainer extraordinaire shares six of her favorite workout tips. Kathleen has been a personal trainer in Toronto since 2002, and has a range of certifications ranging from pilates, kettle ball, fascial stretching and strength training. Connect with her on her official Facebook page.
Here are a six-pack of Kathleenisms:
1. Genetics may predispose your body to aesthetically react in a certain way to exercise (for example, you may develop muscle more or less easily then your gym buddy), but regardless of how you aesthetically react to exercise, moving will make you feel better. The worse you feel before your workout, the more important it is for you to exercise since if you are feeling crappy your mood has huge room for improvement.
2. Find ways to set yourself up for health and fitness success. The more ways, the better! One method of setting yourself up for success is to find a health buddy to help you stay motivated and accountable.
3. Many people just go through the motions when they work out because they don’t realize how important it is to be conscious of the muscles they are recruiting, but when you concentrate and become mindful of your movements, the quality of the exercise you are doing improves. Lack of awareness means you simply strengthen muscles and reinforce neural pathways that are already strong.
4. Being more active is not about simply going to the gym. It has to be about sitting less in your daily life. Desk jobs are a necessary evil, but complete inactivity throughout the day doesn’t have to follow. Find ways to be more active throughout your day. For example, set an alarm to go off once and hour to remind you to get up from your desk and walk around.
5. Generalized weight loss goals are not useful! The amount of weight one needs to lose has to be understood as relative to where you start.
6. Question the intentions of magazines or weight loss companies who make statements like “lose 12 pounds this month! Fast! Effectively and safely”. Losing 12 pounds per month is not a safe and realistic goal for everyone. The closer you are to your ideal weight, the harder it will be for you to lose three pounds per week. A heavier male may easily lose three pounds per week, but a smaller woman will have a hard time loosing three pounds per week. This is especially true if she has already lost a considerable amount of weight, or has always been a healthy weight. Plus, exercise should not be synonymous with weight loss. Lots of people should exercise without the intention of losing weight. Some people are thin and weak. What they need is to gain muscle. Others may have already lost weight. To lose another 12 pounds might be unhealthy.
