gym advice – Never Give Up PT

Run Your Own Race

When you want to begin a personal fitness journey it is a totally natural thought process to consider what the person next to you is doing.

For the past few months, you might have heard Janice in the office talk about how much weight she’s lost at Slimming World and, naturally, you become intrigued about what recipes she is using and you peek over her shoulder at lunch break to see what’s in her lunch box.

In the gym you notice that the guy who usually trains when you’re there has bulked up a bit and he is filling in his T with some decent looking pecs these days. You’re only on nodding terms so you don’t ask outright how he has managed it, but you keep glancing over to see what he is pushing on the bench press or see what protein shake he’s drinking.

It becomes a slight obsession. I’ve driven myself insane before by observing the Hulk Hogan of the gym bicep curl a couple of 8k dumbbells while I’m trying to squeeze out the 20k’s to look like him and I’ve seen a guy much slender than me deadlift 200k without breaking sweat.

That’s when it doesn’t become my race anymore. And, whilst running this race, in watching how everyone else is running I’m tripping up.

I begin to change my pace and my breathing technique. I’m not looking at my own path, instead I’m trying to keep up with somebody on their path. I am not running my own race.

It was a quote from a football manager that inspired me to write this article. Without boring those who do not follow the English Premier League, I will keep this background story short.

Ange Postecoglou is the manager of Spurs. He was employed by them to at least qualify for the Champions League this season. However, in the penultimate game of the season, a number of Spurs fans wanted to lose a game and celebrated once they had lost. This is because it meant that the winning team, Manchester City, could overtake Spurs’ bitter rival Arsenal to have a greater chance of winning the league, resulting in Arsenal missing out! City ended up as Champions, Arsenal came runners up and Spurs missed out on a Champions League place, meaning that they only qualify for the less attractive Europa League competition.

Postecoglou was pissed off as he saw pockets of supporters in the stadium celebrate their own team conceding goals. And he even eluded to Spurs staff members being desperate enough to see Spurs lose and Arsenal miss out on the title. How far down the chain did it go?! Did the players on the pitch really want to lose also?!

After the game an angry Postecoglou said,”…we have got to worry about ourselves. Don’t worry about anyone else. If you run your own race then when you get to the finish line, have a look around and see where you finish…. don’t be obsessed with what anyone else is doing…you want to stop another club winning the trophy? Then win it yourselves!”

As human beings we can often get distracted by ‘keeping up with the Jones’. With their neatly mowed lawn, new 4×4 that they take their exceptionally behaved children to school in and their exotic holidays that they go on a few times a year.

But maybe we’re not seeing the debts that they’re in, how Mr and Mrs Jones hardly speak to each other and how their son is about to get expelled from school for selling weed to his mates.

But people will rarely let you see that side to them. Do you think that Janice in the office will share her most vulnerable side on Facebook such as moments before a ‘weigh in’ or when she can’t enjoy a meal out with friends because it doesn’t fit in with her ‘points’ for the day?

And the Hulk Hogan of the gym wants to show Instagram his changing room flex after a workout, but he’ll never film himself injecting steroids or standing in front of the mirror feeling ‘bloated’.

My eldest boy, Jonas, is facing exams this year. He is understandably nervous about this but his teachers and my wife and I are telling him not to worry. It’s his first exams in Portugal and it will be in Portuguese. This in itself is a massive thing to overcome but also he didn’t face exams in England. Apart from a spelling test perhaps, this is his first experience of being graded on what he has learnt. His classmates are more advanced. Not only are most of them older, but their first language is Portuguese. He cannot allow himself to be compared to what they might achieve in their exam results. Jonas, simply, has to run his own race.

So ‘running your own race’ isn’t just something to remember when embarking on a fitness journey. It can be a good reminder of how to be in other aspects of our lives too. After all, it’s the difference between a glitzy Tuesday night at the Bernabeu or a drizzly Thursday night in Aberdeen.

The Forest

I get time to think when I’m ‘cleaning’ the forest. The cleaning has to be done. Take away the building plots and we have around 19,000 square metres of pine forest. In Portugal this is a tinderbox. A thoroughly cleaned forest will limit the chance of any wildfire and this week with the weather a little cooler is the time to do it. We moved into the property in January so we have missed out on a full winter to clean and, as first timers to these shenanigans, we have felt the pressure.

My sleepless nights had me wondering if I should brush cut the whole land and then rake the loose wood, heather etc at the end, or should I brush cut a bit and then collect little piles from time to time. Should I rake the cut pieces into piles or collect lots of the forest onto a tarpaulin to drag roadside for the tractor to collect? Maybe I could use the cart to bundle as much forest into it and then wheel it to the roadside?

My first day with the brush cutter. All the gear, no idea.

Today my method was the tarp. And it got me thinking, is this the best method? I dunno, I didn’t have an answer. It just felt like today it was.

I’m not unfamiliar with that question. “What is the best method?”

It is one of the most frequently asked questions given to me as a Personal Trainer. The best method for weight loss, the best method for muscle build, the best method for a certain injury.

I have answers, but there isn’t a defining one answer to give for each question. It’s a little bit more complicated than that and that’s why a good PT needs to charge what they do. Anybody can shout at someone and tell them to give them 50 pushups or run 5 miles. But a good PT will not only find the right method for you, but will adapt each day to fit your own personal needs.

Forest clearing, as I’ve discovered, is quite the same.

The forest has a goal. It doesn’t want to set on fire. My aforementioned methods of forest cleaning are all relevant, but I must not allow myself to become bogged down by which one is the best way just yet. After all, I’ve just met the forest. It has some wide, open spaces but some areas are dense with pine trees and woodland. Some areas are flat, some tiered and some sloped. Other characteristics of the forest are rocky, wet, dry, microclimatic, tall trees, short trees, fallen trees, sensitive areas due to wildlife and coloured with beautiful wild flowers.

Every square metre must be dealt with differently depending on these above characteristics but also on the weather, my mood, time and how strong my back feels at the time (it’s very physically demanding and if I put my back out then the forest won’t get cleaned at all).

But to know of any kind of method at all it is important to point out that I asked questions. I asked locals who had experience in dealing with this sort of land. The forest has an important goal. If I pretended to be Billy Big Bollocks who thinks he knows it all, the forest wouldn’t reach its goals and that has serious consequences.

People that I have worked with in the gym all had goals that they wanted to reach. And, just like the forest, us humans have complexities that cannot be dealt with by a ‘one size fits all’ method. We must approach our goals with an open mind and experience a variety of emotions, movements and outcomes to know what is best for us and our individual goals.

So I am convinced that structuring our lives around a healthy lifestyle with gym/fitness goals actually enables us to make better decisions in other aspects of life such as decision making and planning.

And the forest has just given me an example of that within my own life.

A part of the forest from the AL rental accommodation

The Sum Of The Parts

It is the age old question in the gym in regards to what is the best type of training for weight management or, as is commonly known as, fat loss.

“Should I use weights?”

“Do I join a high intensity class or go on treadmills?”

“Is it high reps or low reps?”

These sorts of questions are the most frequently asked to a Personal Trainer in a commercial gym.

The correct answer, of course, is never that simple. Every individual is different, yes, but generally all of the above are perfectly fine ways to manage weight for the average adult.

To elaborate on these answers I could also suggest going for long, frequent walks, preparing your meals and counting calories for a short period of time or taking the stairs instead of the elevator. (That last suggestion isn’t meant to sound flippant or facetious. It is my attempt to encourage a more active outlook in one’s daily routine and we often miss these opportunities in order to get somewhere quicker or for convenience.)

So when we break it all down into these different training techniques, ways of moving and positive lifestyle changes we get the bigger picture. One which promotes weight management. And as long as these can be incorporated there will be success in one’s fitness journey.

But it all starts with a spark or a thought that leads us onto actually adopting these positive things into our lives. And if you have read this article up to now, I am assuming that you have already begun the thought process.

Indian philanthropist and businessman Pankaj Patel once said,”It is the sum of the parts that make up the whole. So excellence comes from how one undertakes to do something. It all begins with the thought process which is creative and exalted to produce something out of the ordinary.”

To make up the whole, it is said, you need all the little components to complete it. The thought process, or the planning, is a vital component.

In regards to a weight management journey, the whole needs planning, but this planning must include all the factors that I have spoken about. Frequent walks are just as important as making It into the gym. Why? Because it is an important part of the sum that creates the whole. Many people have found their motivation, inspiration, their plans, their passions and indeed themselves on a long walk. It cannot be underestimated. It’s also a great exercise.

There are no magical processes that can guarantee weight management (whatever you want to manage it to be). But there are a number of methods that, when put together, can give you the best opportunities. Many of them I’ve listed above.

I will often give my clients a little bit of homework. I ask them to write down four or five ways in which they can achieve their realistic body weight target. And when they have actually thought about it, they come back to me with the answers I have listed above. This is because we are not reinventing the wheel here, as many influencers would have you believe, we are simply adding simple methods to your life and tweaking things that need a bit of change.

It is the sum of the parts that you already have at your disposal. And when you use them correctly, you begin to have access to the whole.

Shay is a personal trainer, CBT therapist, meditation guide and owner of Pinheiros Tranquilos Bem Estar in central Portugal.

How To Stay Committed To Your Fitness Goals (And Everything Else)

“The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man be perfected without trials.” Confucius.

It doesn’t matter what passions we develop in life, there will be moments when we lose our focus. At the moment I am learning a language. My day to day conversational speaking is becoming more advanced and my learning apps are telling me that I am ready for the next level, but I have recently hit a wall. Then I remembered my own advice. It’s what I tell my trainees.

Sometimes we need to rediscover the reasons why we wanted to take on a particular challenge in the first place.

In the past week or so I have become overawed by the task in hand. I felt daunted by the long, in-depth skills needed to speak to Portuguese builders, bank and VISA staff or my kid’s teachers. Imagine the robot or a computer with steam coming from it. That felt like my brain. It all became too much.

So I put on YouTube and literally typed in ‘basic greetings in Portuguese’. I watched short fun clips of people telling me how to say and pronounce ‘bom dia’ and slowly counting to 20 in Portuguese. I knew it. I knew it well. This is all the stuff I listened to in late 2022. It felt good.

Now let’s take a look at your fitness journey.

The timing of this post is not coincidental. Traditionally, the gym membership numbers go up in January and we see more runners in parks and on pavements during this time too. But by early March, in my experience, people are beginning to doubt themselves and the goals that they’ve set themselves.

The issue we have is that we tend to want everything now. I want to be fluent in Portuguese, we want to stream the latest movie or series, we want to turn on 24/7 news channels for the latest headlines, we want to order a convenience meal at the tap of a button, we want to post our holiday selfie the moment we take it and we want to lose body weight today. And because things don’t always happen instantly we become frustrated by the process.

But this isn’t advice just for the new year resolutioner. It doesn’t matter when you began your fitness journey. When the wall hits, it hits.

I spoke earlier about taking my language learning back to basics. I focussed on something that I knew that I could do. I simplified the process and made each session shorter. I made sure that I watched fun clips and not just somebody sitting at a desk with boring graphics. In a previous post I said that I am going to attempt to be a beginner every day. That is because I want to develop an attitude where nothing should be seen as ‘easy’. I learnt Portuguese numbers a long time ago, but it is only this morning that I mastered the finer details of how to say them. Knowing the words is one thing, but saying them in an accent that is understood is another.

When we have gone to the gym for a while it is normal to attempt a heavier lift or a longer, enduring set or session than the previous day. It is, after all, what we are told is progression. Anything else would be classed as failure or a waste of time. But as a personal trainer with hundreds of successful training programmes I can tell you that this is nonsense. Some of it anyway.

Almost every one of my training programmes has included periods of regression. And these don’t have to be written in blood. If a trainee is telling me that they have hit a wall, meaning either physical or mental fatigue, then I will factor in a period of regression straight away.

Regression isn’t designed to be ‘easy’. It still requires commitment, but it is different to the usual routine. In regards to a fitness goal, this could mean using more machines in the gym instead of free weights, going for a walk instead of lifting, running, or an intense fitness class. If you still choose to lift, you could work at a 50% weight of a one rep max instead of your programmed 80%. Or if you still want to join in the fitness class but choose to go at a less intense pace, then inform the instructor at the beginning. If they don’t understand the concept then they shouldn’t be instructing a fitness class.

Being committed to anything shouldn’t have to mean devoting every bit of your time and energy into it. This can create resentment. And I mean anything. Your partner, children, friends, work or your gym goals. Give something back to yourself now and again.

And when you do, you might find that you become a better partner, a better parent, a better friend, a better worker and a better trainer.

For now, my friends, bom dia.

Progress Pictures

In my line of work, a progress picture has always meant stripping down to your undies and taking a photo of yourself every month or so in order to see the progress you are making in your fitness goals.

Whether this be a bulk, a cut, muscle build or fitting into a certain outfit, I find that progress pictures can be a much better way of evidencing your efforts than the weighing scales or fat calipers.

But I have a progress picture of a different sort at the moment and it is a building. The essence of the progress picture theory remains the same in my eyes though, and that is that whilst it is good to keep a check on your work, you must always remember the end goal. You might be unimpressed for some time, but if you trust the process then the outcome will be pleasing to you.

So, what is the process? I have a realistic plan in place that I can stick to with timelines and budgets. I involve professionals where necessary. I understand that the outcome of the process will make me very happy instead of being extremely unhappy in a previous life. This happiness means a better life for me and my family. That becomes my daily motivation. When things don’t go to plan or I’m not happy with a progress picture then I can rationalize with this. It is for the greater good and I continue to trust the process that has been laid out by myself and the professionals.

So, whether it’s a fitness plan or building a rental property, there are parallel lines that can be drawn. Either way, determination, tears, asking for help and documenting the progress all seem to be good ingredients.

I’ll leave you with a few progress pics of my own and keep you updated. For now friends, have a great day.

A bit of a clear out needed in the bottom room.

After a day with the builders, the areas are emptied and the interior walls knocked down.

The roof and door will be raised and a new first floor will be created.

A picture of what will be some lovely double doors leading onto the courtyard from the bedroom suite (right) the small door will be filled to create the bathroom area.

What Is Your Motivation Today?

If there is one guarantee in life it is that the mainstream gyms will be buzzing with new members who have promised themselves a healthier start to the year. The new year’s resolutioners. And their journey, hopefully, is a great one. I know lots of people who started a successful journey based on a new year’s resolution. But there are many who don’t have the same success. They give up. This message is for anybody who has just begun their journey and how they can stay on track.

It is common knowledge between Personal Trainers that the gym looks like this every new year…

The January Rush

Especially in the mainstream gyms, it can be difficult to get onto any of the equipment due to the influx of new members mixed with the regulars. The PT can spot the new member immediately. They flit from one machine to the other with little direction. Form, especially in the free weight section, can be erratic. But for the most part the new member will stick to machines.

The PT will begin to plant the seed that you might need their help. They might offer an induction or consultation straight away if they are pushy, but also a good PT will simply just be present to answer questions.

The February Frustrations

Despite January being great for the gym, it is not necessarily the best month for a PT. A new member won’t generally just sign up with a PT they’ve just met. Also, most people think that they can do it by themselves. After all, how difficult can working a treadmill be? But new members can have unrealistic targets and in no way is a treadmill (or any machine) the best place to start. Frustrations arise. They’re not seeing the results they expected.

Their gym visits become less regular unless, and this is where the patient PT reaps the rewards, the member asks for help, tips, advice and a price list.

The March Sleepers

A sleeping membership is a reference to a gym member who pays for a membership but does not attend its services. By march and the dust has settled, according to statists, about 18% of people paying for a gym membership become sleepers. They have lost motivation, got bored, found other interests or just found life getting in the way.

What To Do Before You Get To March!

* Seriously consider a good PT. They’ll stick out a mile. Watch their interactions with their current clients. Approach them for advice. They should give free advice without being too pushy. If they’re too pushy then they’re desperate for custom. If they say that they’re really busy but will try to find a slot for you then they’re lying. There’s always room for a new client. Some trainers also work online with clients without the face to face sessions. This works out cheaper but can be a good option because of my next piece of advice…

* The biggest reason for people quitting the gym is their motivation (or lack of it). A good PT should be able to give you the determination and motivation that you need. Almost every day they should be asking ‘how do you feel today?’ and tracking your workout progress, offering challenges and fun targets. You don’t need to see them in person for them to do that.

* But if employing a PT is still something that you don’t want to do then consider this quote from author Zig Ziglar…”People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing, that’s why we recommend it daily.”

You see, your motivation needs working on daily. Just because you ate the full box of Quality Streets on Christmas day and promised yourself a gym membership doesn’t mean you’ll give a shit come March. After all, there are 18% of gym members who don’t.

Every Sunday I would ask my clients to plan their meals and their gym visits for the week. Have they booked the classes they wish to attend? Do they have packed lunch ideas for work so that they don’t feel the need to stop off at Gregg’s or Maccy D’s?

Any of my clients who were having a tough time of it (everybody does, even professional athletes) I would ask them for their reasons why they came to me. In some way, it was a call for help. But why?

I’ve had just about every reason given to me over the ten years that I worked in mainstream gyms and online. From eating disorders, beating depression or self harm, a charity run and to making the next Olympics. Plus, there were many of my clients who simply wanted to feel better about themselves and feel that they were doing something proactive.

I would ask them to give themselves 5 minutes each morning as they open their eyes to think about these reasons. What would achieving their target for that day mean to them? How does it make them feel? What about not doing it? How does that affect their mood by the end of the day?

This ‘self assessment’ should be done daily. And with it we will find the reason why we do it. I love a workout, but I need my daily motivation too! I need to know my ‘why?’. I have two small children. I want to be healthy enough to see them grow up. I want to be active enough to play football with them and (in later life) my grandkids. My wife and I are starting up a new business in a different country. I need to be mentally strong for the challenges ahead and exercise keeps my focus. I want to look and feel good about myself and when I’m really old I want to be able to get out of a chair unaided. My motivation isn’t about staying alive so much as having a quality of life as I get older.

We will all have our reasons, but it’s remembering them and acting on it daily that will take you past March in the gym.

Good luck friends.

Leaving The Comfort Zone

Since Jonas was five he has played football for Scarborough Athletic. He was only able to train with the under 7’s team as he was too young, but once the new season started, he was able to play official matches.

Now ten, he has a new challenge coming up. Soon he will begin training with his new team, Sertanense, a club based in Sertá, central Portugal, ready for the new season in September.

Both Jonas and his younger brother Finlay will be starting a new school in Portugal in the new year and this is the biggest challenge of all seeing as it will include learning a new language (it is a local school and not an international school). It also means that they’ll not be with us every hour of every day which has been the case for the past few months as we made the permanent move.

Things are happening quickly for them. Lou and I don’t know how they will react on the morning of the 3rd of January when we take them to their new school. So far, when we talk about it, the signs are good. But to them it’s still Christmas. January might seem a distance yet. In reality it is a week today as I write this.

Finlay seems to want to take up a martial art as his extra curricular activity. He plays football, but it seems a bit more forced because he just joins in what Jonas is doing. But he doesn’t seem to have that passion for it. He doesn’t like watching it, whereas Jonas will analyse a period of play and talk about positioning during a game on TV. I’ve had play fights with Finlay. I think Karate or Judo will be a good choice for him. He’ll be a black belt in no time.

I’m trying not to transfer my fears onto the boys. What I mean by that is maybe I’m more scared than they are. They might just walk into school without any issues. Jonas might run onto the training pitch with 20 other kids with no problems. Maybe it’s me who has the nerves.

I hated new beginnings. The start of a new school term and definitely a new school still makes me shudder. And I never really pursued any extra curricular stuff as a kid because it meant meeting new people. I just stayed in the safe zone as much as possible.

But there’s a little bit of our move which is exactly for this purpose. We wanted to take ourselves and our kids out of the safe zone. A couple of years ago I never expected to be speaking Portuguese to a postal worker in a sorting office with no knowledge of English about my missing post. But I did that today. It’s a little achievement, but a massive confidence boost that he actually understood me.

I’ve been driving along cliff edges on an unfamiliar side of the road in rural Portugal. We bought an old farm house that we intend to make into a well being centre and guest house. Individually, each one of us has a zone which becomes out of their comfort. Mine might not seem like much to some people, but I’m enjoying finding my zone and continuing to challenge it.

And that’s the ultimate goal for my kids. That they can feel the discomfort in walking into a new class room, karate group or football pitch, thrive and grow from it and enjoy their achievements. Overcoming new and different experiences can make us more rounded, happier people.

I always told my new clients this whenever they felt like entering the gym became too much for them. Gyms can be an intimidating place. That’s why just stepping into the gym as a new member is the first goal. Not a deadlift or 20 minute treadmill run, but just entering the gym. From then on, with consistency, each visit gets easier to do.

Perhaps you have a new challenge that you want to focus on in the new year? My advice is to take that first step. It might mean leaving your comfort zone, but it’ll feel all the more sweeter when you overcome it.

I’ll keep you informed on mine and my family’s achievements in the coming weeks. Be sure to tell me yours.

Eat The Frog First To Overcome Daily Lethargy

Eating the frog first is a phrase I heard some years ago to describe how training, doing an exercise class or a long walk/jog first thing in the morning can enable you to develop a healthy daily routine.

This saying, I believe, was made by Mark Twain to prioritize difficult tasks. He went on to say that if there are two frogs, eat the biggest one first.

It certainly helped me. I preferred a morning workout. It helped me complete other daily tasks throughout the day as I felt more motivated, more confident in my skin and it made me make better meal choices for that day.

And I am finding that this rule can assist in creating a productive routine for my kids at the moment. As those familiar with my blogs will know, my wife and I are currently buying a home in Portugal. Our boys haven’t yet got a school so we are homeschooling them. As each minute of the day passes we find that we are losing their interest to open up a text book as the lure of the pool, football in the garden and iPads take over.

And they are important too, of course, but as parents it is also our duty to keep up with their learning, especially as learning Portuguese is at the core of it.

But it isn’t just them who lets the day slip away without any schooling. If my wife and I don’t hit the ground running in the morning it is very easy to fall into the trap of allowing ourselves to consider this moment to be a vacation. There are many things that keep reminding us that it is not, however, such as ongoing contract negotiations between us and the house vendors and the unfinished business we are tying up in the UK. But these are yet more reasons to postpone the schoolwork.

Simply put, if we are to proceed with a healthy, stress free day we need to get all of the crappy stuff done early. We need to eat the frog first so that we can enjoy the yummy tasty things on the plate without worry.

The Next Right Thing

Navigating our way through life is a complicated one. We do our best. Blimey, we try. But sometimes the anxiety of our past and what is in store for our future can be a constant buzzing around our head.

With it all swirling about, we miss our nearest targets. And they’re the most important ones. In resistance training terms, I use the ‘cycle’ of training programming to reach certain goals. I’ll explain…

We might have an ultimate fitness goal of losing 60 pounds in a year. This is called a macrocycle. Macrocycles are long term goals. Athletes, especially Olympians, can even have a macrocycle target set for 4 years time which is where they are expecting to be at their peak fitness for their main event.

But having this target of losing 60 pounds within a year is not enough. That is why, in the fitness industry, we implement mesocycles. This represents the different phases of training throughout a program and could depend on seasonal adjustments for example. Again, athletes will train for strength or endurance leading up to certain events depending on what is required of them to achieve winning a meet.

But we need to break it down even further. So we use microcycles. If we go back to the 60 pound weight loss in a year goal, a microcycle can be a weekly gym plan with a calorie or nutrition target. It can even be shorter than that. It can be a daily target. Shorter still? Every meal could be calorie controlled and every gym set can be weight and rep monitored.

Very often when I speak to weight loss clients, they have a very clear idea of their macro target (“I want to lose 60 pounds by this time next year”). Their mesocycle targets are usually a little less clear but can be managed (“I want to fit into this *insert item of clothing* by the summer”).

But their microcycle almost becomes none existent. And in 90% of my client base over the past ten years, I have found that it is the microcycle that is the most important bit for them and where the role of the PT has become essential. It has been their next gym visit or daily meal plan.

You see, some people might be able to book their place for next year’s Tough Mudder and break their training time down into cycles. For the rest of us, we need to just do the next right thing.

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung once received a letter simply asking him ‘how to live’. Jung admitted in his reply that this was an almost impossible question to answer, but he did attempt an explanation. He said…

“If you always do the next thing that needs to be done, you will go most safely and sure footedly along the path prescribed by your subconscious. Then it is naturally no point at all to speculate about how you ought to live. And you know, too, that you cannot know it, but quietly do the next and most necessary thing.”

My interpretation of this is about doing ‘the next right thing’. This could be going for a walk, booking an exercise class, preparing a nutritious meal, calling on a relative you haven’t spoken to for a while or meeting up for a coffee with a friend. The next right thing is YOUR thing, nobody else’s.

I heard the quote ‘doing the next right thing’ on the soap opera Coranation Street the other day. Having studied Jung many years ago I recalled his reply after hearing the quote on TV.

In the soap opera, the character asked her friend how she coped with the tragic death of her young son. Her friend said that she didn’t cope and never will, but each day is just about doing the next right thing.

We all live with some sort of grief, regret, anxiety or doubt. But if you can manage the next right thing in your life then it is a step closer to some sort of comfort. It can, in many cases, lead to not just a strategy of coping, but to enlightenment and happiness.

Think now about your next right step. What are you going to do?

Choosing The Right Personal Trainer

I know lots of people who have spent (in some cases) thousands of pounds before they’ve found the right PT for them. Unfortunately, some people give up after a bad experience and this is a shame because I have seen what I and many other very good trainers can do for someone with a fitness goal.

To an extent you have to find the right personality that you are happy to employ as your PT. Basically, you need to at least like them and get on with them for you to respect what they say and ask of you.

But every good PT will have the same traits. They will listen to you, be attentive, be committed to your needs and they will give you their full attention whenever you need them (not just when they’re on the clock).

And whether it is face to face training or online coaching these traits should come across in your initial discussions with a PT.

Now that I’m moving my business to Portugal and developing it alongside a camping and wellbeing centre I will be ending my online coaching part of it. The reasons for this, and I’m only being honest, is that I don’t think that I can fulfill this criteria anymore. I have one shot for me and my family to get this move right. Currently I don’t think I can be as attentive as the client needs me to be. And seeing as I will be doing a lot of the ground work myself (both metaphorically and literally) once we get to Portugal, I’ll be busy enough.

There is an online coach that I will be recommending though if anyone asks and that is Biological Engineering. Dan Middlewood is the Trainer who deals with every inquiry and treats every one of his clients with the attention they deserve. He boasts of some impressive transformations on his social media too! All backed up with real life people.

https://instagram.com/biological_engineering?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Dan and I started PTing in a gym together ten years ago and it was our first gig. I watched him develop into a PT that was driven by getting results for his clients, but did it in a way that was friendly and not pushy. It was only a matter of time that he would branch out into online coaching too, such was his high demand.

Just like in every day situations, we soon get an idea of a person’s character once we have a chat with them. Finding the right PT is very similar. You need to know that they have your best interests. They work for you. It’s not about their ego, it’s about your fitness results. So whether you’ve been thinking about contacting a PT or you’ve had a bad experience but are thinking about giving it another go, you’ll be in safe hands with Dan’s Biological Engineering.