It’s not always easy to find a personal trainer you match well with, but that shouldn’t stop you from getting fitness results.
Having a personal trainer is proven to improve training consistency and help you reach your fitness goals (for more on that, you should see what my past and current clients had to say about their training experience).
You may not be able to completely replace a professional personal trainer, but there are a number of PT habits you can copy to boost your own gym performance and results.
When it comes to selecting training equipment, I absolutely love anything that is simple to set up and use. That’s why, when suspension training equipment like the TRX started becoming common in gyms, I set out to learn a variety of effective TRX exercises that could help my clients achieve results.
This list of my top 5 TRX exercises is not exhaustive, but hopefully there will be one or two exercises you haven’t tried before. I’ll also answer some of the common questions about suspension training.
By Lawrence Wilcox on Unsplash
Note: I am not affiliated with TRX or any brand of suspension training equipment, and am not incentivised to promote them.
When I started Ready Steady Strong in 2021, one of my first projects was a 5-part series of blogs on gym motivation. Each part in the series covered aspect of gym motivation and the mistakes I frequently see. I’m proud of the series, but in hindsight, it was a long read!
By Alexander Redl on Unsplash
Fast-forward to 2023, and it’s time to streamline this topic with some simple solutions to your gym motivation problems. We’ve all wrestled with a lack of motivation when it comes to training. However, over 13 years of training people, I’ve see what works and what doesn’t when trying to overcoming a lack of fitness motivation.
As an experienced personal trainer in London, I meet plenty of new clients this time of year who tell me they want to be fitter than they’ve ever been before. But getting into the best shape of your life isn’t a great goal to set.
Whether it’s a goal for your new years resolution or any other time of year, success requires two things:
A clear understanding of what you want and why;
A structured plan of how to get there.
I’ve written more about point 2 here, so for this article I’d like to focus on getting specific.
By Jon Tyson on Unsplash
No one else can tell you what your goal should be. Goals based on external pressure tend not to be very powerful motivators. That being said, you might still be struggling for inspiration. I’ve made this list of potential fitness goals that might help you narrow things down.
Everyone “knows” that new years resolutions are meant to be given up on within two weeks of the new year. In fact, new years resolutions are often met with such scepticism and negativity that it’s a wonder the tradition still persists. But if you think about the pattern that leads to making new resolutions, it makes sense that these goals should fail most of the time.
Goals usually require 2 things to succeed:
A high level of motivation;
A sensible, structured plan.
Unfortunately, when we make our new year plans, we’re riding high on the spirit of the season. Motivation is so high that we don’t even bother to make plans. Why bother with planning your approach when you feel like you could just run through every obstacle in your path?
By Ivan Pergasi on Unsplash
New Years Resolutions aren’t just for New Year
As I’ve written before, motivation is constantly in flux. This means that, no matter who you are, you will inevitably hit a period of low motivation. The Christmas/New Year season is so different to our usual routine that there’s no way you can maintain that level of enthusiasm all year round! So when your motivation crashes, you shouldn’t feel like you’ve failed. You DEFINITELY shouldn’t feel like your resolutions were a waste of time.
Those January 3rd vibes. By Christian Erfurt on Unsplash
However, this inevitable crash is exactly why you need to make a plan now. This plan should help you mentally prepare for the obstacles that sit between you and your goals.
Think of goal-setting like a marriage. You can have a lovely wedding full of celebrations, partying, and teary-eyed speeches, but if you can’t handle the bad times with your partner then you won’t make it past the honeymoon.
With that in mind, here are some steps for making ironclad new years resolutions.
2022 is almost over. As cliché as it may be, I always like reflecting at this time of the year – I find it’s a useful way of remembering what you’ve achieved, what you’ve learned, and what to aim for in the new year.
I’ve been quiet on social media for about 2 months whilst writing and filming stuff for next year. I may not be regularly posting on Instagram in the new year, so if you’d still like to stay up to date with Ready Steady Strong in the future, you can:
Just before the COVID lockdowns started, I weighed around 90kg and was 5 weeks out from a kickboxing fight. I really felt like I was in the best condition of my life in terms of strength, fitness, and health.
At the end of the last lockdown I weighed 107kg, was exhausted after 30 minutes of shadowboxing, and my calves/knees hurt just walking to work. I was keen on getting back to the gym, but also a little daunted by the challenge.
By Danielle Cerullo on Unsplash
I don’t tell this story often because I don’t want it to sound like some kind of horror story. I believe it’s totally normal for your relationship with fitness to change during a significant life event. Nonetheless I think this story holds some useful lessons for anyone thinking of going back to the gym after a long time off.
As a personal trainer in the Liverpool Street area, I’ve met my fair share of clients who are trying to train around a busy work life. If this is you, then you know that the fitness industry platitudes of “no excuses” just don’t solve your problems. In fact, I would argue that going to the gym isn’t even in the top 3 priorities of most people that I train.
So how is it possible to get results in the gym against this backdrop?
As a personal trainer, I always meet people looking to improve their bodyweight exercises. While a lot of people are working on getting their first pullup or pushup, the work is far from over once you reach that milestone – it’s time to make your bodyweight exercises harder.
By Ayo Ogunseinde on Unsplash
The post is for those of you looking to progress your bodyweight exercises to the next level. If this is you, well done! We focus so much on getting our first reps on these exercises, that it’s common to be unsure of what comes after that milestone. I often meet people who have been stuck doing the same number of reps on pushups and pullups for over a year, without being sure how to progress these bodyweight exercises.
To make further progress, we need to introduce some progressive overload into your bodyweight training. This essentially means making your bodyweight exercises harder. There are lots of options at your disposal to make bodyweight exercises harder, including:
Changing the tempo (speed) of the movement;
Adding pauses;
Altering the training parameters (sets, reps, rest periods, etc.)
However, I don’t want to focus on any of that. To keep things simple, I’m going to focus on one of the most straightforward ways of progressing pushups and pullups: adding weight. This may seem simple in theory, but I still see plenty of people making it more complicated than it needs to be. I’m hoping this post will work as a resource for you to add weight in the safest, simplest ways possible.
Believe it or not, you can gain strength without gaining weight in the gym. This is great news, because so many people avoid strength training for fear of becoming “bulky.”
By Scott Webb on Unsplash
Luckily, the gym has evolved so far past the point of being a bodybuilder’s playground, and we understand so much more about getting stronger, healthier, and better at physical activity without gaining lots of muscle.
For more information on the difference between strength and muscle gains, read this post.
