Category: motivation

I’ve never looked at leaders as the biggest mouths, or the ones who shout the loudest (often without anything to back them up).

We have leaders at the gym who lead by example, who inspire others by their actions, those who ENCOURAGE others AND those who empower others to have a go at things they may have thought it beyond them.

THAT is leadership to me-anyone who can inspire you to do above and beyond what you normally do is a leader to me, and a hyper-valuable member of the gym!!!

Leaders do things without acclaim, without it involving “likes”, without seeking a “round of applause” and doing their workouts quietly, relentlessly always with a high standard of performance, and they don’t care who’s looking.

We salute the MANY leaders at the gym-LONG may it continue!!

Launching a new programme once a month can be very stressful. There’s immense pressure to teach it and get everyone to understand it in a short time period. We thank so many of you doing so well at it and we are only in day two of it.

I rely on everyone ready to learn, to come in with a good attitude and be ready to test themselves.

Our culture at the gym should welcome everyone, but it also dictates everyone needs to play within the rules, however laid back we seem at times. 

I can NEVER be in two places at once, and this is why we rely on personal trust, I may have to deal with several individuals with different needs inside, so I expect you to do your best when you are outside, as I would have fully explained what is required of you, this is where you take personal responsibility and do your best when you are outside, come back in and embrace the next challenge waiting for you..

It’s always about respect, appreciating we are all different and everyone deserves the same attention no if’s or but’s, I’ve never been so serious about enforcing our values and culture.

The first week is about embracing a lot of new movements and exercises.

By the second week we expect you to progress well from your initial efforts.

Week three means really getting stuck in, lifting more each exercises, going faster through a lot of the movement challenges and general enjoying this huge challenge.

Week four means you have come a long way since week one, you have surprised yourself, and are excited by the progress you have achieved. You feel much better physically and mentally because of the big challenges you have constantly overcome, however tough they seem right now in week one.

Showing up regularly means the difference between high performance constantly, or if you show up now and then, you will never get into it as you will never really learn the exercises.

Fantastic start to the new programme, lots of new stretching and warm ups, and difficult versions of exercises we have already done. We have 4 weeks to get it right and get used to them.

As stated previously, it’s not just about learning new movements, it’s about doing really well at them and performing to your highest level in those exercises, THIS is when true progress is made, and the last 4 weeks have been mightily impressive on this front.

If you are at the 4 week mark and you feel you still don’t know how to perform the exercises, don’t worry, I am here to help always with them, and it may be advisable for you to stay longer with that programme, because changing for the sake of changing without really getting to grips with the exercises will not benefit you as much.

Also, some of you are on recovery programmes from specific injuries. The goal her is to do it safely, improve a little bit every time, and get a little bit better in range of movement of the joint.

If you don’t get stronger in the joint that may have been affected by surgery, then it’s unlikely to get better as soon as you’d like it to be so it’s always important to keep showing up for your sessions. 

If you can’t move your joint over a greater range of motion over time, then your muscles and joints will get weaker, and when they get weaker, they will degenerate and never recover their full strength, power, mobility and flexibility. This is why we focus on movement over a full range of motion which is the end goal, and every small step along the way is a great victory.

Lots of you have different goals and all of you are at a different level of fitness, strength, endurance and flexibility, you are all different and our message is that if you keep improving every session (no matter how small the improvement may be), then you are all doing fantastically well and are changing your life for the better full stop.

I was brought up in a sporting environment. I soon realised it wasn’t just the talent and on field performances that were key.

It was more about character in the team, which usually made the difference in tight matches, the ones with grit, the ones who encouraged you to dig deeper, often made the difference between winning and losing.

BUT also apart from winning and losing, there was ENJOYMENT and fulfilment.

The ones who were positive I loved being with full stop and look back fondly on.

Then I experience negative environments in teams. Team mates who would tear every one else down, would blame others when things didn’t go well, would play “the victim” when they were the cause of the problems in the FIRST place, never taking responsibility for their own bad behaviour.

I have always endeavoured to keep bad behaviour, negativity, lack of empathy, selfishness, attention seeking and needless drama  OUT of the gym.

That type of negativity can sabotage us, and all the good work we do can be compromised by a tiny, tiny minority.

I see us as a team, everyone of us has to live by high standards, we must encourage each other in good times and bad times, we must respect each other, have understanding for each other and be committed in our mission not only to perform well in our exercising, but in our own personal conduct too.

True team players make us better as a team, a gym and a culture, and NOTHING will EVER stop us achieving that every single day.

Our lovely and peaceful atmosphere in the gym I LOVE, it is special, it is uplifting and gives us great time away from all the daily stresses we are all exposed to.

We remember our school days as days that we didn’t have a care in the world. Usually then after that, we get a job, have responsibilities and looking after ourselves financially, making sure we have a roof over our heads and having food on the table became our “must do’s”.

When we were kids, we would be out on our bikes, walking everywhere and doing anything we wanted.

Years of responsibilities usually mean we move less, we look after ourselves physically less and “do what we have to do”.

Then one day, we realise we ache in our knees, our backs, our hips and we are slower to do pretty much everything.

This means our battles have begun and we either keep fighting it daily, or we give into it, kind of like the weeds take over our garden and never do anything about it, what’s left is one big mess that we can’t be bothered to clear up.

From training at the gym, we know we can get rid of the weeds by exercising more and doing it the RIGHT way.

We need to support that by eating right, boosting our immune system that protects us from ill health and disease.

This is not a fight you are alone with, we all go through it, we all have to fight, we all have to do the right things at least 80% of the time, we all need to stay in the game, make progress our daily word so we don’t REGRESS or our health goes downhill fast.

Our battle is very winnable, our health can be outstanding and exercise can be the very best investment we will ever make, science is on our side, tried and tested ways to keep our health at a very high level, to have less aches, to have more energy and live much more optimism because we prove it every single day at the gym that quality of life starts here along with great mental health.

Keep showing up, keep yourself young and keep your sense of purpose in life stronger than ever.