Keri McKibbin Personal Training

A great thing happened to me in the Coop lunch time. I was served by Mike Harris, one of our members. My shopping came to £20.26p. I only had a £20 note. I told mike i had to put something back, the loaf of bread could wait maybe.

Before i finished the statement, a lady behind me said “i will pay for that”. I had never met this lady. She must have been at least 70 years old. She could hardly see and had dark glasses on. She had a walking two walking sticks and was wobbling constantly.

I initially turned it down, and was somewhat embarrassed at not having enough money. I assured her “i did have money in the car honestly!”. Then i decided to accept her generosity.

That 26p wasn’t much but meant heck of a lot to me.

Then i immediately offered her to come to the gym and said i would help her get back to health or help in some small way. She accepted even though she felt as if she wasn’t physically capable of doing much, i then explained to her that we had many members with balance problems and she would improve with us given time.

The kind lady promised to come down in one month after her holidays.

What a great lady that was still contributing in life, despite her obvious physical limitations, and i look forward to seeing her and introducing you all to her.

When you contribute (most of the time) others want to give back to you and give you back in any way your generosity and good deeds. We are lucky to have so many of you at the gym helping others each and everyday.

I’m a firm believer in the more you help people, the more you get back. I don’t mean money, i mean in goodwill, self-fulfilment, the rewarding feeling you are helping someone in a non-patronising way, and maybe you are meant to bump into someone at that stage in your life, so you get help at exactly the right time, or you are meant to give help to that person at that particular time.

Giving is good as long as you don’t expect anything back. Help one person a day and over time you change many people’s lives.

We talk about change all the time, and how we need to react to change.

Let’s just think of change with some of you, many of you have just had a baby, and fighting to get back into shape and the pressure of looking after a little one 24 hours a day. Self-confidence, self-esteem all take a knock and this is your time and you have to make it count because you have a babysitter looking after the little one, getting into shape again is vital but you need to get through these big changes in your life again to create massive progress, but it takes time but you need to see it through.

Let’s think of your first day exercising after a knee operation, all the change that needs to happen to get back to your best and beyond. You feel uncertain and change and challenges are coming your way, and you need to be strong to withstand all this change to see you through to full health.

Let’s think about some of you approaching retirement, massive change and feeling the need to get even fitter as you get older, and the need to enjoy retirement as a very active person who can make the most of it. This age makes you realise that health is everything, some of your friends may be suffering from ill health and you awareness is at an all time high. Your time is important and you need to embrace change which is tough.

Let’s think of the pain of back surgery, and the thought you would never exercise ever again, what did that change in your life feel like and what did it do to your mind? How did you create real change and get back off the floor and achieve so much and get through all those darkest moments? You had two choices, either you lay down and take it or you take the road of rarefied air that not many take, and you get back to full health through many battles, setbacks and overcome pain of the highest order.

Let’s think of having blows to your health, both your body and mental health, when it seems as if you can’t recover and the only thing that will change things is massive change in your habits, your everyday actions, and hoping your body will stand up to all of these positive changes and you will come out the other side a new person, and so many of you have, and be ready to take on the world again!!!

We as a business and gym go through change ALL the time, we have to react to all the challenges you face and rapidly learn on the job, through scientific research, and provide you with some of the challenging questions you keep asking, which makes our place a fascinating, challenging but ultimately highly rewarding environment to be every day.
Thanks for being a huge part of it, stretching us so much everyday and allowing us to learn so much everyday both at the gym and through worldwide masters of certain conditions, and giving us experience and on the job training that most places never get.

Thanks for making us better full stop, and helping you get to a whole new level if you keep giving us the opportunity! Change is inevitable as you go through many stages in life but it’s good if you react positively and grow as an individual through each unique experience!!

Great weekend in cardiff apart from Ioan our youngest boy developing chicken pox , but here’s one big thing i took out of our trip to St Fagans which is a famous welsh museum/village re-living what it was like to live in the past.

The part where you walk into various old style welsh cottages, but then one cottage in particular stood out.

There was a very enthusiastic older gentleman ready to tell a story. He said to look into the fire, it’s the focal point and especially during a time when there was no electricity or anything we take for granted like today.

He told us that welsh families always, and i mean ALWAYS kept the fire going, in the morning, at night, ALL of the time or they believed it would be 12 years of bad luck.

The fire at home signified a lot good of things in welsh families and displayed their values, just like many religions and families across the world do.

You hear the old saying “keep the fire burning” many times today.

What are you doing to keep your fire burning? Have you let it go out? Have you let it go out so many times you don’t know how to light it up again?

In my book, exercise gets the spark to light your own internal fire every time. It doesn’t spark first time, maybe not second time but gives it a few goes in a row and that spark definitely happens to get your first fire.

Start eating healthy a few days in a row and you start adding wood to your fire.

To keep the fire from going out, you must read and listen to positive influences and books. This must be a daily experience or that fire will get put out pretty quick by negative influences.

These three things keep the fire roaring, the warmth coming out and the enthusiasm at an all time high. Nothing feels as good as this.

One thing on the way out of St Fagans, we caught the red cottage, painted red because it keeps out evil spirits. Our club is famously red, that felt pretty good too! Protect our house!

It’s fascinating meeting so many different people every day, and of all abilities at our gym.

The conversation i had this morning was with Allyson Ashford, who recently ran 50 miles in an ultra-marathon, in horrendous conditions through mud, darkness, torrential flood like conditions with just a map and a headlight as a guide across the Gower.

Allyson told me how many times she felt like giving up, but get got back up every time and just kept on going despite the obvious pain, discomfort, her feet were cutting up really bad, and every part of her body was aching.

I have ran a marathon myself but can’t imagine the pain of 50 miles, especially through that kind of course.

Allyson has been off for a couple of weeks after the race due to a severe infection in her feet that literally made her unable to wear any kind of shoes for a couple of weeks. So when i saw her this morning, i was expecting her to say she would never do it again, she would never subject herself to that kind of pain again, and distance and especially extreme distance running for her was a thing of the past.

What i saw and heard was calmness. She looked at peace because she has conquered a course which at least 38 others dropped out of that day. She discovered a mental toughness she didn’t know she had. She found that extra effort when she thought she was close to being down and out. She told me that the last 2.5 miles was the very worst, and getting over the line was naturally an emotional occasion and famous achievement.

Needless to say we are extremely proud of her as a gym and it’s inspiration to have her around a few times a week!

If you think of the things you really want and have been pursuing for a while, that extra effort when you think you are down and out is going to be needed. After all, if something isn’t worth working really hard for, then it can’t be that special in the first place.

When you think you haven’t got any more in you, it’s the mental toughness of seeing it through that’s going to drag you over the finishing line in whatever race you’re running, whether its a run, cycle, rehabilitation, or an emotional race getting your life back in order.

The main thing is to start in the first place, and don’t stop no matter what until you reach your own version of greatness.

Communication is a vital way you can improve your performance, your team and get yourself clear about anything in your life.

Once you know where you are, then the path becomes clear and all you have to do is develop the courage to stay on the path, and stay with that journey no matter what is thrown at you.

So the new programme has hit us all in a big way this week. Let’s get this straight and communicate very clearly. If you don’t show up for it, then it will be IMPOSSIBLE to get the results you hope for. This shouldn’t need saying, but it does so we can communicate what you need to do. No excuses, no wishing for a miracle, you need to do it full stop.

We always try to communicate loud and clear about your food. Are you going to take responsibility for your food and drink? Or are you going to have a “hope for the best” approach, some days you eat ok, then the next couple of weeks are rubbish? Always aim to eat well 80% of the time, allow yourself the occasional treat, it keeps your sanity and your body becomes fuelled by nutritious, energy-packed food that transform your performances, your body and your mind. That’s pretty clear i think.

Then you can do these vital two things really well but sometimes get thrown off by negative people, negative situations or negative GROUPS of people sometimes. Many of you talk about this to me daily regarding situations in your work place, negative friends or even negative social media friends.

We take responsibility as a gym to positively reinforce encourage and supportive behaviour and we pick our members at the gym, hopefully very wisely. Your people make you, your people support you and your people make your environment great. Massive thank you to you all for this. Our communication to you is huge, but we try constantly to make it better.

Leading with no communication is a disaster, fosters negativity and non-performance, so we want to keep being the OPPOSITE of that. Another week is in front of you, you have clarity on what you need to do, and you have enormous encouragement and support to achieve it. Doesn’t get clearer than that, don’t over-complicate it by taking any kind of short term “miracle” route that only ends up in tears. It’s all within your power.