The Benefits to exercise - My fitness journey

2020 was a year that will go down in history. The Covid 19 Pandemic has impacted all of us and it has changed the way we live. With National lockdowns and government restrictions implemented for us to follow to help us as a collective control the virus and take the pressure off the NHS, many of us found the disruption to our diets and exercise routines hard to conquer. Gyms shut, home gym equipment sold out in an instant or was being sold at double, sometimes triple its worth and other than training online during the national lockdown there was no meeting up with other people.

Since Covid I have noticed a shift in people’s attitudes towards health and fitness and especially in mental health as there seems to be much more interest and emphasis on the many benefits in looking after yourself in these areas. This blog is about the benefits of exercise, how it’s never too late to start and my own personal fitness journey which focuses on why if we have fallen off the horse, we should get back on it right away.

There are both physical and mental benefits to exercise with a lot of science-based research to back it up. To put it simply, the human body is designed to move and therefore when we do it responds in a positive way. Exercise and movement are addictive believe it or not, so be prepared to catch the exercise bug if you are just starting out on your journey. Below is a short list of the main benefits to exercise that you can expect when you exercise (you will not have these responses if you over train).

1.      Stronger, more efficient muscles

2.      Increased muscle tone

3.      Increased flexibility

4.      Improved balance and co-ordination

5.      Better circulation

6.      Increased energy levels

7.      Stronger heart and lungs

8.      Lowers high blood pressure

9.      Stronger bones (increased bone density)

10.   Stronger tendons and ligaments

11.   Healthier joints

12.   Lower stress levels

13.   Increased quality of sleep

14.   A more positive mindset

15.   Lower body fat

16.   Increased metabolism

17.   Changed of body shape

18.   Increased confidence

19.   Crave healthier foods

20.   Faster results if looking to lose weight or gain muscle

21.   Reduced chance of developing certain health conditions including:

a.      Type 2 diabetes

b.      Heart disease

c.      High cholesterol

d.      Heart attack

e.      Coronary heart disease

f.       Certain cancers such as colon, breast and lung

22.   Improve your sexual health

23.   Prevent obesity

24.   Reduce the risk of depression

25.   Increase brain function

26.   Prevent falls

27.   Improve your quality of life in general

28.   Increase your chances of living longer

29.   Improve your mood

30.   Help cope with conditions like Depression, Anxiety and ADHD

As you can see there are many benefits, this list doesn’t cover them all either. Looking at this list alone you can see why the body will do its best to get you hooked on exercise and why it will release those amazing endorphins when you are active. It will also, in most cases, not all, do its best to make you remember exercise in a positive way, no matter how hard you may have found it at the time. Anyone who has done a tough leg session will know what I’m talking about here. We all will have our own experiences in life, so let me tell you a little about my journey into health and fitness.

I have always been an active person. As a kid I took part in every sport I could have access to. I played football, cricket, tennis, rugby, golf, squash, athletics, basketball, hockey you name it, I would give it a go. I was at the same time a very skinny kid who was very confident in the sports arena, but full of self-doubt and low self-esteem otherwise. Being good at sports gave people a false impression of me, as they thought I was more confident than I actually was. In fact, to some extent if I had been a kid in today’s times, I expect they would have said I was suffering with major anxiety and mild depression.

When I was 16, I didn’t like the person I was. I didn’t like this weak, fearful person who would avoid situations in case something went wrong, and I was terrified that people would be judging me. I cared way too much about what people thought of me and always thought the worst. When I was 18, I decided to go travelling, mainly because my best mate Andy was going and I looked up to him and wanted to be more like him in many ways. Travelling to South America and spending 8 weeks roughing it, putting myself in situations well outside of my comfort zone and seeing actual poverty for the first time opened my eyes and made me realise that all of this fear and negativity was holding me back, and the majority of things I was worried about really didn’t matter at all in the grand scheme of things.

University followed and it was a fresh start for me. No one there knew me or of my past struggles, I’d make new friends, have new experiences and I was part of a football academy which allowed me to train whilst studying my degree in Sports Conditioning and Coaching. I loved university and my degree made me learn in great depth about exercise and nutrition, solid building blocks for my future career and again my confidence went up a couple of notches as well. I still was not where I wanted to be, but gradual changes were taking me in the right direction.

Fast forward a few years and I became a Personal Trainer. I wanted to join the RAF and PT for them, but was told I was too qualified and would be going in if successful as an officer (I would have been in charge of the PTs), but after a few positive interviews and 3 and a half days of testing at Cranwell (their officer training school) believe it not I failed the medical due to my eyesight. Not to let that stop me, I started applying to PT in gyms and got my break at Fitness First Poole! To cut a long story short this is where my real fitness journey began!

When I started, I was still very slim, all the other PTs were either body builders or in great shape, then there was me. I was referred to as the “Science PT” or “the Pt that doesn’t look like a PT”. That didn’t bother me like it would have in the past, I just focused on growing my business. I spoke with the other PTs for advice (some were more helpful than others), listened to the Health and Fitness manager whenever he offered advice or tips and lived in the gym. I was single, had no major commitments and could be there 80-100 hours a week. Not having many clients and being in a gym for all that time gave me ample opportunity to train. So that’s what I did. I then picked up a client called Matt who was a big part of me getting to the next level of my training.

I spoke to Matt and instantly liked him. He was training on his own and didn’t seem to be pushing himself much but was consistently there at the same time each day. 5 days a week. I got to know him, offered him some advice and then he signed up for some PT sessions. This was great news, a new client and someone I really got on with, this guy had a great sense of humour and was one of those people you just click with instantly. Then came session 2!

I was at the gym and was going to be training Matt in a few hours when he called me to cancel. He had had some very bad news and had lost his brother. It was devastating news, I felt so sorry for him and at the same time felt so helpless. I said to him that if he ever wanted to talk or just come to the gym and train then to let me know, and that is exactly what happened. I refused to take any money from him, instead offered to train with him, take his mind off things and allow him to exercise and focus on himself. I said that exercise isn’t just great for us physically, but mentally too, and this was my first experience of this.

After a while I said to Matt if he was happy to that we should become training partners, he was over the moon (I guess he was thinking free PT) but it was much more than that, it was becoming part of our daily routines, something we both looked forward too (Matt not so much if it was legs day!). Like clockwork Matt would turn up at 2:30pm Monday to Friday after finishing his shift at a local supermarket and we would train. I devised the workouts, Matt was reliable, and it was great! We pushed each other, made each other laugh (Matt quite often cracked a joke whilst I was mid set lifting heavy, not so great) and started to see results very quickly.

We trained together for about a year and a half, we both got into the shape of our lives and all I can say is that all of those benefits listed at the start are amazing when they become a reality. I was confident in who I was and how I looked, people were constantly complementing me on my physique, some even asking me what I was taking which made me laugh. I was stronger, faster, my sports performances were improved, women were showing an interest in me all of a sudden and even my mates were starting to rip on me in a good way about my size. Hard work, a good diet and consistency had paid off.

One of the best bits about it was I was ridiculously strong for my size. I weighed only 72kg, was 5% body fat and could deadlift 205kg, squat 170kg, bench 130kg and smash out 30+ pull ups nonstop. I can honestly say at this point in my life I was happy, confident, felt amazing and was loving every minute of it. Occasionally I would get comments from some of the body builders in the gym as they walked past saying things like “he doesn’t know what he’s doing, look how small he is” or words to that effect. I didn’t care, the old me would have shrank away and probably given up training, now I simply would wait for them to finish an exercise, walk over to them, add a bit more weight and smash out some reps, basically outlifting them in front of their very eyes. Needless to say they never put me down again after that. Then 2 things changed and burst my bubble.

Bubble bursting point 1 – Matt got a new job! Training partner gone! I was on my own training again. Luckily for me I was in the zone and could train on my own, but like most of us I train better when with someone, and Matt had been a great training partner (a close friend still to this day).

Bubble bursting point 2 - Snapped Tibia playing football! 8 months in a cast with little to no opportunity to work or train lead to all results gone, in fact more than gone, I was in worse shape than when I started once my leg had healed. Tia and I had only been seeing each other about a month when this happened, but she decided to move in and look after me which has led to where we are today, married with 2 sons. I was in awful shape when I was able to go back to the gym, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me, I’d done it once before, I could do it again! My mindset was different this time, I was ready!

At least I thought I was. I remember my first work out back in the gym. I’d lost about 2 and a half stone of muscle so decided to start on bench press and set up my old warm up weights as the main part of my set. I lifted the bar off the rack, and it slowly came down onto my chest and was going nowhere! I realised there and then I was going to have to start from scratch, my mind was telling me I was where I had been before the leg break, but my body was telling me something else completely. This was going to be a long journey back to strength, but I was going to do it. I certainly wanted a training partner, someone to help me along the way and keep me motivated.

I had a few short-term training partners, my good friend Jake (another PT who was Mr Wales in his younger days) and I trained together when we could, but we also were the 2 busiest PTs in the gym doing between us over 100 face to face PT sessions each week so our diaries didn’t always match up. There were a few others I tried but none were as reliable as Matt was, I was getting in good shape again slowly though. Then along came James.

James worked at head office, was about 20kg heavier than me and about a foot taller and was always in the gym in the evenings. Although I knew most of head office as I trained so many of them, James I didn’t know at all other than to say “hey” to. I then noticed his poor squat form one evening so went over to him and had a chat, he was very grateful for the advice and the next time I saw him in the gym he was putting it into action. He even asked me to have a look to make sure he was doing it right (which he was). A few chats and bits of advice here and there we had built up a bit of a rapport and the penny dropped for me. He was always in the gym like clockwork when I was free. He was a good guy too, we were become friends, and he appreciated the help. I told him I was looking for a training partner, and he snapped my hand off.

This was different to training with Matt, James was a giant, but we were very similarly matched in strength. There were a few exercises I could just outlift him, and others he could outlift me, but for different reasons this drove us both on. I wanted to lift as much as someone 30% bigger than me, and he wanted to have my strength to weight ratio (and not be outlifted by someone so much smaller than him). We were both getting in great shape, then I ruptured a disc in my lower back. We carried on training for quite some time after that, but I had 2 and a half years of limited training due to the severity of this injury. James was brilliant though, I did my best to tailor the sessions so that I didn’t do any more damage to my back, and at the same time James could continue to progress.

We trained together for a few years, it was nice as Matt would occasionally jump in too, as would James’s mate Dan or another of my clients and now close friends Chris. James eventually left and moved away for work, but we still catch up and occasionally talk about how great it was training together. I still train, my goals have changed now I’m in my 40s and have more responsibilities and people depending on me, but exercise and a balanced diet is a life choice, and your body will thank you for it the earlier you start and the more consistent you are. I was being sent for a chest X ray last year (turns out I had pneumonia) and the radiologist asked me for my date of birth 4 times as they didn’t believe I was as old as I am due to my physique.

If you are someone like me, having a Matt or a James to share part of your journey with can make a massive difference. This can be a training partner, PT, class, someone to be accountable to and someone who preferably knows what they are talking about helps, but most importantly someone who is reliable. When you feel the changes, and see the changes exercise and diet make, it is like no other high you can experience. Being complimented regularly, asked for your advice, noticing you are not getting brushed off the ball when playing football, or you can hit a golf ball further than before, you become desirable to people, your confidence is up, you are sleeping better, feeling better, able to brush off colds and bugs, you are even able to cope with injuries better like working through a ruptured disc and again when I had pneumonia. If you look after yourself, your body will thank you for it later in life. The benefits listed at the start of this blog are not made up, they are real, so keep moving and progressing.

Let me know about your fitness journeys as I’d love to hear them. Thank you for reading and stay healthy.