Regular exercise – It all starts with behaviour change
Most magazines, writers, fitness instructors and personal trainers work from the top down, and use “ideal world” ideology and that is, to get results you need to join a gym (preferably get a personal trainer) and exercise three to four times a week for 30 to 45 minutes.
Whilst that is all well and good and may also be the ideal end result, I hope to guide you through behaviour change to get to that ultimate scenario.
Put simply, 20 per cent of the community is active and generally only five to ten per cent of the entire population attend gyms. What happens to the 80 to 95 per cent that do neither?
The focus on this blog post is to give you strategies and teaching you skills to evolve behaviour change from the very raw and simple level.
Simply buy yourself a 12 month (28-31 day) calendar and make a note over the next week to do just five minutes a day of either walking, exercise biking, jogging, cross-training, swimming, bike riding or any other form of relevant exercise for your situation.
Simply give yourself a tick on the days that you achieve a minimum of five minutes (or whatever you have set as your minimum).
Then on the days that you didn’t achieve your selected minimum, place an X. On a weekly and monthly basis add up your ticks and if you get seven out of seven and 30 out of 30 then score yourself 100 per cent.
The closer your figure is to 100 per cent, the more successful your behaviour change is and you have done it all on your own for the cost of less than $15 for your calendar and without the need of a personal trainer.
What you are doing is setting yourself up for success! If you cannot manage five minutes of exercise a day for seven days then what hope have you got of achieving an “ideal world” of three to four times a week for 30 to 45 minutes? Very little and definitely not long-term.
If you do succeed and can achieve five minutes of exercise for seven days a week then it is scalable and you can use this as a template and accountability tool to evolve.
You may like to set yourself 1) 20 minutes for 1-2 times per week on top of your 5 minutes daily; or 2) 10 minutes every day; or 3) 5 minutes every day but on 3 of those days 30+ minutes. This way you are well on your way to successful behaviour change. Sure you may not get instant results and lose 5 kgs in a week or run a marathon in 3 weeks (which for the record are both unrealistic goals in such a small time frame by the way) but more importantly you are building a base to work from and build on.
This way you are well on your way to achieving successful behaviour change. You have set up some accountability and you can become your own personal trainer, tailoring your program 100 per cent to you, your goals and in a way that works for you.
Understanding that these tips given thus far are targeted to those of you are that sit outside the 20 per cent of the community that are classified as active, for those of you that either are active or have a Personal Trainer, then you can raise the bar to suit your somewhat ‘advanced’ level and accordingly may have set in place something such as the following.
EXAMPLE: 2 x PT sessions a week, 2 x spin classes, do your personally designed weights/resistance/core or stretching program 1-3 time per week. That way it is 100% scalable to your needs and that is what we do with our clients is set them their weekly targets and we actually provide them with my very own personally produced “Just In Time Personal Training” yearly calendar.
You must remember that your brain controls what your muscles and your body do, so it makes sense that you need to get your brain to change for your body, your fitness and your health to improve.
For some people in the 80-95% group this strategy will be all that you need to get some positive change. Others will require a partner, friend, family member, work colleague or a personal trainer to help support you or guide you and keep you to task. Others may require a personal trainer for as little as 1-4 sessions to merely give you some structured exercise program, give you some ‘specific’ exercise guidance and ensure correct technique but as you can see, you don’t need to commit to on-going weekly sessions – sometimes one session is more than enough every so often.
Please note that it generally takes six months of repeated habit (hence the calendar) to achieve successful behaviour change.
If your are looking for a Personal Trainer to help you get personal guidance on how to engage in this process and be set and on your way, feel free to contact us.
If you would like advice or to start elsewhere with another Personal Trainer, please feel free to use our 12 point “How to choose a personal trainer” checklist in your selection process.
For a more information or if you have any questions feel free to contact me –
Justin Moran
0411 798 934
