Dax Moy Personal Training, the UK's Premier Personal Trainer and his elite team in Islington, London
Ready Or Not
William James, an early yet eminent psychologist of the 19th
Century wrote about human behaviour with respect to physical exercise:
Human perfection means the ability to cope with
the environment [that surrounds him]. But the environment will more and
more require mental power from us and less and less will ask for bare
brute strength. Wars will cease, machines will do all our heavy work,
man will become more and more a director of nature's energies and less
and less an exerter of energies on his own account. So if our future
means man will only need to digest food and think, what need will he
have for well-developed muscles at all. Even if this day ever dawns,
muscular vigour will always be needed to furnish the background of
sanity, serenity and cheerfulness to life, to give moral elasticity to
our disposition, to round off the wiry edge of our fretfulness and make
us good humoured and easy of approach.
[William James, 1899]
Nowadays we understand a little more of the association between the
mind and body. Only the most hardened opponents of voluntary human
movement will contest the benefits of exercise on our psychophysiology.
It's now both intellectually reasonable and clinically proven that
movement of one form or another, of increasing intensities, duration,
frequency and complexity will be of some benefit to all of us in some
way.
However, in the field of personal training
we're becoming evermore knowledgeable as to the routes people can take
to change their physical body, yet we've not offered the same respect
to the mind as a controller of it. We should understand more of the
psychological preparation that's needed before a task can be completed.
We're not just speaking of achieving physiological goals, just as
important are the psychological motives behind creating them.
Motivation is a word we hear often in the
realms of exercise. Pragmatists within the industry will describe
themselves as being, amongst other things, 'good motivators'. But
motivation comes from within, it's a vision of achievement and
represents more than just words of praise, pats on the back or material
rewards. It is ultimately the driving force behind goal achievement.
An overused statistic claims that more than 50%
of those who sign up to a new exercise programme will drop out within
the first 6 months. And how many of the remainder will successfully
adapt their behaviour to include exercise as part of the rest of their
lives? Whilst a higher degree of adherence is achieved by those who are
able to employ a personal trainer to supplement their motivations (or
lack of them) even they may only have achieved a temporary adaptation
to their behaviour rather than developing a new one. A wise man once
said; '.it's impossible to fundamentally change a persons character, we
can only expect to influence tweaks in their behaviour'. And that is
what we must aim to do in our clients. Behaviour is like a culture; to
tweak its nature takes time, subtlety and patience. It includes moods,
temperaments and stressors. So as guides to our clients would this not
be a good place to start our ongoing investigations into their
likelihood to create, achieve and maintain their goals.
There's much evidence that we have recognised
the necessity to acquire information from a client and knowledge of how
they tick. We do see lifestyle questionnaires, food diaries and daily
logs available for our clients to complete. The information from these
exercises is an invaluable insight into the lives and behaviours of our
clients. Ultimately, therefore, if we apply this new knowledge and
learn to look for psychological barriers rather than just the physical
ones, we are in a much stronger position as a guide and facilitator to
our clients true goals.
For example: Lucy is finding it difficult to
concentrate at work and seems to be less productive than her
colleagues. She talks to her office mate, James, who's noticed that she
drinks 4 or 5 cups of coffee a day and he suggests she drink less. With
his help Lucy decides to set a goal to drink no more than 2 cups of
coffee each day next week and see if it makes a difference. But James
has also noticed that she often meets Penny who seems to own shares in
a coffee company. Lucy easily succumbs to the temptation to have a
skinny latte with her. James suggests that instead of fighting the
temptation, every time she plans to meet Penny she should drink less
coffee beforehand. James keeps count!
Here we can see problem recognition, a guided
and clear goal, a psychological barrier, a suggested tweak in behaviour
and a way of monitoring progress. It's a better solution than blaming
stress and just trying to live with it and it can be implemented
immediately.
Let's continue our roles as highly effective
exercise prescribers, so long as we continue to improve our knowledge
as the science of human movement evolves. But let's also start
recognising the influence of the human mind. The exercises we prescribe
must be based on the individual's capabilities and goals. If we are
only spending a fleeting moment listening to those goals then we're
missing an opportunity for our clients and ourselves.
As the industry searches for ways to
continually increase its shareholder value, we should start to consider
more thoughtfully the ways in which we retain our customers rather than
simply look for new ones once the others give up. It's a win-win
situation. The customer becomes a healthier and fitter and the industry
perpetuates.
The next step within the Industry of Personal
Training will be the recognition that as much work should be done on
the mind to influence some kind of behavioural change as we currently
aim for in the body to influence some kind of physiological change.
Personal Training is a valuable tool that is used by those who wish to
facilitate change in their own physiology, but the important question
here should be: Are they in the right frame of mind to tread the path
and stay on it?
part 2. The initial assessment process
part 3. Motivational techniques
re...