I was recently speaking with one of my client’s parents who told me that she doesn’t like exercise. She’s not the first person to say this to me, but I always counter with something like “have you tried every type of exercise?” whilst removing my sunglasses and raising my left eyebrow. The answer is usually no. This is usually when people stop talking to me… Plus, more often than not, people will have had a bad experience (or a boring one!) and stop because they think that’s what exercise is.
I’ve shown many clients over the years that exercise can be many different things and there’s benefits to all of them. For example, the gym member who does a tour of the gym machines with no real intention, flip-flapping their legs about on a machine they think is working their calves when it’s actually working their biceps, I get why they don’t continue.
I think I’ll go home…
When I take that person to the gym and teach them how to move their bodies in their own unique way, and train to get stronger, where everything is measured so we can monitor progress, we find that their dislike of exercise was clearly down to their original approach.
We’re living very long lives now and the research is quite clear: that we can slow down the ageing process by forcing our bodies to adapt to the stresses we create. Yes, adding stress in this context is actually beneficial for us.
This human is actually 45 but they managed to reduce their physical age by bench pressing…
Resistance Training:
- Increases your bone toughness
- If you fall, your bones are going to be less likely to break
- Reduces muscle loss
- Muscle = independence to do things yourself, which changes over the course of a life from giving your child a piggy back to being able to sit on the toilet
- Improves your balance and coordination
- This means you’re less likely to fall in the first place (not helped by brandy)
- Slows down the ageing process
- You’ll feel younger and more capable!
But because we can’t see it, we don’t know what’s going on at the base level. The image below is one I often share with clients because it allows us to have x-ray vision and see what actually happens below the surface and it’s quite startling:
The takeaway isn’t that you need to be a triathlete (I find the idea alone quite exhausting), it’s that we do have the ability to affect our bodies so they perform better and doing some exercise is going to affect the quality of your life in a really positive way.
So, if you want to keep your body strong and functional, finding your exercise is the way.