I want to share with you the journey of one of our clients who we have been working with for a few months now. Hopefully this will give you a better idea of how our program is different from most others in the fitness industry and why it is suited to most over 50’s (as well as people under 50 who value their health). This particular lady found us online and when she contacted me she told me she’d googled “fitness for over 50’s”, we came up and that she felt she needed some specialist help. She went on to say that we are the third trainer she has worked with in the past 12 months.
Trainer 1
She started with following a period of not exercising in a gym for a few years. With little to no screening beforehand the trainer cracked on with the program and trained her much harder than she could cope with. This led to her feeling deflated, like a total failure, believing that she is getting too old for the gym. In addition, she was then experiencing aches and pains because of the workout, particularly in her hip which in the end led to her having to stop exercising all together!
Trainer 2
After 6 months of no exercise due to her injured hip and dented confidence, she decided to try again with a different trainer in a different gym. Straight away she made it clear to the trainer that her last experience was negative and she wanted to start slowly and be cautious to avoid injury. By the sounds of it she might as well have been talking to the squat rack – the trainer took no heed of her concerns and the first exercise she did in session one was walking lunges with dumbbells (an exercise we would consider as a level 5 exercise in our program). Inevitably, after a few weeks she decided to stop before she got injured more.
Fast forward another 6 months (now 1 year into her fitness journey) and she felt she was worse off than when she started!
She decided however not to give up and gave us a call. We invited her to come in for a free consultation (which the previous two trainers did not) where we could get to know her a bit better and find out where she is at fitness and health wise and what she was looking for from us.
We had a good chat and put her mind at ease that she is not too old to exercise and that she will be able to find a fitness program that is appropriate for her and one that gets her fitter and stronger again. We got her into the gym and did a light movement screening with her, where we discovered that the damage to her hip is quite bad – so we recommended that she should see a physio just to give us some guidance on the best way to proceed with her.
We also showed her how we would layer the program at different levels and she was very encouraged to see that there are lots of exercises she can do currently and can see how the progressions can be made to help her improve week-on-week. Within the week we got a full report from the physio of what movements to do and which to avoid.
The physio treatment is working well, and her hip has drastically improved after a few weeks and a few treatments. She was very happy that we were able to refer and not just look to get money off her straight away like the other trainers had, and she commented that she was happy that she could see her outcomes were our priority.
We are now 3 months into her time with us and she has moved up through the levels of the exercises quicker than she had hoped for. She is proud of what she has achieved and can feel the improvements in her daily life and she was delighted to see the appearance of some nice newly toned muscles!!
We understand that being over 50 can lead to some challenges with your health and fitness, but with our skill sets we can show how exercise is accessible for everyone and that no matter your age or current fitness levels, a well-designed
This is a subject we are passionate about as we have witnessed the amazing impact that being fitter and stronger can have at this stage in life on so many of our clients. Personally it is so inspiring to see people in their 50’s, 60’s and 70’s living full lives with vigour and a smile on their face. I just hope it is me in 20 years time!
Paul
