Do you know two of the most frequent questions asked by those who just got into exercising?
How much do I have to work out to reach my goals as early as possible?
How many times do I have to train to have the perfect body and weight?
These propositions are nothing but oversimplifications of an otherwise broad issue. Making dreams come true is not strictly dependant on regular exercising. There’s much more to do if you’d like to see outstanding results after a short period of time.
But as a trainer, one of your most important tasks is to teach your clients that there are three things leading to their ultimate goals. Determination, awareness, and proper planning.
The more frequent, the more effective?
The time you have for exercising is largely dependant on daily tasks and chores. Regular exercising is indeed important, however, you simply cannot expect everyone to sacrifice family and me-time for switching lifestyles. It is, however, hardly debatable that the more frequent your trainings are, the efficient they’ll become and the sooner you’ll start noticing some results.
Experienced trainers usually recommend exercising three times a week in order to experience some sort of physical and spiritual change, steering us towards a healthier way of living. And what sort of exercising should you do? Well, any physically demanding exercise will do: running, functional training, cycling, yoga or even walking – just take your pick.
Frequency is still a complex matter, and you cannot simply overlook its importance. You just can’t brush it off by saying „the more I train the better it is for my body”.
Sure enough, if you want to make progress, three trainings per week is necessary – however, less can be more when it comes to exercising as well. If you work out less but at a higher level, it’ll be worth much more than training quickly but carelessly. Still, frequency is greatly subjected to your physical fitness, body type and skill level, too.
It’s not all about training
Many people think that switching to a different way of living means hitting the gym 3-4 times a week or sweating through intensive group workouts. These are the people who have to be reminded that exercising on its own is barely enough. Actually, adapting a new lifestyle means much more – regular exercising is just 10% of what you’re supposed to take care of.
Doing regular exercises strengthens your muscles, boosts your blood flow, and helps your body produce oxytocin, which is absolutely vital to maintain your happiness. But in order to lead a truly healthy lifestyle, being determined and active isn’t enough – you also have to improve your awareness. This awareness is both about making your exercises part of your regular routine and integrating a healthier diet to your life.
You’re what you eat
Ludwig Andreas Feuerback, German philosopher once said „You are what you eat”. Nothing proves his words better than the fact that nowadays this single line has become a well-known phrased about healthy eating. This shouldn’t come as a surprise as the food we eat greatly influences how our bodies work.
A lacking diet has a negative effect bot hon your mood and your environment – what’s even worse, it can nullify the steps you might have made towards leading a healthier life. The success rate of your trainings is not just about your effort during exercising – it also depends on having a proper diet. Having a proper metabolism and healthy nitrogen balance are crucial if you want to make the best of your trainings.
Think about these conditions like a pie chart, or an actual cake. Having a healthy diet is the largest chunk of the cake: while regular exercising is merely 10%, proper food eats up 80% of the whole. Your dietary habits have a major impact on your weight, building muscles and your metabolism as well, so this number should come as a surprise.
A truly good trainer has to make their clients understand how important it is to fine-tune all the bodily functions and reach some sort of a balance in order to lead a healthy lifestyle. And the cornerstone of this is a balanced, well-organised diet.
The more you know about how a healthy diet looks like, the healthier and more balanced you’ll be during your daily routine – not to mention that reaching your long-term goals also becomes much realistic.
Being overworked is just as harmful as being lazy
Regular exercising and having a conscious diet are probably two of the most important pillars of a healthy way of living. But two pillars are not enough to have a steady foundation: there is a third element required to support your new life. Have you guessed it already? Yeah – it is having sufficient amount of quality rest.
It’s important to sleep and relax enough after a rough week – you must have time to rest and reduce your stress levels that have hiked high during work. You should also have enough time to regenerate between training sessions.
A healthy amount of rest is just as important on your road towards progress as exercising itself. Relaxing takes an equal, 10% portion of the cake – just like your trainings do.
To sum it all up, efficient progress depend on three fundamental things: a healthy and balanced diet, the intensity and frequency of exercising, and a sufficient amount of rest and/ or regeneration time. These three things share 80-10-10 per cent of the whole, respectively.
How to reach an ideal balance?
As you could see, your top goal as a trainer is to help your clients understand that reaching their long-term goals is a complex task. It’s not enough to focus on exercising – they should also lead a well-organised life. Be it weight loss or building muscle, success requires you to implement certain changes in your life – to bring order to chaos.
This might some over the top at first, but it’s far from an insoluble task. There is a single word that can help you become more conscious in living a healthy life – you’ve guessed it, it’s „planning”.
Planning, planning and a little more planning
The key to success is lies within having a well-organised and moderate way of living. Being conscious of all that is just as important as determination.
Fortunately, we live in an era where we have all the tools we need to properly and efficiently create our agenda. If you want to plan a proper diet, you’ll have plenty of sources at your disposal. However, apart from tips and tricks read in books or heard from trainers, mobile applications can be just as effective in creating your weekly agenda with your long-term goals in mind. And this is pretty much the case when it comes to penning in weekly training sessions, as there are plenty of easy-to-use alternatives.
Spomoco is an application that does not only offer a simple yet intuitive alternative to trainers for booking appointments and taking care of administrative duties. The app also helps those who are on track to change their way of living and need assistance with careful and conscious planning. Spomoco enables your clients to book the most ideal appointment, which means that they’ll organise the rest of their schedule around their trainings.
By using the application, all of your clients will see how much they work out in a given month, which will help them decide whether they have to adjust the time they spend working out or not.