The Way I Work out is Different from Quite a lot of Other Personal Trainers. I don’t do cardio!

The way I work out is different from quite a lot of other personal trainers. I don’t do cardio! When I first started working out, I was overweight and had 3 herniated disks in my back. There was no way I could do cardio without doing more damage to my body. I use Isometric exercises, resistance/body weight exercises and work on my core strength.

What is isometric training?

Isometric exercises involve muscular contractions without movement. It comes from the Greek ‘iso’ meaning equal and ‘metron’ meaning measure, the movements help muscles maintain the same length. Basically, isometric training involves holding positions to strengthen those sets of muscles. Perfect for those with specific injuries, chronic joint pain, low impact workouts. Check with your doctor before starting any exercises, especially if you have heart problems or high blood pressure.

Some examples of isometric exercises are:

> Wall sit, works your leg muscles (quadriceps, hamstrings & glutes)

> Plank, works your back, legs and abs (abdominals, quadriceps and deltoid)

> Overhead hold (of a weight), works your shoulders (anterior, superior and posterior portions of the shoulder)

> Glute Bridge, works your legs and booty (hamstrings & glutes)

> V sit, works all your body (especially abdominal muscles)

I’m starting a new chapter of my life and when I look back at where I was 8 years ago, I honestly can’t believe it! I was standing at an airport looking over at a woman who was 20 years OLDER than me. She was fit, healthy and appeared happy. I looked at myself, 40 years old, 50 pounds overweight, drinking too much and trying to stop the nicotine gum after a battle to stop smoking. I knew I wanted what that lady had, so when I got home, I made some changes:

- I started to eat organic real food, no GMO. I learned that food is basically medicine and if we feed our body the wrong things it will make us sick.

- I found intermittent fasting, and it was a complete game changer. When you fast, your body enters ketosis and burns the fat on your body instead of from food.

- I gave myself a morning self-care routine; meditation and journal writing. Before long I was taking it to the next level and challenging myself to do it for 30 days.

- More recently I took part in a 30-day challenge to be plant-based which was the thing which took it to the next level for me. I stopped having night sweats within the week and haven’t stopped since.

- I found someone to keep me accountable while working out, we progressed together. I worked around my injuries by using isometric or balance exercises and low impact workouts.

None of this happened in a day, but I choose to try and be 1% better every day. Once you start small with some habits to change your life, the compound effect starts to happen like a machine gathering speed. If you fuel it with the right things it will only get better. I don’t aim for ‘perfect’ I just wake up and ‘do the reps’ to make these new habits into a lifestyle. There is no pill or magic solution, you must change your mindset and focus on being better every day.

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