As a personal trainer, I firmly believe in the importance of seeking physiotherapy and then practicing the necessary physical therapy as part of the treatment for injury, imbalances and associated aches and pains.
At Fitness Runs in the Family, we have had the benefit of working alongside Lucy at Life Made Simple physio for many years, to help give clients the best solution and treatment for their physical needs.
Having personally received brilliant physiotherapy treatment for a back injury from Lucy, it is a pleasure to contribute to her blog and to highlight the fantastic fitness, wellness and healthcare offering we have in our local community here in Bramley, Guildford and Surrey.
In this blog I detail a little about my personal training experience, our business offering at Fitness Runs in the Family and I answer my most frequently asked questions: What is the best form of exercise? What exercise should I do?
• What first motivated you to gain qualifications in Personal Training?
Growing up, sport was a major part of my life and I was fortunate enough to enjoy both a period of playing lacrosse and of swimming at a very high level. I was always interested in the strength and fitness training which supported the sport. I continued to train myself even when my sporting career came to an end and family life took over. After having my first daughter in 2009, I left the corporate world and retrained as a Personal Trainer, gaining an advanced diploma in Personal Training.
• When did the business start and how has it developed over the years?
I started working with clients in 2010 and spent many years working both in a big health club in central London as well as seeing personal training clients privately. In 2016, having moved out of London, and therefore ceased my role as a Personal Training Manager at Virgin Active, I established Fitness Runs in the Family.
In 2020 we were able to build our own fully-equipped, private gym studio here in Bramley to provide an even better offering for our clients to help them get the most out of their training.
In addition, in 2020, we launched an online training platform to provide expert coaching to women, specifically, who wish to train from home. We now offer both membership subscription and structured courses of training to make it as easy as possible to train from home. Our online platform offers real-time, follow-along workouts, and structured, balanced, progressive programmes of workouts - wherein each and every exercise is coached throughout.
This has proved hugely popular given the lockdowns of 2020 and the realisation of how important staying active - even with minimal equipment from home - is to our physical and mental wellbeing.
• What is the best form of exercise / what exercise should I do? (my most commonly asked question.)
I believe that any safe activity or exercise is better than no activity or exercise. I also believe that the best exercise for any one person is the exercise that they enjoy therefore making it more likely that they will stick with it in a regular and consistent way, as part of an active, healthy, balanced lifestyle.
However, I do think we all need some strength training, some mobility training and some training which challenges our cardio-respiratory fitness. This doesn’t necessarily mean practicing three different disciplines - there are ways that all three can be incorporated into the same training session.
I do also believe that there are particular exercises, unique to each individual, that can be cherry picked from the discipline of strength training which can really help an individual become stronger in the right areas for them, more mobile in the right areas for them and more functional all at the same time. Most often a client will not know how much they can benefit from a particular exercise until they start practicing it and seeing or feeling the benefits.
I like to find a way of making these helpful exercises as enjoyable as possible for the individual so they include them in their exercise selection when exercising between PT sessions or once their course of PT has come to an end.
Over the years I have studied, experienced, and coached many different styles of exercise from pilates to yoga to running to powerlifting to HIIT training and everything in between! I have qualifications in many different training techniques and pieces of equipment. But the qualifications are only part of the story.
The meaningful experience comes from working hands-on with clients. As with Physiotherapy, it is the needs of the individual who you are working with which will dictate the training style and exercise selection from the individual’s “trainable menu”.
Personally, I “lean in” to all of my experience in the fields of strength and conditioning, weight lifting, cardio, pilates, yoga, pre and post-natal training to pull together the right training programme for the individual - with each exercise selected for a particular purpose (n.b. “fun” is also a totally valid reason for exercise selection!).
• Any final words of guidance for readers of this blog page?
Keeping fit, strong and active is very important to look after our mental and physical wellbeing - particularly at the moment given the restrictions on our lifestyles caused by the coronavirus. I believe we should be open to a holistic approach to looking after our physical and mental wellbeing and seek treatment or professional help where we need it.
On a personal note, I couldn’t recommend Lucy’s services at Life Made Simple Physio more highly - so if you are struggling with recovery from an injury or other aches, pains and strains seek some physio advice from Lucy.
If you are interested in our personal training or online training offering, then more details on our service can be found on our website: www.fitnessrunsinthefamily.com or on our Instagram page @fitnessrunsinthefamily.