That is the question on everyone’s lips as we roll into Autumn 2020. Ok, well it might not be the most pressing concern for everyone, but it’s certainly a dilemma facing fitness professionals and enthusiasts alike.
I haven’t always felt comfortable in a gym myself. I started my working life in my 20’s as a bog-standard gym instructor, but when it came to training others, or even training myself, at times the gym environment didn’t feel all that friendly. I was more of a sport specialist at the time, and found it sometimes overly masculine, or a bit ‘showy’. And when I began to learn how to teach people to move better, some of the exercises I was teaching seemed a bit different from the mainstream. Even now, my extensive use of the Swiss ball often sets me apart from most trainers.
Also, being a fairly ‘ordinary’ looking, and slight built person, sometimes the “henchness” of other trainers or the emphasis on size and physical capability was quite intimidating. And so, perhaps a bit by chance, but also by design I have developed a lot of skills that mean that a good chunk of my work is outside of the gym environment, usually in people’s homes.
My ‘home based’ personal training business has developed over the years for several reasons of convenience, and for some connected to finance. Firstly, I love working with people who aren’t really ‘fitness’ types, or perhaps are ‘beginners’. I have the skills to work with clients with pain issues/niggles, and/or with very little movement experience. To be honest I enjoy nothing better than taking someone inexperienced and building them up physically and mentally so that they move well, confidently adding exercise into their lifestyle enabling them to do the things they want to do. I suppose these people were safe for me to work with in the beginning too, because I had nothing to prove, and they trusted me. I could practice what I’d learnt without the peer pressure of making things look the way people expect personal training to look, building my own confidence and abilities as a trainer along the way.
Swiss Balls and Spin lock dumb bells form the foundation of my home based essentials kit
Many of my clients often don’t want to be in a gym to start with for some of the same reasons I wasn’t always comfortable there, and I’ve found that in the privacy and comfort of a living room, it’s very easy to work with someone at their own pace, without the comparisons or the distractions of the (sometimes noisy) gym environment. Having been invited into someone’s home, I’m very conscious I’m in their territory, and that evens up the power play in the relationship a fair bit, allowing my client to feel more in control, something I most definitely encourage. This is a refreshing change from the sometimes aggressive and ego driven behaviour that I’ve seen motivate training sessions in a more traditional gym environment.
I’m still shocked and saddened that being pushed to pain is almost expected by some, and by others in the exercise industry is worn as a badge of honour. In the comfort of the home environment, I can encourage discomfort for those last important reps with good form, and explain why overload is important, but why pain is not if you want to get fitter and move better.
There’s another group who I consider ‘my people’ who often prefer to exercise away from the gym and that is cyclists or other endurance athletes. For keen cyclists who spend 8-12 hours a week on the bike, there is little motivation to make the time to go to the gym and often the level of training required for a therapeutic or ‘corrective’ dose of strength, core or stretching work can easily be achieved with simple kit at home. Most cyclists don’t need heavy loading to achieve their goals, and some basic but valuable ‘extras’ can easily be tagged onto a cycling/running workout, giving value to an addition 10-20 minutes here and there but without the need to commute to the gym and back and spend 40 minutes to an hour in it. This is another of the practical reasons I’ve developed a significant arm of my work outside the gym, harnessing simple tools for use at home (like Swiss balls and spinlock dumb bells). It’s the approach that I show case in my book ‘Ride Strong’- Essential Conditioning for cyclists.
The combination of Swiss ball exercises with dumbbells for cross-over strength and core gains is show cased in my book “Ride Strong - Essential Conditioning for Cyclists”.
Many people in lockdown have been forced to exercise at home or outside by default, and perhaps more than ever have felt the need to MOVE in whatever way they can, just to stay sane and to remain healthy. I’ve loved watching people out and about simply walking or cycling, or improvising in the park, exercising with a mate using whatever is at hand. I’ve seen walking bicep curls with bean tins and boxing pads wrapped around trees, beginners on bikes that look like they belong to someone else and people running who aren’t ‘runners’, but are just people running. And I’ve loved all of that. It’s refreshing, and it’s what exercise should be. Enjoyable, opportunistic, and for everybody.
Indoors others have turned online for inspiration and got involved in classes or scoured YouTube for something new to try. Kids and parents alike have been doing jumping jacks with Joe Wicks, and online fitness businesses are booming. Many personal trainers and coaches are pushing their online business to fit this new emerging market, and to offer the flexibility and convenience that suits many in these Covid influenced times.
For me personally, I took my business completely online for the first 10 weeks of Lockdown. Coaching via zoom and facetime I took 90% of my regular clients with me, producing video content for others who needed new programs to suit their new environment and their limited equipment. Thankfully, many of my clients were already equipped with the ‘at home’ basics I recommend for all – a Swiss ball and dumb bells, but for my usually gym based clients some serious program redesign had to happen to offer appropriate and challenging strength and conditioning with minimal equipment.
Lock down presented new challenges for me, but training continued, and to my surprise, a fair bit of progress was made remotely.
Working without the overheads of gym rent and travel for this period allowed me to sustain a good income in spite of the changes we’ve all been going through, and more importantly it allowed me to maintain regular habits for me and my clients.
As things have started to open up and with precautions in place I’ve been back training most of my home based clients for some time now, and it’s been great to be IN PERSON with them again, if not in the same room, then at least in the same garden. For me, although I’m willing and able to work online, I value the time I spend with clients and the three dimensionality of that experience, both physically, but also emotionally and mentally. For me, it’s a big part of what I’m in the business for – the relationship that we can develop with a common goal in mind. And although I can work without access to a gym, as gyms have reopened I’m still keen to get back to mine, and I’ve been reflecting on what I love about the gym environment and why in recent years I’ve returned to the gym for almost half of my coaching/PT work.
One obvious benefit in light of the last 6 months is the potential for training my more advanced clients/athletes effectively with access to more kit. Squat racks, barbells and cable machines in particular allow significant loading in the big functional strength movements that I encourage in all my training. It’s also nice to be able to include drills, skills and variety with all of the accessory toys that can be found in most gyms. Variety is the spice of life and the gym really enhances that.
I’m not a heavy lifter these days, but I certainly missed a solid Barbell dead lift over the last 6 months..
I’ve come to recognise that the change of scene and the shared atmosphere of other people working can be stimulating, offering a fun and motivating working environment for both me and my clients. This is something I certainly missed during lockdown, and I’ve come to understand that diversity is a simple pleasure I really enjoy in my work. It’s good to see what other people are doing too, even if I conclude that’s it’s not something I want to include in my sessions. The relationships between trainers and clients in personal training gym spaces really shine through too, and reassure me that it’s one of the most important components of any training session. Professionally, when I see both good and bad practice, I’m able to refine the way I work to do the best job I possibly can. No longer intimated by the gym environment and more confident in myself in my wise old age, I now embrace the fact that some of my clients are much more capable than me, and enjoy the challenge of developing their athleticism or performance way beyond my own.
In my work I’ve always focussed on strength and conditioning elements that go beyond basic cardiovascular ‘fitness’, which I still maintain is pretty easy to establish with some simple cycling, walking or other basic aerobic exercise. Whether outside, at home, online, or in the gym, what ends up being most important is choosing appropriate exercises and learning proper technique. Those two factors underpin good program design and sound coaching wherever you are exercising, and that’s where an exercise professional can help you move and perform better more quickly than if you are finding your way on your own. Whether you prefer to be in a gym or elsewhere is far less important.
Making plans is not all that easy right now, and none of us really knows what will happen over the next few months or even if gyms will stay open or not. If we want to stay active through the autumn and winter I think we need to be ready for anything. That has to be the plan.
I’ve been enjoying a lot of outdoor swimming this summer, and intend to brave the elements to continue that well into the Autumn..
We can enjoy the gym environment if we want to be there, but know that we are capable of working out (as well as working) from home if needs be. I hope we can still enjoy being outside too and that as the weather turns we perhaps become a bit hardened to the elements instead of retreating completely indoors with our exercise. I believe flexibility and adaptability in our mind set is key, and I’ve learnt this year that you can achieve more than you imagine with very little if you keep moving and adapting the best way you can. And with that metaphor in mind exercise really can be our best medicine.