At what point does exercise become bad for us instead of doing us good?
The health and fitness industry is increasingly focusing on mind and body training and offering more than just physical exercise programs for our members. We all know that continually smashing ourselves with hard core cardio sessions or heavy weight lifting sessions is not the answer to the physique we want or the balance most of us are searching for in our lives.
People come to the gym for many reasons but a key factor for most people’s regular gym attendance is the psychological benefit of exercise. Depending on your state of mind, level of personal/work stress, your general health, how well you have slept, eaten and recovered since your last training session – your personal best may be achieved with a mind body workout rather than with a hard training session.
The majority of people joining a gym are looking to lose weight and we also know the key part that stress plays in weight loss and how beneficial it is for people to feel less stress in their lives in order to effectively lose that extra weight. Hard core exercise can be a source of physical stress on the body as much as external stresses can.
Monitoring your current stress levels – internal and external, as well as listening to your body and what it needs, will give you’re the greatest long term gains. Balance is key. Do a bit of both but choose when is the most effective time for a hard-core workout and when you need to cut yourself some slack and nourish your mind and body to refuel the tank.
Education
- Educate yourself on how to create balance in an exercise program
- Train your staff with the skills to deliver balanced exercise programs
- Offer a balanced group exercise timetable in your club
- Up skill your staff, instructors and trainers so that they understand the mind and body benefits of balanced exercise prescription (it is particularly important that the Managers, Customer Service Staff and Sales Personnel are 100% across these learning’s as they will have multiple contact points with your members on a daily basis)
Summary
Assist your long-term member retention by ‘caring’ more and taking a holistic approach to your member’s achieving their goals. This will do 3 things for you;
- Increase your Group Exercise Member Penetration
- Boost your uptake of Personal Training sessions
- Add longevity to your client/PT training relationships
Leisl is the Group Exercise Manager at Virgin Active Norwest. 2017 winner of the prestigious Virgin Star Award which sent her to London to meet with Richard Branson. Leisl writes regularly for industry publications and is a Group Exercise Management Consultant for clubs needing analysis and advise on maximising their GEX potential.