I thought it might be useful to share my own fitness journey and what led me to becoming a PT 🙂.
I have active parents and so getting out and about has always been a big part of my life. We would spend our summers climbing mountains in The Alps or windsurfing, sailing and flying power kites in South West France. It was normal to me to go canoeing, climbing or abseiling in the school holidays.
I was also a keen dancer and thought it was what I wanted to do my whole life and so studied dance at college and uni, something I later changed my mind about as I didn't find it to be a very kind world. It was when I was at uni that I started to look at ways of actually training and fitness. My tutors would say "you need to improve your core" but never actually gave me any guidance on how to do this. This was incredibly frustrating because I didn't know how.
When I graduated I had no idea what I wanted to do but I knew it wasn't become a professional dancer! I fell into a junior marketing job which is where I built my previous career from. However going from dancing and running around all day to sitting at a desk, obviously significantly reduced the amount of activity I was doing which I didn't account for in what I was eating and so quickly gained weight.
A few months later I saw some pictures of me on a trip to Lulworth Cove and was shocked at what I saw, I was by no means huge but to me I looked massive! I immediately went on a diet and joined a gym.
It was terrifying joining the gym, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing! I would go in and smash out maximum calorie burn on all the cardio machines. I viewed the weight room as some kind of torture chamber, it looked awful!
I signed up to do a 10k for Cancer Research which really helped me focus, shift the weight and increase my fitness back up. Running quickly became my go to exercise. I wouldn't say I loved it but I could tolerate it.
What I didn't realise was that part of my needing to work on my core, which my lecturers so helpfully pointed out, meant that my glutes (bum) wasn't strong enough, which is a problem if you're running as they're the main muscle needed to make the movement happen. My hamstrings took over, resulting in a tear which was really painful and put me out of action for a few months (but not as long as it should have as I was too impatient to get back to training 🤦♀️).
It wasn't long after this I discovered HIIT and fell in love, instead of spending an hour on the treadmill I could get the same effect in a 30 minute HIIT session! I dabbled in some weights too but didn't really know what I was doing and it wasn't a big part of my routine.
Fast forward a couple of years and I joined a new gym in town, which was on my way to and from work. I also invested in a PT as I wanted to understand what to do in the weight section better. That's when I fell in love with resistance training and started to think that doing a PT qualification could be useful for my friends & I.
Having a desk job never really felt right for me. I was lucky enough to have an amazing career with fantastic travel opportunities but I knew deep down it wasn't for forever, there would be something else, some time that suited me more.
I really enjoyed working out with my friends and helping them in the gym as well as learning for myself, a few people mentioned that I would make a good PT, which put it in the back of my mind. I signed up for the course right before I found out I was pregnant and when I did knew I thought I would have more time to study while on mat leave (ah hahahaha so naive!).
Anywaaaaay, I had a year out of work with my baby girl and managed to land a new job whilst I was off, at the beginning of 2020 I started in the new role. I was just starting to settle into it when the pandemic hit and because of the nature of my job, I was made redundant. This was amazing! I had been gifted the opportunity to follow my heart, finish my qualification and begin a new journey as a PT!
Never had I dared to dream that I could actually make my passion and love a reality. For me, it's just the best job in the world, seeing my clients grow in strength and confidence and I love and appreciate every single one of them!
That's me in a nutshell!! Quite hard to boil a lifetime down into a succinct blog where I don't ramble too much but I wanted to share this because even if you think you hate exercise or feel intimidated by the gym, it doesn't mean you always will, at some point just bite the bullet and give something a shot! Don't put loads of pressure on yourself, try one thing and see how it goes, if you hate it, try something else! What you do need though, is determination, so find what motivates you and use that every time you have a doubt.
One last thing: I used to feel as though everyone was watching me in the gym, because I had no idea what I was doing. I felt so conspicuous but the truth is, no one actually cares. They're all wrapped up in their own worlds and those who do notice you tend to just want to help and offer support and advice.
C xx
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