Something pretty exciting happened a few weeks back. It was the annual New Zealand Exercise Industry Awards night and I was announced the winner of the Personal Trainer of the Year award for 2017. And I tell you what – I was beyond thrilled, absolutely elated, floating on cloud nine, and incredibly humbled by the accolade and the attention it generated. To be recognised on a national stage for the work I do (and the fun I have doing it) is something I have always dreamt about, and it’s now I night I won’t ever forget.
But this isn’t about the win or about me. It’s about something deeper than that. It’s the reasons why my practice and purpose stood out. It’s the reasons why my style was fiercely investigated by the judging panel. It’s the reasons why they decided that what I was doing was the best of the best and why it needed to be put in the spotlight. Again, this isn’t about me, this is about the what, the how and the why – it’s the details that are crucial here. It’s the things that I have been doing differently; it’s the application and the purpose. It’s the acknowledgment that I’m perhaps part of a pioneering bunch of Personal Trainers who have reached outside the traditional scope of Personal Training and into a new dimension of health and fitness. Because it needed to happen, and I’m so glad it has now been unveiled, recognised and awarded.
You see, we are health and fitness professionals. Personal Trainers, Cross-fit Instructors, Aquarobic Teachers, Pump Instructors, Bootcamp Instructors, Fitness Instructors or whatever else we are commonly called – we all fall under the umbrella of ‘health and fitness professionals’. Yet, for so long we’ve been so focussed on the fitness side of the equation that we’ve forgotten about the health aspect. It’s almost like we came to accept that greater fitness equals greater health, always – but that’s where we may have gone wrong, because it doesn’t work that way. Greater fitness CAN equal greater health, but only if we are giving attention to all the other aspects that enhance health.
Health is all-encompassing and broad in it’s scope. It’s a puzzle made up of thousands of little pieces; the balance of which requires constant adjustment and endless effort throughout the entirety of one’s life, and each one of us has a unique map to navigate in the hunt for it. The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines health as ‘a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.’ Health, then, pertains to an abundance of far-reaching and often untapped elements, many of which have never been touched or considered by those under the ‘health and fitness professional’ umbrella, and certainly never packaged in one inclusive and comprehensive overview or programme.
The feedback from the judges about my entry mentioned that I go ‘beyond sets and reps and into the total care of the person.’ This is crucial. For too long the emphasis has gone towards maximising a client’s physical effort to obtain greater fitness – to a level that could at times be deemed brutal and is indeed considered intimidating by some. Laying exhausted on the floor, throwing up in a bucket, or having the ‘go hard or go home’ mentality has done nothing to stop the ever-growing level of health concerns and chronic disease amongst our population. Knowing the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result, I decided to take charge and create the change that I knew was necessary.
Movement is a beautiful privilege that we must harness, but if we’re to really make a different to one’s ‘health and fitness’ the programmes we prescribe must be completely personalised to the individual and their current state of health. This means investigating and incorporating many other key areas of health including (but not limited to) addressing gut health, investigating any symptoms or complaints, getting enough sleep, eating real food, limiting toxins and synthetic chemicals, allocating social time and rest time, and embracing our favourite hobbies. It also means bringing back play and fun into the exercise environment – science has now proven we gain greater benefit if we are happy and laugh during exercise than if we feel it’s something we are forced to do and resent each moment.
The horizon for health and fitness, and the scope upon which it operates is changing – and this is certainly exciting. The healthcare system is congested in one never-ending traffic jam. To prevent this from worsening, and to slow down the growth of chronic disease and poor health, we must adopt an ambulance at the top of the cliff approach – one where we seek constant improvement in our wellbeing, not where we simply try to avoid illness.
-Corinne Austin
– Health Coach & Personal Trainer of the Year 2017
– corinne@fitfixnz.co.nz
