Posted on February 20, 2014 by Jenny Cromack

Wow the last few days have been hectic with the motive8 North personal training team in Leeds!

Yesterday was another 6am start at the studio for me. Unless on holiday or it’s a Sunday I’m at out our Marshall Court personal training studio in Leeds for 6am most mornings. Luckily I only live 10 minutes away but it still means a 5:00am start most days…..ok, being honest 5:15am when I’ve hit the snooze button once! Despite the early start, after a shower, my first port of call is the kitchen for breakfast! I wake up looking forward to breakfast! Yesterday was some scrambled eggs with left over stir fry veg and a few seeds sprinkled on. My clients know an excuse of ‘I don’t have time for breakfast’ won’t cut it with me when I still manage to eat at that time of a morning! I like to think I’m a bit of a multi-tasker so I tend to be doing my make up or hair as things cook! Not sure how hygenic that is though :o)

My personal training clients yesterday morning worked really hard and had made great progress with their goals. The buzz at the Marshall Court studio yesterday morning was great, lots of the personal training Leeds team pushing their clients and encouraging them towards their goals! I love it when you can see the look of amazements on some of our clients faces when their personal trainer pushes them to do that final rep they didn’t believe they could do, or shows them how to do a new exercises they never believed possible.

At 9am I did my first workout of the day. I was down to do an 8 miler on my training plan yesterday but I didn’t have time to fit this all in, in the morning so I split it down into 2 sessions. In the morning I did a 5 mile interval session, 1/2 mile warm up then 2 min at tempo interval pace, 1 min recovery x 10 reps, then 1/2 mile back. I then did my remaining 3 mile at a steady pace on the treadmill last night when I’d finished work at 8:30pm. I often find doing a steady run in the evening, after a tough interval session earlier in the day really helps my recovery and dare I say it, I only have a slight touch of DOMS this morning, unlike Tuesday when I could barely sit down after training so all is good!

I had my Wellness group yesterday and we chatted about why people exercised and the benefits of exercse. Interestingly enough, not one person said to lose weight, tone up…..instead people exercised because it made them feel good, helped them de-stress, was something they enjoyed (made me so happy to hear that!) and just because it was part and parcel of their life. I thought these responses were really interesting as most of the group are looking to lose weight yet they thought these other benefits were more important which is great……people seeing the bigger picture!

In the afternoon I spent some time with Chris and Kate (Lucy is on holiday!). As a team we meet every week to for staff development. If we are to be the best personal trainers in Leeds it is essential that spend time developing our knowledge and the products and services we offer. We are currently revamping our nutritional plan we give to clients. Whilst there is nothing wrong with our current plan we feel that there is new research out there which could improve the results we achieve with our personal training clients and also our own knowledge and ethos about what we believe people should and shouldn’t eat has changed over time. I don’t think this is a bad thing, I think it is a positive thing that it shows we are willing to change what we believe if research supports this and offer our clients a better service. So watch this space for when we launch our Nutritional Consultations in the next month or so.

Following this Kate and I had a meeting with a local business about offering classes for their employees. It is great to see companies willing to invest time and money into their employees health and well being, and we work with a lot of corporate companies in Leeds offering classes, health MOT’s and personal training for their staff. I know there is lots of research around about this can reduce staff sickness but I just think it lends itself to a happier and more content work force.

The rest of the afternoon was spent planning sessions and programmes for my personal training clients in the evenings. Whilst training one of my clients I performed gait analysis on here. How interesting gait analysis is……you can learn so much about your clients running style, why they might be getting niggling injuries, what footwear you should recommend. My client also found it really interesting as she could look at the video and understand what I was talking about as I explained how her running gait maybe effecting a couple of niggling recurring injuries she tends to get.

After my 3 mile run it was then home for a tea of tofu and stir fried veg, a bit of relaxation time and bed….ready for another good day today!