Following on from my last post, I suffered a nasty spell of sciatic and femoral nerve pain, which both my Physio and PT believe was brought on by over training. It meant I was unable to do any training for a few weeks. My PT focussed on helping me stretch out my piriformis muscles as well as my hip flexors and glutes. My Physio helped with those too, but also worked on releasing the tension in my back. Thankfully all the nerve pains have gone now, but I still need to work on stretching the muscles. Other health issues meant I had to take the focus away from weight loss for a while, so we have been working on strengthening my glutes and back. Now I am under Doctor's orders to refrain from strenuous exercise, and running for the next 4-6 weeks (this is to do with other health issues and a small operation which are not, in any way exercise related). After 6 weeks, hopefully I will be "back in the game" as they say. I will need to be, because guess what is next?
I am going to start a training course to become a Personal Trainer! It's something I've thought about doing for quite some time and it feels like the time is right now. The nerve and back pains have been a wake up call that sitting in a car all day is not good for me. I want to improve my knowledge about the body and training for my own benefit, but I'd also like to use that knowledge to help others in similar situations to me. I will be specialising in helping clients with obesity and diabetes. I really want to help those who, for whatever reason, don't believe they can do it. I want to be more than the Personal Trainer who turns up once a week to make you sweat a bit. I want to be a constant support and mentor. I'll be looking at ways to be on hand via social media, Skype, FaceTime etc. to help with the day to day challenges of getting and staying healthy.
Of course, I need to get my body into good shape, so that I can be a positive role model for my clients, but I want them to know that this has been a long and hard journey for me too. I hope that they will appreciate and be inspired by my successes. I don't care if I never have a 6 pack, but I will be fit and healthy and have a body which allows me to do the things I want to do to be happy. That's what I want for my clients too. Personal Trainers are not just for people who want to look like The Rock or The Kardashians, I'm here for the people who just want to be able to get up a flight of stairs without being out of breath, who want to play with the kids in the garden, without having to sit down for a rest.
So I've signed up for the course and I start in a few weeks. I have received some of the training books in the post and My God I've got a lot of reading to do! It's funny because I considered going into the fitness industry when I was at school but I was scared of having to learn all about the body and muscles and stuff. Now here I am 25 years later, doing what I should have done in the first place! Maybe the journey was for a reason? Maybe I've built up a history of personal experience which will help me better empathise with my clients? I think so.
