“Health and Fitness taking Melbourne by storm – get onto the ‘bandwagon’”
Health and fitness has truly swept the Australian shores, not to mention Melbourne in particular – both in the CBD and the outer Melbourne suburbs, with people, young and old embracing healthier living and a heightened sense of well-being. The fitness industry has boomed in Melbourne with personal training becoming part of popular culture. The cause of this boom may be circumstantial; however with technology at our finger-tips, we are becoming more aware as a society of the correct functioning of our bodies and how to keep them at their peak and ‘in-check’. Times truly have taken a turn for the better in terms of health and fitness; when we walk outside our homes, down to the supermarket, ‘flick’ on the TV or even on social media – advertisements and literature bombarding us every which way to create a healthy well-being, to eat clean and maintain an adequate level of physical activity. Melbourne therefore has come a long way from its humble beginnings, to become a ‘powerhouse city’ and a ‘hub’ for the rest of Australia for health and fitness. Melbourne is the perfect setting to nourish these virtues and philosophies of health and fitness – we can live by these philosophies easily and improve ourselves physically and mentally with the range of fitness services, quality produce to assist with nutrition and a vast array of professionals at a local level. Personal training here in Melbourne has a lot to offer and is highly revered. It has evolved to incorporate novel ways of training for the client, be it ‘boot-camp’, circuits, functional training, MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) orientated training and other creative training methods. We are fortunate enough here in Melbourne to be able to pick and choose what style of training/training method suits us and what we are comfortable with in order to achieve our health and fitness goals.
“Goal Orientated and Results based – that’s what it’s all about!”
…But what is the most efficient and effective way(s) to achieve these goals? And how do we get the best possible results? Generally, there is actually no correct answer believe it or not. The simple response to these questions is that goals and therefore results are created, achieved and attained on an individual basis. For example, if the client has a goal of competing in the upcoming physique competition, then the ways to achieve this goal are tailored specifically to obtain the results first (in incremental steps of course) in order to achieve this goal. The key is always ‘baby steps’ but beginning with the end in mind is crucial, with the client being reminded of his/her goal the majority of the time. In the example of the client competing in the physique competition, the client would slowly make changes (not drastic ones!) to their diet, which concurrently becoming familiar with (what could be novel) their resistance and aerobic training methods. This would allow the weekly achievement of ‘mini-goals’ in order to create the results required to achieve the main goal, which in this case, is to compete in the physique competition.
Ultimately, it is common knowledge that the ways to achieve any health, fitness, well-being goal(s) stem from the concept of combining diet/nutrition with exercise/physical activity. A combination of diet and exercise should almost certainly provide the desired results, providing there are no other variables that may affect this. These may include: certain medical conditions and prescription medications, just to name a few. After combining diet and exercise, the onus then results with the individual, to see it that the necessary ‘baby steps’ are taken and the mindset is in place to achieve their goal. The world re-known martial artist, Bruce Lee, exemplifies this philosophy behind achieving your goals. He believed that ‘internal training was just as important as external’. In terms of physical training he even believed running to be a form of meditation and in terms of diet, he resisted Western cooking as he claimed it contained ‘too many empty calories’. He also felt that vitamin supplementation to be an integral part of his nutrition. So using Bruce Lee as a good example we can illustrate the simple but yet vital combination of nutrition and exercise to assist with our goal achievement.