It’s party time at Ignite Fitness and Nutrition as we celebrate not one but two 12th birthdays this week.

First up, October marks the 12th anniversary of our being in business.

12 years of being trusted by Hutt Valley locals to help you achieve happiness and long-term health and fitness goals.

Our second celebration sees our resident fur ball, Zeus, hit the dirty dozen too.

Needless to say, we’ve had quite a week here at Ignite.

What the last 12 years have come to reinforce to me is that it truly is a privilege to be allowed an opportunity to help others grow.

It shouldn’t be underestimated how important people’s health and fitness goals are to them.

They are often some of the most intimate and heavily protected desires a person has and as a result, they deserve to be treated with respect.

What I’ve learned over the last 12 years – It all starts with relationships

Access to fitness equipment doesn’t guarantee fitness.

A man much smarter than me told me that a long time ago, and it still resonates today.

If you want:

– to be successful in your career, you study and/or train accordingly.

– your kids to learn to swim, you take them to lessons

– to learn a language, you work with a linguist

However, for most of us, if we want to get fit, we buy the cheapest membership and think we’ll be successful on our own.

And most of us fail, because we don’t know what we’re doing, and we need accountability greater than that offered by the guy at reception grunting at us when we swipe our cards.

Hence, we need coaching more than we need access to equipment.

Tip – How you can achieve this

Your long-term success is going to be directly linked to the relationships you build with your coach.

Check a few places out, and find somewhere you can sit down and talk with a coach about your goals before you have to sign up.

Are they more interested in you and your goals than they are in getting you signed up?

That’s probably the place for you.

Our focus on the 50+ community

Over the years, we’ve honed in on working with those over 50 who want to live healthier, happier lives.

Our approach is tailored to help people in this age group improve their strength, fitness, and overall well-being without the intimidation that often comes with traditional gyms.

We understand that building strength and maintaining fitness becomes even more important as we age, and our programs are designed to help you feel confident and capable.

The relationships we build with our clients, especially those over 50, are at the core of everything we do.

Semi-private training: 4-to-1 coaching sessions

One of the best ways we achieve this is through our semi-private training sessions.

These 4-to-1 coaching sessions provide the perfect balance of personalised attention and community support.

You get the benefit of working closely with a coach, while also being part of a small, supportive group that makes the journey more enjoyable.

You need less intensity than you think

The last 12 years have seen a boom in functional and high-intensity interval training.

These methods have been touted as the best way for busy people to get a great workout in the shortest amount of time.

And we bought into that.

For 7 years we were a CrossFit affiliate.

We ran class-based fitness catering to 10-12 people in a group.

We worked from the constantly varied functional movements, executed at a high-intensity model, and it was great to begin with.

But as we developed as a coaching facility, our Move Better, Live Longer, Be Happier vision started to move away from this training style.

The clientele we catered best to need a different way of training.

So we pivoted to serve this audience.

We moved towards less, much less, frequent high-intensity training and adopted a more balanced strength and conditioning focus.

Why?

Your body can’t differentiate between the stress of an argument with a loved one, a hard day at work, or a tough workout.

Encountering stress causes it to respond in the same way, by releasing adrenaline and cortisol.

Regular exposure to high levels of stress can cause all manner of health concerns.

A stressful day at work isn’t necessarily made better by battering yourself in the gym.

Tip – Find a training program where you can regularly work out without feeling like trash the next day

This doesn’t mean your workouts need to be easy.

They just don’t need to beat you into the ground every time you train. Pro athletes don’t train like that, so neither should you.

Patience and consistency are your best supplements

Whatever you want to achieve is going to take time to achieve, especially if you apply the methods we’ve already discussed.

Unfortunately, the health and fitness industry does a really poor job of communicating that, instead focusing on getting your attention by advertising quick fixes and radical transformations.

You wouldn’t expect to get a degree in less than three years, so expecting to lose 10kgs in 4 weeks should be viewed in the same way.

Before we even talk to clients about fat loss, we work with them to create a good foundation of healthy habits.

Improving sleep quantity and quality, drinking the appropriate amount of water, and achieving a balanced macronutrient intake each day.

This is hard enough to do with our stressful lives without adding in the stress of calorie restriction.

Tip – How to become patient and consistent

See point 1 – get a coach.

Accountability, care, education, and support are the things that are going to make the process easier.

Coach Laura: Committed to lifestyle and nutrition

We are also thrilled to have Coach Laura on board, who is dedicated to helping our clients improve their lifestyle and nutrition habits.

Laura brings a wealth of knowledge and a compassionate approach, working closely with our clients to make sustainable changes that support their health and fitness goals.

Our experiences have been hard-earned helping thousands of Hutt Valley locals over the last 12 years.

If you want to see how these tips can help you achieve your health and fitness goals now and for the next 12 years, consider working with me.

To find out more about that, book a free call by clicking here.

Cheers,

Paul