5 Things I Used To Believe About Fitness And Training (and no longer do)

My training has changed a lot over the years. I’ve gone from gym workouts to Crossfit, to gymnastics and calisthenics, to circus. I’ve experienced a lot of different types of training and ways of executing that training. And I’ve tried to take everything I’ve learnt and improve my approach to coaching with that information. I consider myself to be a good coach these days, and very much focused on my clients.

But I wasn’t always as good a coach, and I used to have some beliefs around fitness and training that actually weren’t really true and certainly weren’t helpful with regards to having any sort of longevity in my training.

So I want to share my old beliefs with you in the hopes that it offers an alternative view to how fitness and training can actually be fun, sustainable and nothing but a benefit to our lives.

Here we go!

1. It doesn’t count if I don’t break a sweat

I really did used to believe that training only counted, that I only achieved, if I was a sweaty mess by the end of it. I didn’t really understand the concept of strength training, and I certainly didn’t realise that there were a million different ways to train your body. These days I absolutely do push my body, but in moderation. I regularly have less intense training sessions/weeks, and focusing on strength and skill makes being able to adjust the intensity super important. Some days I get the most gratification from gentle/playful training sessions 

2. I didn’t work hard enough if I’m not in pain afterwards

Similarly to belief number 1, doing more, pushing harder, and feeling sore, were the only measure of success and progress. And sure, it is important to work hard when you train, but it doesn’t have to be 100% every session, and not to the point that you’re unable to move the next day. I enjoy the occasional bit of muscle soreness, but I much prefer being able to move around pain free. I’m much better at being able to listen to my body now as well, and know when I’m about to go harder than I need to in a training session. 

3. The world would end if I included sugar in my diet

I think about this and cringe. I also don’t talk about the nutrition side of things much because I used to have quite an unhealthy obsessive relationship with food - I tried so many restrictive diets in the hope I’d get the perfect training results, and create the perfect recovery. But I was just miserable. Ultimately anything restrictive deprived me of much needed calories, and wasn’t supporting my training at all. It took a lot of work to realise that finding a balance with food was actually ok. Now pizza, red wine and chocolate are non negotiable in my diet.

4. Rest is for babies 

I used to go on obnoxiously long training streaks, with no rest days in between and wonder why I couldn’t recover. Or my mood would be low, or I wouldn’t feel motivated. Now rest days frequent every single week, and I often have more than one. I usually spend them lying down and eating as much food as I can physically manage. Funnily enough, my recovery is a lot better these days…

5. If I miss a day of training I will lose ALL of my gains

Like, literally if I took a day off there was real fear that I’d lose everything I’d worked for. It’s crazy that took me so long to really understand that gains are a result of compounding consistent effort over time, and that they don’t disappear over night. It takes 10 full days off from training before you start to lose anything, and even then it’s incremental. I have since been forced to take large chunks of time off from training due to injury and while I’ve had to work a bit to gain when I lost, I was never starting from zero. Sprinkling rest days regularly into training is totally worth it to avoid being forced into rest by your body. 

It really takes experience to figure out what to believe about your own training and your body, and while I am embarrassed to admit a lot of these things, I am grateful for the experiences that helped me to see they just aren’t true. And I’m sharing in the hopes that this resonates with someone else.

If you have any thoughts on what I’ve discussed in this post, I’d love to hear from you!