Take a step back

Welcome to my first blog post (series if you will) unpacking my future in fitness. If you haven’t already seen/watched my pitch video and blog post, for this semester I will be researching into the future of fitness and what that looks like for me and my career. I figured, before we dive deep into the future pathway that will be fitness (or that I predict it to be), let’s get to know me and my relationship with fitness and catch you up to where I am at now.

I have had a personal trainer since I was in year 8, which was 2014, which means I have been involved in ‘fitness’ for 9 years. Wow, that makes me feel old. When I first got into strength training, for me it was all about finding a way to move my body in a way that felt good for me and a way that I enjoyed doing, and not doing it because I felt forced too. My first personal trainer, I loved, and still do love, to bits. He was more than a trainer for me. He was like my second brother, who I could go to for anything, cry too, laugh with or knuckle down and get in a good session. I trained with him for about 7 years, and I never took training ‘seriously’. This meaning, I didn’t track my food, I didn’t work out outside of him, I just went to him once or twice a week to get in my movement. That’s another thing I love about him, he never forced me into anything. That’s not to say he didn’t try to get me to do all those things, but he allowed me to be as involved as I wanted to be.

When I finally decided to start seeing what exercise could do for me, was when I would say, I was at the lowest point in my life, mental health wise. I signed myself up to an all-female gym, which at the time was where I felt safe to work out at, and I went in doing whatever felt good. If that meant doing a lower body session, that’s what I did. If that meant a fully body session, then you guessed it, that’s what I did. I found peace within my training sessions. It was my time to blast music in my ears and focus on something that was just for me. Escape from my reality. I once read a quote which said, “some of us go for a run, others do drugs, but at the end of the day we are all just trying to find the thing that distracts us from our reality.” (from some random Instagram page). This spoke, and still does speak, volumes to me.

During our second NSW long lockdown, my mental health started to decline again, and I realised that I needed an outlet. I needed my outlet back, and so that was when I decided to reach out to an all-female company which does all things fitness and mindset. Through this, I was connected to my next personal trainer, who is still mine now. She absolutely changed my life. She wrote me up an at home training program, I started to crack down on my nutrition and was more consistent with my training. Not only did she physically help my body, but she changed who I was as a person. Although she was my online coach, she turned me into the person I knew I always could be, and I will never have enough thank you’s in me for her.

When the lockdown ended, she continued to coach me online and as I transitioned back into the gym, I realised that I had outgrown the space that used to be my happy place. So, I found a new one. The timing was strange, as I had realised this, a new gym had just opened up down the road from my old one. The largest gym in Northern Illawarra actually. It was perfect. Privately-owned, brand-new space, brand new equipment, brand new people for a brand new me. So, I went in, I met the owner and I signed up. This gym is both male and female and the people I have met there and have become friends with are ones that will always uplift me. They seem to always be on the same wavelength as me, and we all have something in common, our love for training. I am also now friends with the owner, and he is an amazing person.

It was around the time of me signing up to my new gym, that I had a light bulb moment of ‘wait a second, I f$@%ing love fitness, why am I not trying to pursue this?’ So, I got my shit into gear, enrolled myself in my certificate 3 and 4 in fitness through the Australian Fitness Academy and got to work. I finished my certificate 3 around a month ago now and have just begun my certificate 4.

So, sitting here before you is a qualified group gym instructor and a personal trainer in the making. I think what led me to this decision was seeing how much fitness changed my life and how much my now coach brought me so far out of my shell I was almost unrecognisable. I want to do that for people. I want to change lives. I want to be a motivator, a coach, a therapist, and a discipliner all in one. Of course, my journey has had literal blood, sweat and tears, throughout, but coming out the other side is someone that I am genuinely proud to be. I still have a long while to go, and I am so excited to see where the future takes me.

So, follow along. My predictions may be way off, or completely spot on but let’s learn together about my future in fitness.

Stay cool, Ruby