How To Become Your Own Personal Trainer - Be Slim In The Age Of Obesity

You too can become your own personal trainer. It’s free; it’s fun, interesting and extremely rewarding. Your own fitness can be approached from a very personal point of view, Your own fitness can be approached from a very personal point of view, uninfluenced by either the food or the fitness industries. Being your own personal trainer has nothing to do with guilt, shame or even a sense of duty. If you feel that you “should” be doing something about getting thinner or fitter, you have already killed the goose that lays the golden fitness egg. “Should” implies unwanted duty. Bah! No-one likes that. Instead you can begin to think for yourself by asking the following two questions:

1. Why have we reached the age of global obesity?

2. What are the requirements for a fit and healthy body?

This hub attempts to answer those two questions and give you as much food for thought, or I’ll rephrase that to “moves for thought”, as will fit into one hub.

First Question: Why have we reached the age of global obesity?

We have reached the age of global obesity because the food industry has got us by the meat balls. The food industry is feeding both the fitness industry and the pharmaceutical industry. Detachment is urgently required. We can grow our own food and be our own personal trainer thank you very much.

2nd Question: What are the requirements for a fit and healthy body?

The requirements for a fit and healthy body can be summerised in 8 points.

1. Balance
2. Flexibility
3. Endurance
4. Movement Vocabulary
5. Physical Games
6. Dancing
7. Relaxation
8. Awakening
   

All the points discussed below are inevitably interlinked. One cannot exist without all the others since they all have an effect on each other.

Balance is the collaboration of muscle groups to carry the body most efficiently against the constant downward pulling force of gravity. Without good balance your muscular system is going to find it very difficult indeed to carry you around. And if your muscular system fails, then all the other systems will suffer, including your emotions and your brain-power through sheer lack of comfort. Posture is where balance is at work, but not only in a standing-up straight posture like an army sergeant major. For the most economic use of your muscular system, a balanced posture is required at all times in all positions. Put it this way: If you are uncomfortable, you are using unnecessary muscle force to maintain an unbalanced position. Your own personal trainer says: ‘Invent physical games that challenge your balance.’

Suggestions:

Try and find something in the dark, or Stand on one leg with your eyes closed.)

Flexibility is the faculty of moving one’s joints to their natural movement range. That range is defined by the shape of the bones in the skeleton, the length of the ligaments holding the bones together, and the length of the muscles that move the bones. So stretching for flexibility involves lengthening tendons, ligaments and muscles to attain a wider movement range in the joints. The interesting thing is that the shape of the bones in the joints changes with use or the lack of use. For example, if you never look at the stars, it hurts when you do. Why? Because short tendons, ligaments and muscles do not allow free, upward movement. If you never stretch your neck up and back, then over time, the cervical curve becomes deeper and the shape of the cervical vertebrae is changing permanently, sometimes even fusing vertebrae together. Help!

Evolution

This change occurs not only in one person’s life time but over many generations, many centuries and millennia, the change becomes very clear. It’s called evolution. By changing its movement habits the present human skeleton evolved from apelike creatures.

Hanging Upside Down

To combat the constant downward pulling force of gravity on all the joints and the spine, hanging upside down is a good way of encouraging evolution in the right direction (upwards). To this end, you can use a gravity inversion table or a yoga inversion sling.

Flexibility in the neck, for example facilitates holding your head in the correct central position above the spine. Flexibility in the hip joint allows the pelvis to be placed correctly in standing and walking. Flexibility leads to greater agility and comfort. Your own personal trainer says: ‘Invent a comfortable position that challenges your flexibility.’

Suggestion:

Put one foot on top of your desk maybe?

3. Endurance

Endurance gives power, strength and stamina, and can be had from aiming to surpass one’s previous limits. OK, it’s a bit “streberich” but well worth adding to the fitness menu. Exerting oneself once a day like running up the stairs, or catching a bus, or digging a hole to plant a tree gives the heart and lungs the necessary boost to keep those two vital organs functioning to full capacity. Endurance is often forgotten with ageing but this is a mistake. Some kind of aerobic activity is necessary on a daily basis to keep the body engine running smoothly. Five or ten minutes is enough but must be kept up at any age. Endurance gives great confidence.

Your own personal trainer says: “Good idea, next time don’t take the lift for a couple of floors / flights.”

I already published the answer to this question here.

What is Movement Vocabulary?
Movement Vocabulary is the number of moves available at one's disposal for physical expression. Good alignment, posture, flexibility, balance, coordination, agility, grace, strength and timing all help to increase movement vocabulary. You could compare the moves in a person's body language to the vocabulary of speach. But being an extortionist doesn't necessarily make you a good mover, with a rich movement vocabulary.

Rich Movement Vocabulary

A rich movement vocabulary (being comfortable with a large number of positions and movements) not only gives diversity in physical expression, it also takes the burden off a few muscles to share out the daily load between many more muscles. While diversity is the main benefit of a rich movement vocabulary, several more factors play a role in the "grammar" of body language. These include a sense of Location, Direction and Relationship, Tempo, Rhythm and Timing, Flow and Dynamics, Response and Reaction all of which we can talk about some other time. Meanwhile, your own personal trainer says: ‘Have you invented a new move or position today?’

“New Games” is a movement that organises non-competitive physical group games in outdoor environments. Over 200 people can play in the parks of great cities like London, New York, Sidney and Tokyo. In today’s sex dominated society physical games for adults other than competitive sport have almost become taboo or at best get labelled as "hippie". It’s a great shame and let us hope for a revival of the great "New Games" trend that started in the seventies. Meanwhile we can still play ball on the beach, make each-other fall off the lylo into the wild waves of a warm ocean or roll down a soft grass hill to loosen every bone in the body. Real fun family games in an outdoor environment by far beats Nintendo, Wii Fit boards or any gym. Your own personal trainer says: ‘Maybe you can play non-sexual physical games with your spouse? Ha! That would be the day! Explain it to him/her, try, perhaps as an extended foreplay?” :)

There is no need to pay a shrink hundreds of dollars a week to keep a healthy mood and mind. Dancing is a means of releasing deep seated tension in the body through improvisation. Improvisation comes from the gut, from the core. You do not think about relationship problems or shopping lists when you are truly into dancing. But here again, if you are stiff and fat and generally immobile, then your body is poorly equipped to release its most deep seated tensions, or express its feelings and emotions. So the more you dance the better, as long as you take the courage to try out new moves. Some people dance like robotised automatons and I often wonder; don’t they get bored doing the same moves over and over? Dancing is great, you can do it to the radio in the kitchen while waiting for the kettle to boil. Your body will tell you exactly which moves it needs to do, to get back into shape. Listen to your body, trust it. Your own personal trainer says: ‘Go on, put some music on, have a break from the computer. Dance, lift those arms up high; can you reach the ceiling? Focus upwards and backwards (counter moves for PC / MAC posture).’

Lindy Hoppers

Watch this great video as an example of how the Lindy Hoppers don't "pose"; how they don't care what they look like or if they fall over. Instead they go for the sheer challenge and risk taking of the dance itself. And see how much they enjoy it. Can you see Groucho Marx in the background?

When all the dancing and working is done you need to rest. But resting is not just sitting on a chair or a sofa watching TV. Resting means horizontal on your back, with your eyes closed. With conscious breathing follow the patterns in our mind until you transcend into a more quiet state where normal thinking is suspended. Now there is room for a completely different activity in your mind: Meditation they call it. A person who knows how to meditate rarely suffers from insomnia. Your own personal trainer says: ‘Maybe try going to sleep without TV hypnosis.'

8. Awakening

It is easy to check on your body’s state of health and fitness by being aware of how you wake up in the morning. Are you glad to be awake, ready and keen for another day in your life? Here, your own personal trainer says: ‘I leave that one for you to answer honestly. And then think about what you can change to wake up happy.’

Your own Personal Trainer suggests that perhaps we don’t need to be so dependent on either the food industry or the fitness industry or the pharmaceutical industry. Your own personal trainer is within you at all times in your day to day existence. Getting fit and healthy may now prove less of a “should” and a “must”. If you don’t feel like doing 40 press-ups, that is normal; press-ups are punishment in the army, not nice, not pleasant. Your very own personal trainer tells you clearly that all your friendly body wants is to serve you to its best ability. Now you can make peace with your body. Improvise, be creative with your own exercises that your body fully understands and really enjoys doing.

Before getting too carried away though, read How to Structure an Exercise Session for greater benefits and faster results.

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