Is 5,000 workouts a lot? [It sounds it, doesn’t it?] | RISE Macclesfield | Group Personal Training gym weight loss programmes

I mentioned in last Thursdays blog that I thought I’d probably done over 5,000 workouts by now.

That kinda sounds a lot, doesn’t it?

And, of course, it is.

But in some ways, it’s not as big a deal as it sounds.

Firstly I should probably remind people that I’m not what most people would usually assume a FitPro to be.

“Always loved exercise”.

“Captain of the school team”.

I was fat until I was about 14 and had growth spurt.

Fat again by 17 when I discovered beer.

Fat till I was 22 and had left Uni and decided it was time to make some changes.

Never particularly co-ordinated or good at sport.

But found I “enjoyed” the gym.

I say “enjoyed”.

It’s still largely a means to an end.

I’d never do it just for enjoyment – I just find it an ok way to get the benefits it brings.

Anyway, I first went to the gym aged 16.

On and off for the next 5 years.

Probably exercised 5 times a week in the 21 years since.

Which many will immediately look at and think “I don’t have time for that”.

With no detail as to how long those exercise sessions were.

Because we have this ‘image’ of what exercise ‘looks like’.

One to two hours?

In a ‘gym’.

Slogging away.

Some of those bits of exercise will have been a 5 minute stretch.

A 10 minute body weight workout at home.

Enough to keep me moving and help me feel better.

Hitting the dictionary definition of exercise as “movement done with the intention of maintaining or improving some aspect of health and fitness”.

Exercise, whether someone thinks it is or not.

Something we can just do, no matter how busy we feel we are.

Something that has physical benefit.

And, more importantly, changes that conversation in our head.

From being “I’ve stopped and have to start again”.

To more of a slow down and speed up as circumstance dictates.

Not “do I have time to exercise today / this week?”

But “what exercise can I do with the time I’ve got?”

Secondly, to put it in context, here’s what (according to averages) we will have done over the last 20 yeas in other areas.

50,000 x going to the toilet.

131,000 to 575,000 x unlocking our phone (if we’d had smart phones for 20 years that is).

24,000 hours of watching TV (across all age groups – up to 45,000 hours).

If we’d have done three 45 minutes exercise sessions during that time frame, it would have amounted to 5 to 10% of the time we’d have spent watching TV.

We could have done that and still watch 90% as much tele.

If we’d done one 10 minute workout per week, it would have 0.7% of the time spent watching TV.

Anyone who thinks 10 minutes of exercise isn’t worth doing – would it really be that there was zero difference in health and fitness between two otherwise identical people, one who’d done that and one who had done zero exercise in two decades?

Ultimately, short of dying, we’re getting to two decades down the line, one way or another.

We can either have done what needs to be done to get the results we want.

Or not.

No time really saved either way.

Much love,

Jon ‘Happy Valentine’s’ Hall

P.S. Valentine’s isn’t just about other people we love. It can be about loving ourselves. And there’s no way we can show self love more than looking after and investing in ourselves (whilst still living a life we enjoy). for how we can help with that (with a money back guarantee).

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RISE in Macclesfield was established in 2012 and specialise in Group Personal Training weight loss programmes for those that don’t like the gym and find diets boring and restrictive!