Goodbye Transformation…. Hello Morning Crew!

Just a quick post to say that I went to my first ‘big boys’ class today and it was brilliant. I joined the morning crew at 6am which is a much better time for me. I know most people prefer the evening classes but after 3 x bedtime routines (aka bedtime armageddon in my house) the last thing I want to do is have a workout.

I was up early this morning so I got my kit on and went for it! Thursdays at Southern Legion usually focus on strength movements and today was deadlifts. I learnt those in the Transformation so they weren’t too scary. I can’t do heavy deadlifts, but James took us through a warm-up technique that helped us identify what our hamstrings should feel like during the lift so that really helped me. Every time we go through deadlifts my technique gets a bit better.

The workout was an AMRAP of double unders and squat snatches. Obviously, I can’t do either of those so James scaled the workout for me to do single unders (basically skipping!) and hang power snatches. Now, at 5:59 this morning I did not know what a hang power snatch was, but by 7am my arms certainly did!

To get me to learn the hang power snatch, James broke down the different elements of the squat snatch and stopped me at the point where I still knew what I was doing! I actually really enjoyed it and I’m looking forward to learning the last element next time so I’ve got the whole movement.

The morning class was really relaxed, chilled, and friendly. I think everyone was just waking up and shaking the cobwebs off! I went home buzzing so I’ve started my day on a high, and the best thing is I can go to bed at 8pm without feeling guilty.

Thank you James and the morning crew – I’ve definitely found my new home.

I’ve found a way of life that I can love again

Having been in the Military since the age of 19, training has been always been a part of my everyday life. But when I left 6 years ago I joined a civvy gym and really struggled to stay motivated…..no one talked to one another and I felt like I was just going through the motions.

We all went in, did our class, then walked back out without saying a word: there was no camaraderie, and very little support. I tried various classes at different gyms but I sort of lost my way after that. I then fell pregnant with our second baby so I found that an excuse to stop training.

Struggling to find motivation

After the birth of our daughter in 2014, I struggled with my weight and really struggled to find my love for training again. My weight slowly crept up while my body confidence and self-esteem went down. I found it easier to stay away from the gym and as a result harder to do something about it. My husband had started at Southern Legion the year before and he kept saying to me that I would love it and I should give it a go. He would tell me what WODs they’d done that day and I could see the positive effect it had on his fitness, but I thought it sounded too difficult for me to even try it and I was too shy to take that first step.

Something inside me was awoken – I loved training again!

Eventually, 8 weeks after our daughter was born, I gave in and went down for my first session. I felt so nervous and thought that I would never fit in with this group of such fit and strong individuals…….but I couldn’t have been more wrong! As soon as I walked in there the coaches introduced themselves and made me feel at ease. That first session was so hard and I thought so many times about stopping, but the cheering and encouragement from the others there made it so much easier. There and then it woke something inside me, I actually wanted to do this again!

The fittest and Strongest I’ve ever been

I started off a complete novice, not having a clue how to do the movements and very unfit but with the help of the coaches, the camaraderie and the support network at Southern Legion I was able to re-discover my love for training. Not only has my self-esteem grown, but I am the fittest and strongest I have ever been as I have now found a way of life that I can love again……and that’s what it is for me, a way of life, not just a gym. I’ve been going to Southern Legion for 3 years now and I can honestly say I love it just as much then as I do now, if not more!

Finally Finding My ‘Why’

For a long time people have asked me “What’s the point in keeping so fit?” and “What exactly are you training for?” I’ve always struggled to answer this, and most of the time I would just shrug my shoulders and smile, until now…

Being unhappy wasn’t good enough

I haven’t always trained hard. In fact, as a teenager I became very lazy, moved very little, ate too much bad stuff and gained a lot of weight. My self-esteem hit an all time low and my motivation sunk even deeper. It took a while for me to dig out some self-awareness but I finally realised I was unhappy and that really wasn’t good enough. So I began a patient process of finding fitness. My weapon of choice was my legs and I started to run. I trained for years, mostly on my own, fanatically running three or four 10km a week. I got fitter, faster and slimmer. I even rehabilitated myself back into running after an accident promised I could never do it again, but what for?

discovering southern legion

Running served its purpose but it was missing something. This is when I discovered Southern Legion in 2015. Most of my own training was programmed and completed by myself. All of a sudden I had found the most unlikely mix of people training at the same place and at the same time. Every one of them wanting to be there, train together and get sweaty. I remember being in a ball on the floor on my first session; desperately trying to catch my breath while the rest of the class cheered me on to finish the workout. I had a beaming smile on my face. I was having fun. I’ve come a long way since then: entered strong man events, completed advanced competitions, run muddy obstacle races, taken part in endurance running and even attaining my own PT qualifications. Despite all of this, the best part of my day is waking up every morning and going to class. And I know exactly why that is, training is fun and training makes me happy.

The happiness habit

It doesn’t matter who you are, what your motivation might be or what goal you might want to achieve, being active in a supportive environment like Southern Legion will make you feel good. Working in psychological therapy I am continually advocating to others the benefits of getting sweaty. I am human just like the rest of us, but I can honestly say that training these days rarely feels like a chore. Training is now a habit to me, a happy habit. Today, when people ask me “What’s the point in keeping so fit?” I say because it feels good, and “What exactly are you training for?” I say to be happy.

Deciding to Change is the Most Important Step

With coach Ray introducing Burpees into the first week of training for the transformation group, it got me thinking….. the physical demands of adherence to exercise are experienced by all, beginner or elite athlete alike, and it reminded me of a time when I just couldn’t make myself exercise! (more about that later)

So how much notice do we pay to the psychological demands of beginning and sticking to an exercise programme?

Developing Psychological RESILIENCE

The decision to change our behaviour is easy to make, however, the psychological resilience to make these changes stick is another matter. We all consciously or subconsciously re-evaluate our behaviours to meet with social norms and follow ‘fad’ diets or magic exercise programmes.

The transtheoretical model (Prochaska & DiClemente, 1983) has been used to study the psychological processes for any changes we make to our normal behaviour. It has been successfully used to support smoking cessation, healthy eating and exercise adherence. Every time we make the decision to exercise, make the healthy choice at dinner or not have that first cigarette of the day, we are utilising our psychological resilience and ability to make informed decisions.
The model shows that we move through several stages. Pre-comtemplaters are those who are not ready to make the decision to change within the next six months, even though the pros and cons of the change in behaviour have been presented to them. Contemplators can be defined as those who know that the pros far outweigh any cons to a change in behaviour and will usually plan to make these changes within the next 6 months. Those in the preparation phase are considering taking immediate action and changing their behaviours with immediate effect.

entering the ‘action’ stage

Potentially the hardest step is to make the change. Given all the evidence for and against, following through with this decision can become the most psychologically challenging step. For the ten who have completed their first week at Southern Legion I’m glad to say that they have entered the action stage. The decision has been made and the action of following through with this change in behaviour has begun. Maintenance can only be achieved once the desired behaviours have been sustained beyond a 6-month period.

However, it doesn’t end there. Re-evaluation is required constantly: when injury occurs, work demands or stress in other areas of our lives strike, we need to build our psychological resilience to ensure our planned changes in behaviour are maintained. Sometimes we may find ourselves transferring from ‘Action’ to ‘Maintenance’ almost interchangeably, it’s important to understand that this is a natural process.

For anyone that knows me, I’m currently in a maintenance phase but this has not always been the case. In the past, work stresses have caused me to fluctuate between preparation, action and maintenance. For a significant period of time making the decision seemed second nature, I’d make the decision nearly every week. ‘I’ll start tomorrow’, ‘I’ll start Monday’. However the physical act seemed so much harder.

Set small, achievable goals

It wasn’t until I physically wrote down (or was made to by an exasperated fiancée) the pros and cons of a change in behaviour that I fully committed. I set myself some achievable goals and made the psychological effort to start small. I started with 3 gym visits per week. I didn’t measure what I did; it was the act of making myself go that mattered initially. I didn’t measure how far or fast I ran or how much weight I lifted, the goal was to attend and be active 3 times per week. Once I knew I could sustain this, I begun to measure what I was doing in each session, again setting some realistic targets.

The hardest part of all though, was that I’m a qualified fitness professional: I’ve got a degree in Sport Science and I was teaching young fitness trainees how to help someone change their behaviour. But I  couldn’t seem to do it myself! This conflict made the psychological challenge even harder for me, but ultimately made it all the more important for me to follow through and make the change. I knew the benefits, I’d evaluated the benefits, I’d analysed the benefits, and now I needed to do it.

For those who are thinking about or have recently made the decision to become more active, challenges will arise, but remember the pros will continue to reveal themselves and the cons will continue to diminish in value.

Good luck to all those in the transformation group and to all fellow Legionaries.

Paul Stannard – Programme Manager: Sport, Public Services, Science and Maths at Fareham College
AKA Bridges
AKA Southern Legion Member, general annoyance, chief ‘overtrainer’ and now husband to formerly exasperated fiancée