There’s not a lot that money cannot buy in this weird and wonderful world we live in. As long as we can afford to pay the price, we can entertain practically every whim or desire imaginable.
Jogging for half an hour a day and sticking to it indefinitely will get you far more results than getting the fanciest fitness programme in the world- Matthew Muscat Inglott
In a world built on capital and dictated by profits, opportunists will always be ready to sell anything people are willing to buy, however ludicrous the product may be. Convince millions of people through slick marketing that they actually need your product, then in the immortal words of ‘Del Boy’ in the British TV series Only Fools and Horses, “this time next year Rodney, we’ll be millionaires!”
Of course, the pot-bellied ‘wheeler dealer’ Derek Trotter isn’t exactly a poster boy for the health fitness industry, but he probably would have nevertheless made a good living selling exercise machines and gym memberships, and when exactly did health and fitness become an ‘industry’ for that matter anyway?
An ‘industry’ may be defined as a general field of business activity, often named after its principal product. The automobile industry is a pretty well known field of business activity, for example, as is the pharmaceutical industry. But what about the health and fitness industry; is better health and fitness really a product?
When we indulge in physical activity we can have fun and enjoy a host of health benefits capable of enhancing, enriching, and ultimately prolonging our lives. Becoming more active is a personal decision, and successfully achieving better fitness is something to be truly proud of.
The positive cumulative effects of months or even years of healthy physical activity on our bodies is not something that can be bought or sold, and cannot be bestowed or altered by anybody but ourselves. If this is the case, then how exactly did we manage to start selling health and fitness like hot cakes?
We all know that buying a pad of paper and a pencil will not guarantee the sudden materialisation of a great artistic masterpiece; nor will buying a tool box suddenly make all those niggling outstanding household DIY jobs simply vanish. Whether sketching the Mona Lisa or fixing a leaky tap, we can always buy tools that assist us, however the real work is something we still have to simply roll our sleeves up and tend to.
Practically every fitness-related product on the market today works in exactly the same way. Gym memberships, personal training sessions, group-fitness classes, books, DVDs and exercise machines, to name but a few, are nothing more than tools designed to assist us along our journey towards better health and fitness. The real work remains something we must tend to personally, and nobody else can do it for us.
You might ask the question: “Will joining a gym really make me thinner?” or, “Will this machine really transform my figure/physique?” In both instances, if your commitment only goes as far as parting with your hard-earned cash at the reception desk or sales counter and no further, the answer is no, it won’t. The results you seek must ultimately be bought with a different currency altogether: honest good old-fashioned, no-frills personal effort.
So if we appreciate that fitness products are merely tools, then how can we make the best use out of them? Of the thousands of new gym members I’ve seen walking into fitness centres both within and beyond our shores, I have made several interesting observations about who seems to successfully work with the system to achieve their goals, and who doesn’t.
Occasionally members make such dramatic physical transformations that fitness professionals like myself cannot help but closely investigate the cases in point and attempt to identify the common denominators. So if you want to ‘buy’ better fitness today, then here follow my two cardinal rules on how to make any fitness product work for you.
Wouldn’t you agree that a bad workman always blames his tools? When we don’t get our way, then the blame game is the easiest one to play. The most successful gym members I have ever seen have been those who are accountable and take responsibility for their own destiny.
They ask not what the gym can do for their fitness goals, but instead what they themselves can do for their fitness goals. Through such lines of questioning I can often correctly assess very early on how successful a new member will be. So this is the first and most important rule: the onus is on you, nobody else can do it for you.
The second rule is: be patient. Sometimes too much enthusiasm at the start can be as bad as too little, both tend to fizzle out fairly quickly. Just take things in your stride and be consistent. The successful gym members are those who stand the test of time by following a simple plan and just getting on with it.
Jogging on the spot ferociously for half an hour a day and sticking to it indefinitely will get you far more results than getting the fanciest fitness programme in the world using the most advanced equipment in existence, only to give up after two weeks.
When you make something part of your routine, the results will come almost as an unexpected bonus.
info@noble-gym.com