Training: Expectations Vs Reality

Everyone has seen the latest fitness magazines with a different workout every other month, promising abs of steel in 4 weeks or the worlds hardest punch in just 15 minutes a day…

On TV, in magazines, on the internet; we’re continuously force-fed the suggestion that we can all have elite athlete physiques from simple training programmes done two or three times a week. Often with little focus in relation to specialised training methods, goal setting or nutritional guidance to assist not to mention any consideration for differing genetics, injuries, lifestyle factors or any of the multitude of different factors that can impact on a person’s training regime.

Everybody is different...

Everybody responds to different training types, styles and techniques and when the idea is presented in the media that you can have the ‘perfect physique’, it fuels a false economy of expectations and subsequent disappointment which often results in a demotivated approach to training which further perpetuates the spiral of disappointment from a perceived lack of results.

What is rarely acknowledged is that these individuals are professional athletes or fitness models. They train for hours, often every day in order to achieve and maintain their fitness levels and, to be fair, the level of fitness required to fight for up to five rounds of five minutes is an extreme in comparison to the fitness levels achieved and aimed for by us.

These athletes are usually genetically predispositioned in favour of the sport and training that they partake in. As performance athletes with sponsorship deals often running into millions of pounds, they have comprehensive teams behind them to support, guide and ensure compliance to get them into, and keep them in, the shape we all see in the media.

There are few who wouldn’t want abs like Conor McGregor or a toned stomach like Holly Holm. But without the resources available to these athletes, the task of gaining a similar physique is significantly harder.

That said, Bannatyne Health Clubs offer an ever improving selection of resources that can assist you in identifying and achieving personal goals specific to yourself. They are challenging but attainable and allow you to progressively work to achieve that dream body with the right motivation and support to educate you along the way. Showing you that, by combining realistic short and long term goals, anything is achievable.

Complimentary Personalised Programmes

This is an integral aspect of your membership. There is no additional charge for this service and allows you to discuss with one of our highly trained fitness team your goals and aspirations. The fitness advisor can learn your exercise history and assist in identifying and creating both short term and long term goals before creating a programme specific to yourself and your needs which will aid you in achieving these goals.

This can be updated and adapted, still for free, every 6 weeks to help ensure that you continue to see results and are able to push towards achieving your goals without hitting a plateau or struggling.

Bannatyne App

Downloading the Bannatyne App doesn’t just offer the convenience of making class bookings on the go, it also allows you to schedule fitness programmes on a convenient day and time in addition to providing a fitness tracking facility allowing you to monitor and compare your workout against previous efforts. QR scanners located on both cardio and resistance equipment allow for quick logging of workouts to help work with your personalised programme.

Gym Floor Based Fitness Advisors

A huge bonus to your Bannatyne membership is the availability of fitness staff on the gym floor to help our members as required. If you need someone to help spot you with that challenging strength set to improve muscle mass, or want someone to verify that your form and technique is correct to avoid potential injury; we’ve got you covered!

Need inspiration or finding an exercise too easy or hard and need a suitable alternative? Our fitness teams have an iPad available on the gym floor and using our member accessible gym floor WiFi, can schedule you in for a programme review or even use Youtube to identify a variety of alternatives for you to use straight away!

Gym Floor Based Small Group Workout Classes

Bannatyne offer B:functional; a unique range of gym floor based classes focusing on functional based training to provide a 30 minute training session aimed at one of three specific areas.

• B:strong is our strength based offering - helping focus on, and improve muscular strength.

• B:conditioned is our toning session - helping guide you towards that chiselled look.

• B:core-fit is our abdominal workout - strengthening your core region which assists will all training goals.

These classes utilise our extensive variety of functional training equipment in order to provide a fun, non traditional workout that helps to promote a healthy lifestyle. As the classes are on the gym floor, they are smaller in size and are very similar to small group personal training sessions, with the main difference being that they are included within our memberships!

This is a great opportunity to learn how to use new equipment to assist in your personal goals and to help mix up your training to help prevent any training plateau and continual improvement!

MyZone Belts

The introduction of MyZone belts into Bannatyne clubs has allowed both customers and fitness advisors to enter into a whole new level of accountability within their training.

Because the belts record heart rate, it allows the playing field to be level irrespective of fitness level, experience, and is based on a common factor: effort! This can’t be faked and adapts to each individual based on their heart rate, progressively increasing as fitness level increases.

The beauty of this is that different members, with different abilities, can compete in terms of effort and can be accountable to themselves regarding how hard they worked during a session. This works particularly well during group exercise classes as it highlights the workers and the slackers and allows the instructor to focus their attention to help everyone get the most from the class!

Personal Training

If you require an extra push after your programme, or feel you’ll respond better with some personal one on one training, this is something available within Bannatyne Health Clubs.

Offering a choice of internal personal trainers - giving the support and reassurance of working with one of our highly trained staff members already familiar from your programme and any group exercise classes you may partake in as well as the ease of access on the gym floor, our internal personal trainers are a great choice to give that extra drive.

Also, the availability of external personal trainers in many clubs allows the best possible choice for our members in terms of experience, qualifications, skills and training methods to find a training style and personal trainer that is the right fit for you.

As explained earlier, everyone is different and reacts differently to different stimuli and training methods. Often discovering the best fit for yourself involves an element of trial and error, but by making use of the facilities Bannatyne Health Clubs are able to offer will assist you with professional guidance and support to ensure the best help possible as you strive to achieve your own goals.

We’d love to hear from you!

Everyone has a different goal, and fundamentally, a different reason for wanting to achieve their goal. We’d love to hear where we can support you further to help you get where you want to be, and we’d certainly be delighted to hear your stories of success in achieving your goals and your journey getting there!