Mike Lee is a Remote Coach and Partner at Method Fitness and also a coach on More Life Adventures retreats. As we start the year with refreshed goals and intentions, in this blog post, Mike shares with us how we can look to sustain them in the long term.

It starts with consistency

Consistency; the word that has been thrown around almost everywhere on my social media feeds this year and for many years prior. Does it deserve merit as such a staple in the language of health and fitness fanatics, business gurus, relationships advisors and more. I challenge you to find an industry that hasn’t used this word to great effect. 

So let’s define it first. 

“The quality of always behaving or performing in a similar way, or of always happening in a similar way.”

One of the biggest problems I encounter with potential clients is when we talk about their history with exercise and nutrition. So I’ll start with some examples of inconsistency that I hear a lot. 

“I had a few PT sessions sporadically a couple of years ago.”

“I train when I get the time.”

“I followed a bit of X Programme and then started Y programme.”

“I followed X,Y,Z at the same time.”

“I eat really strictly throughout the week and then whatever I want on the weekend.”

If you’re a coach and you’ve taken the time to learn your clients’ history, there’s a high chance you’ll have heard some of these before. Heck, you might even have said it yourself if you’re reading this.

There’s a very key component to remember. We are all on a journey, and we are all at different points, where our journey begins and ends is different for each individual, how we overcome each obstacle is different for each individual, even where our journey ends or pauses is different for each individual, but crucially, we are all navigating the same road, to better health and fitness.

Set realistic goals

There are certain types of individual who want their programme to be as hard as possible, to feel like they’ve conquered something. They’re the people who you don’t really need to motivate as a coach, you simply need to show them the right path, and guide them a little when needed to avoid them hurting themselves or performing movements incorrectly. 

For many however, a programme that is too hard, will not only mean that they don’t follow it, it will mean they are less likely to follow any programme in the future. These people need more support than challenge. They’re also the people who are less likely to take risks, and therefore more likely to succeed in the long run with careful guidance. 

For those starting any kind of fitness endeavour, that key word ‘consistency’ is paramount to their success. No part of this word means that they have to be crushing themselves in the gym every single day for the rest of their lives. It simply means showing up to tackle something for a small amount of time each day in pursuit of betterment. Betterment for physical health, mental health and emotional health. 

 After sitting down with a client a few months ago, I told him that he was not in fact ready for individual programming, because the idea of training filled him with dread. This is someone who had resigned himself to doing nothing for the past three years. So I said, I will activate your account for you, and I will keep tabs on you, but your only job is to be walking for at least one hour a day away from your work. You may listen to podcasts/music, but you are to be outside.

This was his programme for the next two weeks. After that, if he could show that he had accomplished this, then we would review, talk about how his health felt, and talk about progression from here. This person had been an athlete at one point but simply let himself go. 

Looking at this individual, I saw more issues than simply physical health. It’s true, giving him a bit more than walking would have increased his physical capabilities quicker, however, mentally it seemed like he did not yet have capacity for much more, so we needed to make the barrier to entry nice and low. Something achievable, something that he could tick off each day and be proud of doing. 

An effective dose of daily movement

Two weeks on and I was looking at a new individual in front of me. Someone who was ready to embrace the next step of their journey. It was refreshing, so we went about planning the next steps of his journey. He was keen to jump into five days a week of training, I said three might be better, and we met in the middle at four. Again, we would look at keeping the daily walks as a staple, it seemed to be working wonders for him. Now we had four days a week of training that he had earned. He had showed consistency. 

 Two weeks is all it took of daily movement practice for this individual to completely change his mindset to training. Now imagine applying that practice to hydration, or nourishing your body with good food, or calming the mind with 30 minutes of yoga, meditating, stretching, whatever it is. 

The power of Cumulative Gains

Now imagine one year down the line. 15,000 steps (roughly what was performed with an hour of walking plus daily moving around) has become 5,280,000 steps, that’s 4023.36km for the average person.

Later on, I decided that within this individuals 15,000 steps, we’d accumulate 2-3000 steps of running at higher intensity. And build from there. You get the picture. Tiny 1% gains manifesting to orders of much higher magnitude.

If you haven’t yet figured, the individual in question was me ;)

Now, over to you

So what could you achieve with a daily movement practice? 

Below I’ve attached a link to my Morning CAR’s - a practice of joint rotation that will take roughly 10 minutes a day but, over a year, will revolutionise the way your body feels. Link to my Morning CAR’s

Add this routine to your daily dose of movement and let us know what difference it makes for you in the comments below.