David @ DHPT

A client recently said to me that they thought that I would train them even if I wasn't getting paid for it and that it was a nice to work with someone like that.  At the time I thanked them for the comment but didn't think much more about it.  Later in the day I went over the conversation in my head and decided to explain why he was right, so here goes. Our country has a problem with health.  And it isn't going away anytime soon.  This scares me a little.  I read a research review today that said there was a less than 1% chance of halting the current rise in type 2 diabetes levels and getting them down to 2010 levels. Less than 1%.  Do you know how demoralising that is for someone whose job it is to prevent this sort of statistic?  I will tell you - pretty damn devastating.  The worst part of it is that I know I could be helping more people - I have the time and the space. I have made an impact on many lives so far in my career.  Helping people lose weight, gai

Regular exercise isn't just for the young folks out there who want a six-pack to show off when they hit the beach.  As we age, it gets increasingly more important for other reasons. Improving and/or keeping our quality of life is the big one! Yes it does have the benefit of being able to build muscle (and burn fat), but the benefits reach much further than that.  Firstly, the right types of regular exercise can assist with retaining muscular power.  Why do we need to focus on this?  Well as we age, muscular power drops off sharply.  Why do we care about this?   Because it is a key aspect in preventing falls later in life.  Think about it - when we stumble we try to catch ourselves (usually with our non stumbling leg or an arm if we fully trip). When we do this a large amount of force goes through the "catching" limb - without muscular power this limb can just act as a painful cushion, with muscular power it can literally break our fall. Another reason why we need t

I spent last week running, tramping, climbing and sailing around Anakiwa at the top of the South Island completing Outward Bound's Navigator course .  It was both physically and mentally taxing, but while I was down there I managed to learn a few things both by self-reflection and from my course instructors.  I thought I'd share some of them with you. 1. Event + Response = Outcome This one I got from our lead instructor Asher.  At the time I thought it was a simple little equation, but the more I thought about it the more I realised just how relevant it was to both fitness and life in general.  Too often we let events impact the way we feel about things (myself included). If we can re-frame how we respond to events (important point: respond, not react) then the outcomes we can achieve can be a lot more positive.  Remember how you responded the last time you missed a training session because you couldn't be bothered, or how you felt when you last fell off your nutriti