David @ DHPT

Last week I announced on my Facebook and Instagram pages that I was rebranding my personal and group fitness training business.  I thought, seeing as I have a bit of time on my hands at the moment with this lockdown, that I'd explain the reason why I decided to do this - in case anyone was interested. My new company branding 360 Degree Fitness was a company that I started from scratch.  I built it with the help and support of a great many people.  People who probably don't even know how much they supported me.  To those people - my clients, my suppliers, my friends and family, those random people who read my blog posts when I was writing terribly and wondered if I would ever find my own "voice" to write with, I want to say a huge thank you.  I truly appreciate every blog view, every time you liked a post on my social media accounts or share it with your friends and family.  You truly have no idea how much that has meant to me over the years.  ...

So, every day since this lockdown started (except when in the torrential rain) we have gone on a morning family walk.  It's something that I'd quite like to continue even after the lockdown ends as it's good quality family time and gets all of us out of the house as well.   We usually ask each other 4 questions on the walk as a sort of check-in to see how we're all doing.  First, what's one thing that makes you happy today? Second, what's one thing that makes you sad today? Third, what's one thing your worried/anxious about today? Fourthly, how can I help you today?   For us it works as a way to check in with each other, it's a time for us to feel free to talk about how we're feeling in a supportive way where the people we're with can use the time to see if there are ways to help each other.  But most of all it's a way we can air our feelings, frustrations, anxieties, and happiness and feel heard. Today on our walk, I had a proper anxie...

Right now every trainer, psychologist, life coach, herbalist and their uncle have been doing blogs, vlogs, articles, TV Interviews and short operatic musical dramas about how to make the best of this COVID-19 lockdown.  While I don't want to add to the noise out there, I figure if this helps one or two people get through it then it's worth writing. Being cooped up inside can be tough, even for introverts like me.  It brings a certain level of stress into life.  This is before we even get to the prospect of illness, job and financial insecurity, trying to manage kids and animals that are out of routine and stressed themselves, and trying to help other friends and family members who may not be able to manage in this situation as well as us. Here are some strategies that may help reduce the stress you could be feeling.  Firstly, breathe.  In particular, try square breathing.  It's a technique that I've used in the past when feeling anxious.  It's simp...

It's been a little while since I posted an update about my training for the Oxfam Trailwalk that myself and 3 mates are looking to complete in March, so I thought I should fill you in on my progress. Training has been going well recently.  There was a little period a few months ago where my motivation to train just wasn't there - I think it was a case of the walk being too far away to scare me into action!  But suddenly March doesn't seem too far off anymore, which has prompted me to get out there and get my kilometres done. Two big things that have made a difference for me are competition and permission. Let's talk about competition first.  I'm a competitive person by nature, anyone who's seen me on a football field will know this.  One thing our trailwalk team has done has been to institute a minimum step count for each week of 100,000 steps with a penalty for falling short.  While this only averages out to about 14,000 per day which isn't a huge am...

This week one of my training walks included an ascent of Mount Kaukau as part of the session for the day.   It wasn't a huge walk, especially compared to what we're going to be faced with on our Oxfam Trainwalk , but it was what I had planned to do for the day.  As far as how the walk went, I was very pleased with how I got through it.  The main reason I was happy was that some new things I incorporated into my mindset on this walk worked well for me.  The first little tactic was when the going got tough as I was climbing up the Johnsonville side of Mount Kaukau I simply started smiling.  Now, I'm sure this may have looked weird to anyone who saw it happen, but I don't really care about that, I just wanted to see what impact it might have on me mentally.  And I can report that it made things easier.  I struggled less with wanting to rest and definitely found it easier to keep moving up towards the summit. It makes sense really, studies have sho...

There are thousands of different training and nutrition programmes available in the fitness marketplace.  Dozens of gyms in each city around the world.  Hundreds of different personal and group fitness trainers in your city or town alone I would think.  So many people are understandably unsure when it comes to choosing one program, gym, nutrition or workout plan. I have trained a lot of clients over the years, and there is always one thing that has worked time and again.  It isn't sexy, it isn't fancy, it isn't complex.   It is consistency.   The clients who make the most gains in their health and fitness are the ones who turn up day after day, week after week, year after year.   These are the clients who succeed.  Yes, they have time off when recovering from injuries or illness.  Yes, they go away on holidays.  Yes, they have off days.  But the difference between them and the ones who don't get such great res...

All too often health and fitness are shown to us in films, TV, and articles as bulging muscles and toned waistlines.  We are led to believe that the goal of fitness is to be as aesthetically pleasing as possible to the opposite sex.  Sure, this can be a part of it depending on what your goals are, but there is so much more that is important about being physically fit.  Here are some of the reasons why you might want to think about getting a little healthier if you have let your fitness fall in your priority list over the years. 1: To keep up with your kids. Are you the parent who is always putting off joining in with your kids when they want to play rugby or netball down at the local park/school?  Is there always some pain which prevents you from taking them on walks through the bush or along the beach?  Is just the thought of going rockclimbing making your back hurt a little?  Getting a bit fitter and stronger may help with a few of these little niggle...

Over Easter weekend, I went on a little trip away.  Two school mates and I went on a fishing trip to the far north of the North Island.  It was great.  We did a lot of driving, camped a lot, fished a lot, did a lot of catching up, and made fun of each other a lot.  What guys tend to do when they catch up after a long period of not seeing each other much. More importantly for me though, it was great to just get away from the city.  For the most part, we were in areas where our mobile phone coverage was iffy at best.  It meant that there was no point in having our phones with us so, for the most part, they stayed in the vehicle.  And I enjoyed the change.  I heard someone say recently that we are so connected that we are disconnected these days, and I thought that that made a lot of sense. Another thing I enjoyed about the weekend was getting out into nature.  I make no secret of the fact that I am a city boy.  Born and raised in the s...

No, I'm not referring to the early 2000's Basement Jaxx hit song.  I'm talking about what your mind is telling you, or more accurately, what you are telling yourself. Our minds are powerful.  The things we have going on in our heads can drive us to achieve great things or drive us to terrible depression or anxiety attacks, and many things in between. One important fact that most people don't really take notice of is that we are the person we talk to most in this world.  Think about it, every thought, every memory, every consideration we make is essentially a conversation with ourselves.  If we tell ourselves that something is impossible, guess what, we usually believe that it is. Now I don't want to make this blog post some diatribe of positivity platitudes.  I understand that just believing you can do something isn't the only thing you need to make it happen.  But I believe that we need to pay more attention to how we talk to ourselves.   ...

Well, today is the final day of Bloguary and I have managed to successfully blog each and every day in February.  It has been a very rewarding process, I have found some days tough and some days have been easier, but overall I believe it has been worth it.  For the final day, I thought that I would share the ways in which Bloguary has been like a fitness journey.  So here we go... Some days are easy, some are hard... Like I mentioned above, some days were easy.  The blog posts not only came to mind quickly but the actual words flowed well once I got writing also.  This is similar to completing your workouts and eating to your plan each week.  Some days you will be on fire and things will happen easily and without stress.  Other days you will turn up at the gym and have to grind out a sub-par workout that was harder than it should have been.  This is OK, just turn up, put in the work, and the results will come.  It isn't always going to b...

Health and fitness have a lot to do with our state of mind.  I'm sure you all by now are sick of me telling you of the mental health benefits of exercise so I won't go on about that today.  But I will approach the subject from a slightly different angle. As much as exercise and nutrition can impact our mental health, our thought patterns and emotions can also impact our health choices.  This may come as no surprise to you - the majority of people I would guess know about emotional eating but if we look a little more closely at our emotions then it can help us to work through these thoughts and feelings and not let them derail our healthy fitness and nutrition habits. First, let's take a look at eating.  It is always useful to see how emotions and stress play a part in our eating habits.  Take me for example, when I am stressed or feeling depressed, I tend to want to eat, and it isn't usually carrots and broccoli that I am craving!  This is useful in...

Exercise is great at any time of day, but for me, I like to get my training done early when I can.  There are a lot of pluses to getting it in early, here are just a few. Getting your workout in at the start of the day means that you are more likely to get it done.  At the start of the day, for most people, your day is fairly open in terms of time commitment.  Sure you may have work or study, but those are always around.  Towards the end of the day things tend to crop up that may derail your plan to hit the gym.  After work drinks invites, sick children who need to be picked up and looked after, having to work late to make a deadline, feeling sick yourself, feeling exhausted from your day at work or school, the list goes on and on.  Getting your training session in before your day really starts is a great way to ensure that you get it done. Another reason to get a workout done early is the feeling of accomplishment that you start the day with.  It...

A while back I wrote a blog post about my journey with mental illness.  I talked about my struggles with anxiety and depression and how I had sought help to get through these issues after trying to help myself and not quite succeeding. Last year I had some troubles again.  Around October/November I had another bout of depression which really knocked me back.  But what surprised me was not that I had another bout of depression - that's happened before and I have dealt with it - what surprised me about it was the completely different feelings that were associated with it this time around. If you'll indulge me, let's take a step back and I'll explain how we got to this point. In February 2018 I ruptured my Achilles while sparring with a couple of mates, I knew as soon as it happened that I'd done my Achilles, I just felt it go.  It was annoying but I worked my way through it and got back to training.  Way too early as it happens.  I went back to trainin...

Today's blog post is a quick one about why it's important to stay strong as you get older. As we age, we start to lose a couple of things that are pretty darn important to us when it comes to avoiding injury.  One thing that starts to go is bone density, and another is our muscular strength and power. Luckily both of these thing can be worked on through strength training.  Strength training, be it using bodyweight, resistance bands or free weights/machine weights has been shown to improve both muscle strength/power and bone density. Why is this important you ask? Well the better our bone density, the less chance we have of breaking a bone if we fall.  And the better our muscular strength/power is, the better chance we have of preventing a fall should we stumble in the first place. Think about it, when you trip over a uneven pavement, you tend to throw your foot forward in an effort to catch yourself.  This is fine if you have leg muscles that are ...

I don't have time. It's one of the most common reasons that people give for not keeping fit.  In a world of time pressures and demands placed on people to always be busy, I'm not particularly surprised when I hear it. Some people consider it just an excuse, I have even heard it called the adult equivalent of the dog ate my homework, but is it really? People look at life in different ways.  To some, fitness is a way of life, even an obsession, but to others, it's the opposite.  They simply have other priorities which they consider to be more important. This is where time becomes a factor.  If getting fit is not your priority, then you simply won't find the time.  If getting or staying fit is a priority, then you will.   I hate to oversimplify the drivers that move people to get fit and stay fit but this is a big one.  There has to be an intrinsic motivation for people to want to do something about their health.  A doctor telling you ...

This is a relatively short post about the power of perseverance.   One thing that I have discovered over years of training people is this: the ones who persevere and battle to keep going are the ones who reach their goals. February seems like a very appropriate month to be discussing perseverance when it comes to health and fitness.  Mainly because a great many people who made a new year's resolution to get fit and healthy have most likely already given up on that goal.  How many people do you know that said on and first of January that they are going to get fit this year? Maybe you were even one of them? The ones who are still going probably have not followed their training or nutrition plan to the letter.  They may have even made some huge missteps along the way, but they are closer to their goals than the ones who have given up entirely already. You will make mistakes, it's OK.  Everyone does.  Nobody is perfect.  But what differentiate...

I recently read something that drastically shifted my thoughts about goalsetting and I thought that I'd write a quick blog post about it, as I feel that it's something that a lot of goalsetting posts/books/articles leave out. The traditional practice of setting goals is to make them SMART: -Specific -Measurable -Actionable -Realistic -Time-framed The categories may differ slightly depending on what article you read or who's theory you are working from but the general practice of goalsetting doesn't differ too wildly. You take a pen and some paper and work through the process above for each goal, working out exactly when and what you want to achieve. Makes sense right? It nails down everything to a very specific achievable goal and a timeline as to when you want to achieve said goal.   But it leaves out one very important piece of the puzzle.  Have you guessed what it is? Well I'll tell you. It doesn't ask you why you want to achieve your go...

Today is International Men's Day, and this year's theme is "Positive Male Role Models". As such, I thought it was a good time to write about the biggest male role model I have in my life...my dad. Growing up, my dad was always there.  Always present in my life whenever I needed him.  Most noticeably on the sports field.  Between him and mum I don't think they missed a single football match, cricket game or athletics competition. I think back now and wonder how they did it, with two kids, both of who competed in sports all year around and often on the same day in different parts of Wellington, if not the country.  But there dad was, week in and week out, supporting me, driving me all over the place and never making a big deal about it.   Even when I made representative football teams and training was in Kapiti he would make the 45 minute drive, wait and watch training, then drive me 45 minutes back home again, often getting home pretty late at night ...