Why I became an Exercise Instructor

I ask myself that very question every day of the week, several times on some days!!!!

I do believe I have the best job in the world, every day is different and every hour is different with different classes and people to teach.

I became a fitness instructor after having a midlife crisis and changing careers, after training as a mechanical engineer. Sport has always played a big part of my life; I was a county runner at school running 400’s and 800m. When we moved to Alton, I joined the sports centre and worked out 2-3 times a week. I saw a poster for a triathlon and thought I can do that, so trained about 2 months for it, competed and loved it so much that within six months I had given up my job and was re-training as a fitness instructor.

Cardiac Rehab was a case of right place at the right time. Heart disease has always been close to my heart if you excuse the pun, after losing my mum at an early age to a heart attack. The centre was introduced to me when my late husband was referred here after his heart attack in his late 40’s, and was a regular attender to classes and independent sessions. I saw a huge change in him after attending the centre, he got his self-confidence back and believed his life wasn’t over and plenty more to live for. About a year after qualifying as a fitness instructor I was asked if I was interested in joining the rehab team, to be honest I wasn’t sure to start. I thought I’m not clever enough to do that, but after talking to several qualified instructors I was encouraged to do it. One of the best decisions I have made.

I am very lucky as I don’t have a “typical “day, I do different hours and different things every day, some days are long and some are very short. On one day of the week I do teach almost every different class we have on the timetable. I may be looking after our special programmes class with exercisers who may have other comorbidity issues which make exercise challenging. I can then move on to our advanced class where the class have a challenging warm up and circuit class, then later the Intermediate class with a warm up to suit their ability, using the gym equipment and making sure everyone is exercising safely and effectively. I then move onto the independent session where I may be supervising the session, doing an induction on new exercisers and assessment on returning exercisers. I also get involved in the fitness testing of our Staywell exercisers, the booking of inductions of new exercisers and the day to day running of the gym. And yes to answer your question you are my favourite group.