‘No pain, no gain',  ‘go harder, go faster, do more’. How many times have I heard this mantra when I have reluctantly attended exercise classes or even more so, the one time I enrolled in a Gym program. When I looked at the people in the classes, (instead of concentrating of doing more, going faster) I often wondered what their motivation was to put their body through so much pain and stress. 

When I was younger, in my thirties, I was training hard going to the gym and learning to become an aerobic instructor. My body was strong and fit and it was hard, which I thought was a good thing. I could not feel the numbness and pain in my body from the exercise and I did not relate my lower back pain with exercising too hard. 

How do we feel about exercise?
I am twelve years old and playing a game of tennis with my mother. I was winning and it did not feel good to be beating my mother, so I changed my game with this discomforting thought. Losing didn’t feel great either; it felt like I wasn’t being true to myself. It may have been on this day that I decided that competitive sport was not for me.

​I have been exercising in a different way recently which has been life changing and very supportive for my body. In the past, through my working life, I realised I needed to exercise: I could feel I was losing strength and tone as I was ageing. I’ve always been active during my day, and I used to think that was enough. Not coincidently, when a new gym opened locally and had a special offer I joined it!