Adherence: Building Exercise into Our Everyday Lives! Life After Covid

Adherence? What is it and is there a magic formula?

Adherence in the world of health and fitness, fundamentally means a person’s ability to continue exercising long enough to make a lasting positive impact on their health. In other words, an individual’s ability to stay the course and reach their fitness goals by ensuring exercise is part of their routine activities.?

?The global pandemic has thrown the fitness industry into flux. As Laura Woods notes there is encouraging evidence that more people are aware that physical activity should not just be a hobby but an integral?part of who we are. She rightly points out that improvements to video technology have allowed virtual personal training to pick up some of the slack as everyone was spending more time at home:??

“Since lockdowns began, there has been a 170% increase in demand for fitness equipment, according to Research and Markets. In addition to setting up home gyms, people are also seeking virtual workouts with savvy trainers who have pivoted to online instruction”?(Laura Woods,?How COVID-19 Has Permanently Upended the Fitness Industry, Yahoo Finance, March 2021)

The wide-ranging benefits of exercise are now broadly accepted. The advice to “get out and move” is certainly a good starting point. However, the most common responses we receive from clients when they initially sign up to our training plans all stem from the similar issues:

“I used to do lots of fitness things..... But I got bored”

“I no longer had time”

“I hated doing it alone”

These client testimonies point to the fact that adherence is often the most difficult nut to crack. Mark Twain alluded to this challenge when he remarked “It’s easy to give up smoking, I’ve done it a thousand times!” Sure, we may accomplish something by starting an activity or quitting a negative one but sticking with it is the key to achieving optimal results.?

So, as we move out of the pandemic and return to a more social lifestyle, how do we continue with the positive changes we have made in our lives? Laura Woods cites Fitness Professional Omar Yunes who concludes that personal relationships and a sense of community will be important for clients across the virtual and in person fitness spheres:?

“When the current situation fades and things slowly go back to normal, we will see that people will once again want to connect face-to-face,” Yunes said. “We are seeing this need not only in our brick-and-mortar locations but also in the online world.”?(Woods, 2021)

Up to 80% of people fail to meet their fitness goals (Jeff Haden, 2020). So, we are certain that adherence needs to be addressed on an individual basis. In order to achieve adherence, we need to immerse ourselves in healthy habits we enjoy, we need to socially connect and we need a movement strategy that suits the person, their life and their needs!

How do YOU manage to stay the course to achieve your personal health and fitness goals??

There are many interesting articles about this new post pandemic landscape:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/covid-19-permanently-upended-fitness-120024187.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall

How COVID-19 Has Permanently Upended the Fitness Industry

Before the COVID-19 crisis, you probably didn't think twice about attending a crowded exercise class or working out next to strangers in a busy gym, but things are different now. The pandemic changed...

finance.yahoo.com