Fitness: Shaping up with 10-week challenge

Aspire Health and Sports trainers Chris Seymour and Ben Yabsley. Photo/George Novak

It is that time of year when the lighter nights and warmer days make us realise summer is just around the corner. Which should make us feel happy about days ahead of picnics on the beach or poolside lunches.

Yet if you have spent the winter avoiding the gym and instead tucking into comforting carbs and treats you may be dreading the summer. All is not lost, says personal trainer Ben Yabsley, who runs a 10-week fitness challenge at Aspire Health and Sports in Bethlehem with fellow personal trainer Chris Seymour.

The pair have been running the challenges since the beginning of the year, and they have gained so much in popularity that there is a waiting list to get on. Why so popular?

"People are more motivated in a group," says Ben. "There is the camaraderie, and the banter. We all get to know each other pretty well - you see each other's vulnerabilities and we help each other as a team. Then there is the element of competition - it is not a competition but when you are doing say circuit exercises in a group it motivates you to keep up with your partner. And the fact that the groups are fairly small - about six to eight in each group - means you are accountable to turn up. Unlike a fitness class where you can easily bail, if you don't turn up to one of the challenges then we will be saying, oh where's Annemarie?"

Ben got into personal training after helping friends achieve weight loss. He says he enjoys helping people achieve their goals,

"I love helping people to reach their goals no matter how big or small they are. Seeing their reaction or the look on their face when they achieve it is so rewarding knowing that you are the one that helped or influenced them to do so."

Chris Seymour is also passionate about helping people on their journey of transformation. She knows first hand the challenges, the highs and the lows of getting fit and losing weight - 10 years ago she lost 40kg over a one-year period which began her subsequent career in the gym and group fitness industry.

"I not only understand the impact of being overweight and unfit, but also the challenges that we all face when we make the decision to take the first step in a journey of transformation."

Some of the transformations are striking when you look at the before and after photos - participants in the 10-week challenges have achieved significant weight loss - one woman lost more than 10kg in 10 weeks, and another has lost a total of 16kg since her first challenge.

"The best part about my job is sharing the journey with my clients. My clients' goals become our goals and working together makes it so much easier to reach a desired outcome. I am passionate about seeing the entire transformation. Not just the change in my clients' bodies, but watching them begin to believe in themselves and seeing their confidence soar. This new person emerges who has little resemblance to the client I first met."

But the trainers say weight loss is not the main goal, but rather fitness, and weight loss is often a bonus. Seymour says the aim of the challenge is to improve people's level of fitness over that 10-week period, which is measured not just by scales, but on measurements as well as levels of fitness.

Week one The challenge runs over four sessions a week. I am feeling very nervous at the first session. Nerves soon disappear when I meet the other women. My hopes of filling the first hour with measurements are dashed when after a warm up we get straight into a fitness test. We are tested on our individual levels of fitness by timing ourselves completing certain exercises.

I am starting to regret my winter of overindulgence as I huff and puff through the exercises. They include those dreaded burpees, so beloved of all personal trainers, and so hated by those who have to do them. By the end of the first session I am completely exhausted. My daughter takes a photograph of me that night collapsed on the bed in my onesie, body in agony. The only bonus is that my arm hurt too much to lift a fork to my mouth so hopefully I am already losing kilos.

When we meet for the next session I am not alone in my soreness - we all compare notes on how we struggled to pull up our pants that morning. It is not unusual, say the trainers, to be stiff in the first week or so of the challenge, but you can alleviate it by good stretches at the end. My colleagues at work wonder why I am limping.

Still, by the end of the week I am less sore and feeling virtuous at having completed the week. Our last session with Ben on Friday was brutal though, involving more of those hateful burpees and some other weird and wonderful exercises like crawling on the floor forward and backward like a bear. And jumping from side to side as though we are skiing. We celebrate the sun being out with some circuits outside - the gym's indoor running track extends to the outside and Ben has us all running around the carpark too.

The sessions are tough - you really do feel like you are working hard - but go amazing quickly which I like. I pat myself on the back for the first week.

"That was just the warm-up week," says Ben, "the real work begins next week."

Uh oh. More on that next week.