Your fitness instructor may be holding out on you. Let’s be real, that class you’re attending to get the body like the fitness instructor teaching the class, isn’t the way she got it.

As a consultant and business coach to fitness & health coaches, I know this to be true.  

First, because for years it was me. I was teaching classes and doing my own workout outside of class, to extreme. I was training for a marathon for instance and still had to teach 3-6 fitness classes a week.

Doing that now, would never even cross my mind. I simply won’t try to get someone else fit by throwing myself under the bus.

I NEVER say, I exercise for a living. I don’t. I teach others how to exercise for a living. I teach principles of fitness for a living. I research the science of exercise for a living and share that, not my single life experiences (a study of one) and share them along with observations of hundreds of thousands of customers over 37 years.

Have you ever gone to a really great yoga class? The instructor isn’t DOING the class. The instructor is instructing the class. Bingo.

The Incongruent Fitness Industry

Telling students to do one thing and doing another yourself is misleading, if not just wrong. For years, I was wrong. I was lucky, in that it didn’t result in injury or illness, or hormone imbalance. I wised up long ago thankfully, and it honestly was having kids that did that. You just have to.

Busy has always been a savior for me when it comes to hormones. Because I like exercise. I like endurance (there I said it). But it doesn’t really fit right now. It definitely doesn’t fit my hormones and 2019 taught me that lesson, when I tried to pretend or test whether I could just be immune to hormonal changes and stressors. So being busy saves me from myself.

Now, let’s get back to the real track here.

The workout fitness instructors are teaching you is often not what gave them the body they have.

Recently, a trainer confessed this:

A student had approached her after class and said, “I want to look like you! You’re so inspiring!”

As soon as the student walked away, she thought, then you’re going to have to lift heavy weights! This isn’t going to do it!  

But she didn’t tell the student that. She just encouraged her to keep coming to barre.

Is it any wonder why fitness programs fail you?

False Pretenses

I’m reading Jane Fonda’s book, My Life So Far. The book is fascinating and eye-opening (at least for me) and she doesn’t hold much back, including the fact she has been bulimic much of her adult life. Into her 50s. (admittedly, that’s as far as I am). Yes, right? Iconic fitness queen whose body or energy we all wanted and emulated has a problem. She’s now 83, and if you’ve seen her, she’s extremely thin and frail looking. Her inner strength is obvious but externally a stiff wind could blow her down.

So, you need to know that your instructor often isn’t doing the workout that got her the results she has. She’s doing the workout you’ll buy and do. She’s following trends. She’s doing barre or Pilates with you, but she’s pouring her heart out boxing in her garage, doing interval training sessions to complete breathlessness on the treadmill, or lifting heavy in the weight room before you’re even awake.

The results you want from the class you’re going to may not be why the instructor looks the way she does, but in spite of it.

Because your fitness instructor is doing her own workout and also teaching, she’s potentially more at risk for overtraining and under recovery than you! But it is her lifting heavy, her HIIT to breathlessness, and her adherence to a high-quality high protein and whole food diet that helps her.

Fake Approach

No freezer full of Lean Cuisine or skipping meals and nutrients will get you a body of an athlete. It won’t even get you one that’s built to last 90 years and live fully to the last breath.  

If you haven’t yet joined a Flipping50 program in progress, you can join the Flipping50 Insiders group to get the village it takes to build fitness. It’s Flipping50, 5-0, Insiders on Facebook.

Resources Mentioned & More

5 Day Flip 

Flipping50 Insiders group

My Life So Far by Jane Fonda