Personal Training

I’ve been working out in gyms for over 40 years. I started when I was 13 and now I’m 54 years old. Today, I’m a father, step-father, partner, part-time academic, almost gym owner and personal trainer. I’ve had a diverse and rich life already. But, the last few years, as I’ve started to examine life more closely, the meaning of it, and my sense of my purpose, I’ve had some major epiphanies. Believe it or not, some of them come from “pumping iron”. All through my life, from my days at university, in hospitality, as an academic and now in this new phase of my life, I realise that my motivation has been to improve the world. When I was a student, I believed that environmentalism and resource redistribution could reduce poverty and make the world a better place. I started studying to learn more about how this could be done. During that journey, I turned to a politics of redistribution as the principal for resolving many of the world’s problems. I still believe this should happen, but I am less convinced there is a mechanism to achieve it, at least in the world we inhabit today. When I became an academic, I believed in the transformative power of learning. I still believe in this today and believe it is more important than ever before.  In recent years, I have seen what fitness and health can do to transform people. I have seen what it has done to transform me. As I said, I’ve been working out, in one way or another for 40+ years. It’s a long time. I’ve learned a lot in that time. The gym has been a place which has shaped a lot of my values: hard work, mental toughness, accountability, integrity, compassion. The gym is a place where one can learn a lot about themselves and others. I believe very strongly that those lessons are important ones that I should share. It has to do with what exercise, nutrition and an active lifestyle (physical and intellectual lifestyle) can bring to yourself and others. If we go back to the time of the of the founding of the gymnasiums, some 2000+ years ago, we’d find that for Ancient Greeks, the gym was a place of physical activity and learning. Our schools know that students should be trained in physical activity and sports at the same time they expand their minds. That this stops for many people when they become adults is a great loss to all of us. Adults need physical activity just as much as children and as we age, our muscles, our bones, our minds, and our souls need it even more. This idea was at the core of the healthy life for Ancient Greek philosophers and scientists of medicine, Galen and Hippocrates.  One of my goals is to spread this message and to do so by establishing a health and fitness precinct in my own neighbourhood.

 

At 55, I want to model what a fit, strong, energetic middle age can look like. My partner who is 52 does the same. At 55, I’m not ready to check out physically. I’m looking for new physical challenges. I’d like to be a part of a new movement of people in the 40s and older who want to do the same.

 

I believe if we could give every person in the world a healthy and fit life, then we might have some hope of solving some of the world's problems such as obesity, depression, and the destruction of the environment. By making the world a healthier and fitter place, we’d make it a happier place, and maybe done in a particular way, a more kind and compassionate place. I want to start with Kirribilli and Milsons Point. In time, with help from others, I want to take these lessons elsewhere to places that really need this help. For now, it’s in my backyard that I want this movement to begin.