As part of her Switch360 program, Editor, Debbie Rogers was introduced to a whole range of different types of exercise across Dubai. One of the classes and systems that she absolutely fell in love with and is really passionate about and still trains at is KO8.
Photo Credit : Switch Dxb
Debbie was so impressed with the KO8 system and team that we have asked Sean Clancy, Academy Director to write for us in each issue about various fitness issues. Have something that you want to know about Fitness or Training, do drop us a line.
By Sean Clancy: Academy Director – KO8
As a fitness educator I constantly ask myself “What do people want?”. Exercise ideas and trends can come and go. What was cool last year can often be gone the next, but ultimately I’ve found that there is a common pattern amongst people I ask. Almost everyone says that they want to improve the way they look and the way they feel, which may seem typical, but another thing that keeps popping up is that they want to have fun along the way.
Exercise should not be boring, and it certainly doesn’t have to be. Sadly, a lot of the feedback I receive when I ask people about their past experiences includes being sick and tired of the same boring and mundane training programmes and working with personal trainers that aren’t very motivating.
Let’s face it, getting in shape is hard work! I believe that if something’s hard to do you must disguise the hard work with something that’s interesting. Going back to my football days, the coaches would do exactly the same thing to us. They would plan a session which involved a disgusting amount of running BUT they would smartly involve the ball in some way that would keep our minds stimulated distracting us from realising how difficult the session actually was.
The players aptly nicknamed these drills “Disguised Running”. Running without a ball was boring and painful, we hated every second of it! Add a ball, and it wasn’t nearly half as bad. The only reason for this is because when a footballer has a ball at their feet they aren’t concentrating on the intense workload, they’re just having fun!
My goal is to highlight the fun in exercise and to get people breaking a sweat with a smile on their face. Human beings are hard wired to move toward things that make them happy so my formula is very simple. Create a new healthy habit based on the feel-good factor that involves frequent exercise and enjoyment. This will almost certainly tick all three boxes that I mentioned earlier. Feeling Good, Looking Good, Having Fun!