Assess Your Body, Understand Your Mind and Build a Fitness Plan That Actually Works
I’ve worked in fitness and wellbeing in one form or another for many years, and one of the things I want most for the people I work with is for them eventually to understand their own bodies.
A personal trainer can teach you, guide you, encourage you and help you progress, but ultimately you live in your body 24 hours a day. The more you understand about your strength, fitness, mobility, habits, personality and motivation, the easier it becomes to make good decisions for yourself.
So imagine for a moment that you are going to become your own personal trainer.
Where would you start?
You wouldn’t start by randomly downloading a workout designed for somebody you’ve never met. You’d start exactly where I start with a client.
You’d assess the person in front of you.
And that person is you.
Step One: Start With Your Life, Not Your Weight
Before you weigh yourself or perform a single fitness test, I want you to think about your life.
Ask yourself some simple questions. How old am I? How active am I at the moment? What exercise have I enjoyed in the past? What do I hate? How much time can I realistically give to exercise? When is my energy highest? How well am I sleeping? What is my stress level like? Do I have any injuries or health conditions I need to consider? What does my normal working week look like?
And perhaps the most important question:
Why do I want to become fitter?
Don’t automatically answer, “Because I need to lose weight.”
Go deeper.
Perhaps you want to feel confident in your clothes. Maybe you want to protect your bones and maintain muscle as you get older. Perhaps you’re tired of getting breathless walking uphill. Maybe you want enough energy to play with your grandchildren. Perhaps you want to feel attractive again. Maybe you’re approaching a significant birthday and want to enter the next decade feeling fantastic.
Your why matters because it gives the programme meaning.
Step Two: Do Your Own Fitness Assessment
Now we can look at where you’re starting physically.
A fitness assessment isn’t an exam. You cannot fail it. It’s simply a snapshot of where you are today so that you have something meaningful to compare with later.
If you’ve been inactive for a long time, have cardiovascular or other significant health conditions, unexplained symptoms, significant pain, dizziness or you’re uncertain whether exercise is appropriate for you, get medical or appropriately qualified professional advice before testing yourself.
For everybody else, keep your assessment simple and sensible.
Start by recording your resting heart rate. Sit quietly for several minutes and then count your pulse for 60 seconds or use a reliable wearable device. Don’t obsess over one reading because things such as sleep, stress, caffeine, illness and hydration can affect it. You’re looking for patterns over time.
Next, assess your cardiovascular fitness. You don’t need to perform an exhausting maximal fitness test. Choose something repeatable and appropriate for you. You could time how long it takes you to walk a set distance at a brisk but manageable pace. Alternatively, walk briskly for six minutes and record approximately how far you travelled and how hard it felt. Use the same route or conditions when you repeat the test.
Then look at lower-body strength and function. One very practical assessment is sitting down on a stable chair and standing back up again under control. Depending on your ability, you might count how many controlled repetitions you can perform in 30 seconds. Don’t turn it into a competition. You’re establishing your starting point.
For upper-body strength, you might use a wall press-up, an elevated press-up with your hands on a secure surface or a conventional press-up if that’s appropriate for you. Record which version you used and how many good-quality repetitions you could comfortably perform.
You can also assess your balance. Stand near a wall or something stable for safety and see how comfortably you can balance on one leg. Repeat on the other side. Notice the difference between them. Don’t worry if you wobble — that’s why we’re testing it.
Then consider your mobility. Can you comfortably reach your arms overhead? Can you turn your upper body to look behind you? Can you bend your knees and hips to sit down and stand up comfortably? Can you get down onto the floor and back up again?
For me, that final one is incredibly important as we get older.
Getting up from the floor is real-life fitness.
Step Three: Look at Body Composition – But Don’t Let the Scales Run the Show
You can record your weight if you want to. For some goals it can be useful information, but it is only one piece of information.
You might also measure your waist circumference and, if useful to you, your hips, chest, thigh or upper arm. If you’re working on body composition, repeating the same measurements every month or so can sometimes tell you more than jumping on the scales every morning.
Body-composition scales can provide estimates of body fat and muscle, but don’t treat the numbers as laboratory measurements. Hydration and other factors can affect them.
And please don’t let one number decide whether you’re succeeding.
If you’ve become stronger, your waist measurement has changed, you can walk uphill without stopping, you’re sleeping better and you’ve progressed from lifting 3 kg to 6 kg, you’ve made progress even if the bathroom scales aren’t giving you the applause you wanted.
Step Four: Understand Your Body Type – But Don’t Put Yourself in a Box
People often ask me about body types.
You may have heard the traditional descriptions ectomorph, mesomorph and endomorph. They were popularised as somatotypes: broadly speaking, ectomorph describing a naturally slimmer frame, mesomorph a more muscular build and endomorph a body more inclined to carry greater mass.
They’re interesting descriptions, but I wouldn’t design your entire fitness programme around them.
Real human bodies are much more complicated.
Genetics influence us, but so do age, sex, hormones, activity, nutrition, muscle mass, sleep and our environment. Most people don’t fit perfectly into one neat body-type category anyway.
I also have a background in Ayurveda, which uses the traditional concepts of Vata, Pitta and Kapha. I find Ayurveda fascinating as a framework for thinking about individual differences, temperament and balance, but Ayurvedic doshas aren’t modern medical diagnoses and shouldn’t be treated as the same thing as Western body types.
The useful message from both, for me, is much simpler:
We’re different.
Stop trying to train somebody else’s body.
Learn about yours.
Step Five: Assess Your Mind as Well as Your Body
This is the part of a fitness assessment that I think often gets forgotten.
I want to know how your mind works.
I’ve trained in NLP and spent years interested in motivation, mindset and behaviour change, because you can write somebody the most beautiful exercise programme in the world and it’s completely useless if they won’t do it.
Ask yourself:
What motivates me?
Do I need structure or variety?
Do I enjoy exercising alone or with other people?
Do I like competition?
Do I need somebody waiting for me before I’ll turn up?
Do I become bored easily?
Do I like knowing exactly what I’m doing before I start?
Do I respond well to goals and numbers?
Do I prefer exercising outside?
Do I love music?
Do I need encouragement?
Do I tend to start enthusiastically and then lose interest?
Do I have an all-or-nothing personality where missing one workout somehow becomes missing the next three weeks?
These questions are incredibly useful.
Step Six: Understand Your Personality
Something else I find interesting is Myers-Briggs personality profiling.
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator looks at preferences across four broad dimensions and produces personality descriptions such as ENFP, INTJ, ISFJ and so on.
I wouldn’t use Myers-Briggs to tell somebody what exercise they are biologically “designed” to do. Personality is more complex than four letters, and Myers-Briggs has scientific limitations as a psychological measurement tool.
But as a conversation and self-reflection tool, I think personality profiling can be fascinating.
If you’re naturally sociable and gain energy from being around people, perhaps a solitary treadmill session isn’t going to inspire you. You may thrive in group classes, walking with friends, dancing, a running club or working with a trainer.
If you love solitude and quiet, the exact opposite might be true. You may adore putting your headphones on and training alone.
If you love routine and structure, write your workouts into your diary and follow a clear programme.
If you crave novelty, build variety into the plan before boredom arrives.
This is what I mean by personal training being personal.
Don’t just ask, “What’s the best exercise?”
Ask:
“What’s the best way to help me exercise consistently?”
Those are very different questions.
Step Seven: Assess Your Motivation
Now give your current motivation a score out of ten.
Then ask another question:
How confident am I that I can actually follow the plan I’m about to make?
If your motivation is 9/10 but your confidence that you’ll follow the programme is 3/10, your plan is probably too ambitious.
This happens constantly in January.
Someone decides they’re going to train six days a week, give up sugar, stop drinking, walk 10,000 steps every day, meditate every morning and cook every meal from scratch.
By February they’re exhausted.
I would much rather you make a smaller plan that you can actually sustain.
Start with two strength sessions and two or three walks.
Then build.
Step Eight: Set Goals That Actually Mean Something
Now decide where you’re going.
I like having both outcome goals and process goals.
An outcome goal might be:
I want to lose 6 kg.
I want to walk 5 km comfortably.
I want to become stronger.
I want to reduce my waist measurement.
I want to feel fantastic for my 60th birthday.
But outcome goals aren’t completely under your control.
Process goals are the actions that move you towards them.
I will strength train twice a week.
I will walk for 30 minutes four times a week.
I will include protein with my main meals.
I will go to yoga every Thursday.
I will be in bed by 10.30 on weeknights.
Those are behaviours.
And behaviours are where change happens.
Step Nine: Make a Vision Board
I love a vision board because it takes the goal out of your head and gives it a visual form.
But don’t only cover it with pictures of somebody else’s body.
Put your life on it.
Perhaps it’s a photograph of mountains because you want to be fit enough to walk on holiday.
A beautiful dress you’d love to feel confident wearing.
Women lifting weights.
A bicycle.
Walking boots.
Healthy colourful food.
A yoga mat.
A photograph of yourself at a time when you felt particularly alive.
Words such as STRONG, ENERGISED, CONFIDENT, HEALTHY, CALM, CAPABLE.
Create an emotional picture of the person you’re becoming.
Put it somewhere you’ll actually see it.
Step Ten: Mentally Rehearse Your New Habits
Don’t just visualise the finished result.
Visualise the process.
Imagine tomorrow morning.
See yourself getting out of bed.
See yourself putting on your gym clothes.
See yourself walking through the gym doors.
Imagine yourself doing the workout.
Imagine the moment when it becomes difficult and mentally rehearse yourself saying:
“Come on. You’ve got this. One more.”
You can even rehearse situations where you normally struggle.
Going to a party?
Imagine choosing what you want to eat rather than automatically hovering beside the crisps all evening.
Struggle with biscuits at 9 pm?
Mentally rehearse the moment before it happens and decide what you’ll do instead.
We’re not pretending imagination magically changes our bodies.
We’re practising the behaviour before the moment arrives.
Step Eleven: Write Your Weekly Fitness Plan
Now we put everything together.
For most people, I want a balanced week rather than seven versions of the same workout.
Think in terms of:
Cardiovascular fitness. Strength. Mobility and flexibility. Balance. Recovery.
Your week might contain two full-body strength sessions, three brisk walks or other cardiovascular sessions, one or two yoga sessions and plenty of ordinary everyday movement.
Your cardio could be walking, cycling, swimming, dancing, rowing or anything else that gets you breathing harder.
Your strength work should cover the major movement patterns and muscle groups with exercises appropriate to your ability.
Yoga can support mobility, flexibility, balance, strength, breathing and relaxation.
And recovery matters too.
Your body adapts between workouts as well as during them.
Step Twelve: Find a Support Buddy
This is one of the simplest things you can do.
Tell somebody what you’re doing.
Better still, find somebody who wants to do it with you.
Arrange to meet for a walk.
Go to the gym together.
Send each other a message after your workout.
Book the same yoga class.
Celebrate each other’s progress.
Accountability can be incredibly powerful because on the morning when your motivation disappears, somebody else is expecting you.
Choose your support person carefully, though.
You want encouragement, not somebody who says, “Oh, don’t bother today — let’s have cake instead” every time you’ve planned to exercise!
Step Thirteen: Become Your Own Coach
This may be the most important part of the entire programme.
Listen to the voice inside your head.
If your internal personal trainer spends the whole workout saying:
You’re useless.
You’re too old.
You’re so unfit.
You’ll never do this.
Fire them.
You wouldn’t pay a trainer to speak to you like that.
Develop another voice.
Come on.
You’re doing brilliantly.
Just do ten minutes.
Breathe.
One more repetition.
Look how much stronger you’re becoming.
Well done for turning up.
That is mental fitness.
Step Fourteen: Review Your Progress
Every four to six weeks, repeat some of your original assessments under similar conditions.
Has your walking pace improved?
Can you do more controlled chair stands?
Have your weights increased?
Has your balance improved?
Can you get off the floor more easily?
How are your energy levels?
How are your clothes fitting?
How consistent have you actually been?
How do you feel?
And then adjust the programme.
That’s exactly what a good personal trainer does.
We assess.
We plan.
We train.
We review.
We adapt.
Your Personal Fitness Assessment
So if you’re doing this yourself, get a notebook and create your own starting profile.
Record your resting heart rate, cardiovascular starting point, lower- and upper-body strength, balance, mobility, weight and measurements if relevant, current activity levels, sleep and energy. Then write down your goals, your motivation, the obstacles that normally stop you, the type of exercise you genuinely enjoy and the support you need.
Then write one final sentence:
“The reason I want to look after my body is…”
Don’t rush that one.
That’s probably the most important assessment of all.
Because being your own personal trainer isn’t really about knowing hundreds of exercises.
It’s about becoming curious about yourself.
Understanding your body.
Understanding your mind.
Understanding your habits.
Learning what motivates you.
Creating an environment that supports you.
Making a realistic plan.
And then showing up often enough for that plan to begin changing you.
You don’t need perfection.
You need consistency, curiosity and a little bit of encouragement.
And perhaps the ultimate aim of personal training — whether you’re working with a trainer or doing it yourself — is eventually to reach the point where you can say:
I understand my body. I know how to look after it. I know how to motivate myself. And I know how to begin again when life knocks me off track.
That’s real fitness.
Selena
Personal Trainer, Yoga Teacher & Wellbeing Coach
In Flow Wellbeing Studio, Cheltenham
