Domin Munnely

The past twenty years has seen an exploision in gyms and fitness centres opening all over the world. However, there has been a fitness revolution in the past 3-4years with the closure of many of the franchised or large scale gyms closing with smaller, private and more personal gyms opening plus a huge growth in people training from home with minimal equipment.

Take Curves as an example, five years ago almost every town and city in Ireland had one or more of these ‘express workout’ centres but now they are no where to be seen. The Wall Street Journal covers their fall quite well in this article – Curves is slimming down. In Dublin eariler this year a very large gym chain closed with over 100 job losses – leading gym chain closes.

Over the coming years I fully expect more large gyms to close unless they drastically change their model which, from my experience, can be more focused on selling you their membership package rather than providing you with excellent service in a comfortable surrounding. Added to this is the fact that many gyms have not kept up with the times in terms of how best to train and get results with clients. It’s amazing that they don’t invite in top trainers to help train their staff in the latest methods. All you have to do is observe people that train in a typical gym to notice how many people do the same things in each session and are not addressing their needs e.g. does that lady that looks like she has an eating disorder really need more cardio? Does the guy that needs to drop 2-3 stone (12-20kg) need to do three more chest exercises when he wants fat loss?

Curves is a perfect example of this as they were more focused on providing an unflexible, unchanging circuit of machine based exercises to give someone a ‘workout’ rather than actually coach and train their members. I foresee typical bootcamp classes going the same way in the next 1-2 years if they are not careful as attendees will seek out alternative methods that will cover all aspects of fitness as opposed to just having a ‘workout.’

Putting things over your head - might actually produce results as opposed to doing another bums and tums class

If you are unsure what you should expect in a training session regardless of whether it’s in a gym or in a group class then you need to watch my video first -

I fully agree that a client and trainer need to get to know each other and establish some rapport but beyond that you can see the massive value in what I suggest and offer above and how different that is to your normal gym/curves/tony quinn/trainer etc experience. It’s a trainers job to coach and train you NOT to kick your ass. This is the primary reason why I have new clients work with me every week from all over the country that want to train from home or want to use my program design in their own gym. Which begs the question If the gyms were doing such a good job why are their members coming to me? I believe the explosion I have seen in this side of my business is due to people wanting more from their training and workouts and recognise that there are major aspects of their training they are missing out on.

Nortech speed rope

Last week I got a shipment in of Nortech speed jump ropes which combined with other items I buy in for clients, such as, kettlebells, foam rolls, lacrosse balls, they combine to provide you with all the essential workout tools you need for a gym free workout. You could then progress on do doing double unders which are an excellent conditioning execise and brilliant for working on jumping and running mechanics as they encourage a forefoot position.

Double unders explained

There are a whole range of movement you can do from home with just a kettlebell and body weight movements and when integrated with some skipping or running it can provide you with challenging and highly varied workouts.

Here are just some movements you can try from home with limited equipment and it might be time to get rid of the huge treadmill/cross trainer etc that’s just taking up space and get yourself items that will deliver results and won’t take up half a room.

• press ups – add load by wearing a backpack or perform with hands on dumbbells/kettlebells
• One arm rows, band pull aparts, chin ups – a chin up bar in a door frame is another great addition
• Squats, lunges, step ups, split squats – easy to add load with a bell and lots of variations of these movements
• Single leg deadlifts/deadlifts – essential exercises as you have to pick things up and put things down daily so it’s best to learn how to do it without blowing your back out!
• Overhead press – again a kettlebell is handy here
• Kettlebell swings, kettlebell snatch, turkish get ups – lots of options here and another reason to get and use your kettlebell
• Burpees, box jumps – both pretty much suck but good additions
• Core/midline stability exercises – so many options here

There are many more movements I could list but I’m sure you will agree that’s enough to keep most people occupied for quite some time. It’s your trainers job to then use movements like this and apply them to what’s right for you. For example, if you have super tight shoulders should you be doing a ton of bench pressing, flys, dips, press ups etc? No that would be a really bad idea. Most people come to me with at the very least one (typically shoulders and hips are super tight) part of their body that needs increased mobility or stability and the skill of being a trainer is to address this need rather than throwing another series of exercises at the client with no regard for their limitations.

If you are new to this site or want to refer it on to friends to help them get started then I would encourage you or them to start with my ultimate home workout plan which has four parts and begin by doing everything mentioned in part 4 and work back through the other three parts (which are in the how to train at home section).  

Lots of my clients have and continue to obtain great results from home based workouts or workouts I have designed that they can do in their own gym. If you are looking for a way to train that addresses all your fitness needs rather than just having a workout then you have come to the right place. Rememeber there are lots of other workouts listed in my workout of the week section also. Call or email me if you are due a program review so you can keep your training challenging, fun and varied. Keep in mind that I regularly post up what I do in my own sessions, in group classes and with one to one clients on my facebook and twitter pages so remember to now like and subscribe so you can get fresh ideas on new sessions to try out.