As part of our #NEMovement campaign, we’re excited to introduce a series of guest articles written by local experts and leaders in their field who have pledged their support to the campaign. They’ll be covering everything movement related, from how you can stay motivated during lockdown, to why movement is important for organisations and the wellbeing of their workforce. Our first piece comes from Personal Trainer and Lifestyle Coach, Robbie Thompson.

Robbie has over 12 years’ experience and has worked with hundreds of people in that time including celebrities, actresses and TV presenters. He’s passionate about helping people find the right balance for them, which means that they can enjoy their lives to the fullest whilst becoming the healthiest, happiest, highest performing version of themselves. We’re delighted to have Robbie on board and supporting #NEMovement.

“2020 continues to be a very strange and challenging year doesn’t it?

You’re possibly not feeling particularly motivated to do anything at the moment, never mind exercising, especially since the gyms closed again. But getting moving is exactly what you need to do and it’s more important than ever that we look after our health and wellbeing.

Something that a lot of people have struggled with this year is the constant change and uncertainty. We are creatures of habit and we don’t generally do well with change so it’s little wonder this has affected us all.

But this is actually one really significant way that exercise can help. We can bring back some control and normality to our lives by consistently doing simple things like just going for a walk at certain times of the day or doing workouts on set days of the week.

This starts to give us a framework to structure our days around. Then we can plan when we’ll eat, when we’ll work, when we’ll relax. There’s comfort in having routine like this in our lives. With so much uncertainty in the world these are ways we can feel like we have some control again which is really important for our mental wellbeing.

As you can see, exercise is about way more than just fat loss and fitness.

Another big reason to exercise is to inject some positivity into your life and the sense of accomplishment that comes from getting yourself moving and just doing something.

And that’s really important, focus on what you can do. All we’re looking at here is what’s appropriate and possible for you. That might be a walk around the block, or a 20 minute jog, maybe a short yoga routine, or a power walk with a friend.

What you do isn’t important, what matters most is that you just do something. Something is always better than nothing. Because exercise isn’t all about how much you can lift or how fast you can run. Sometimes it’s just about getting some headspace, improving your mood, spending some time in the fresh air and feeling good about that.

It’s important to try to build these healthy habits so that you still do them whether you feel like it or not. That way, on the bad days, when you don’t feel motivated, you still do what you need to do to help yourself feel better. A big driver to do this is knowing you do always feel better afterwards.

One of my favourite techniques to build healthy habits is what’s called ‘Building Your Chain’. You decide on a new habit and mark an X on your calendar for every day that you do it. The idea is that you build that chain by performing your healthy habit everyday and the longer you build that chain, the more you want to avoid breaking it. You can use your tracker from your toolkit to help with this.

When you no longer need motivation to exercise and just do it because it’s a habit, that’s when you’re really onto a winner! Because the beauty of anything we do for our health and wellbeing is that it snowballs. It creates ripples that have a positive impact on other areas of our lives and those around us too.

The key is just to start though. Don’t ever underestimate just how much that short walk or quick workout can change how you feel.

Wouldn’t it be great if you built healthy new habits during this lockdown that not only help you cope now, but continue to benefit you in the future.

You’ve got this!”