Mikey Moon's fitness column: Accept your level to make progress

I haven’t seen her for ages: in fact, it’s quite common at the gym at the moment with people now coming back for the first time in quite a long period.

If you’ve had quite a long lay-off from working out, you are not alone at all.

The first thing you need to do is accept where you are – and where you are is absolutely OK.

If you’ve had a lengthy layoff training, it can sometimes be disheartening to think about where you used to be as opposed to where you are now.

People can think, for example, they used to be able to lift a certain weight, they used to be able to do certain conditioning and they used to be able to do press ups without a problem.

Without sounding harsh, the key phrase there is ‘used to’.

You can’t now and that is totally fine because you will get back to where you were – no problem.

However, getting upset, down or annoyed about your level of fitness now compared to your previous level of fitness is only going to make this process harder.

The first thing you need to do is accept where you are, and that this is your base level.

You are starting again but the good news is you aren’t learning this time.

You already know what to do, what it takes and how to get results so, rather than getting upset about where you used to be, try to remember the steps you used to get there.

How did you gradually improve every week? What was your training like at first? Where did you start out?

Once you do this and start to accept your new base level, then, and only then, will you be able to progress.

If you’re starting fresh this week, remember: you might not be able to do now what you used to do, but you will be able to soon.

Fortitude Fitness is on the Poulton Industrial Estate, Beacon Road. Visit www.fortitudefit.co.uk for more details.

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