National Personal Trainer Awareness Day is observed every year on January second with a day to honor the experts who assist us with keeping our goals high. 

As the new year begins, one of the most popular resolutions of every year is getting fit, and hence comes the popular demand for personal training comes for the rescue. Their tasks are not exclusively to inspire us, yet to ensure we figure out how to function our bodies securely. As much as lack of motivation keeps us from our goals, the inappropriate use of equipment can lead to injuries which again can become a reason for getting demotivated. 

So we have for you an exclusive series about the Best Personal Trainers sharing their views on fitness and health.

Parag Patil, Founder, LetzRun India, and MaxFit India, is a Mind, Body, and Soul Trainer and the winner of 17 medals. He is also an International Coach, an Author, an International Athlete, and also a Brand Ambassador.

LetzRun India is empowering the youth and seniors in international games to make India proud with shining medals.

Fitness is the key

Parag shares his views, “Fitness is the key for good health. One can fight the diseases and pain with the help of immunity, as well as the proper postures and walking techniques. If the posture is incorrect, then you're going to have pain or diseases. The techniques that nature has given us, for example, walking, standing, and sitting are proper techniques which, unfortunately, in our education systems or parenting, we are not aware of or taught about how we should walk or climb the staircase. So we are not able to educate the kids also. There are a lot of definitions of fitness but as for the topmost fitness coaches in the world, there is just one definition, which is: Think, analyze, and action within a short span of time is your fitness. It's a body, mind, and soul integration to do those things within a very short time, example someone is running 100 meters in 9.5 x seconds, within that short time, we can make mistakes and one doesn't have time to think. Also, there are a lot of parameters acting in our life, which is divided into four quadrants physical, mental, social, and emotional. So fitness is not just building your muscles or flexible your muscles timing and all these things, you have to carry out all the parameters in these four quadrants. So that is the importance of fitness in your life as well as your health,” he says.

Everything has a process

Parag sheds light on the subject of people who are looking for very quick results, which ultimately leads to various side effects, “Everything is technical and has to go through a process. If we talk about obesity which is a big problem in India. If one has taken one year to put on weight, losing that weight also will take time and it is a process. If you are expecting lots of results in a very short time, it is going to affect your muscles, issues like muscle loss, muscle stiffness, connections within the muscles, the muscle activity, are going make your performance slower, decrease your activities and ultimately you're going to attract a lot of diseases, so be patient even if it takes six months or one year. Because when you gain, you do not gain immediately but to lose that weight, you expect immediate results. So avoid doing that as you will have to face various other problems,” he says.

We have 3 babas on our mobile

Parag talks on quacks in the fitness industry, “We have three Babas on our mobile, one is Google Baba, second is WhatsApp baba and third is YouTube baba. What is more dangerous is we don't have any kind of criteria to be a coach. For example, the person who is running a marathon, from one year to another, becomes a coach or somebody who learns something from YouTube becomes a coach, and he starts sharing his so-called knowledge, so this is going to actually impact. One thing you have to think as a coach or keep in mind is that you are literally playing with someone's body and life. You don't have that authority to play with someone. If you would ask me as to how I came into coaching, after completing 29 years of practice, and 11 international medals, I approached my coach and told him that I would like to coach, he interviewed me and said that I was not liable to coach because I didn’t have the knowledge. He advised that I shall obtain more knowledge, talk to other foreign athletes and gain knowledge about practice, fitness, and diet and then I should go back for the interview. So now, even after completing 32 years, I still study, read books, or talk to some athletes from other countries, and this is a continuous process. You cannot say I have completed two to three years of the marathon or my practice and now I'm a bigger coach,” he says.

Offline sessions are always good than the online ones

Parag explains, “I do take online sessions and I have seen tremendous results. But one barrier is that the coach is not present with them, although he is present on camera. For example, If the online coaching is going on where I am posting some video, and you have to do all the activities and then report to me, that is not going to work, the reason being each and every small angle of the output of your body is affected in terms of injuries, and improvement. So if I'm watching you online, then I can see you, whether you're going wrong or where you are doing some mistakes, and correct you on the spot. So if it's a one on one online session or live online sessions, it is going to help but not as offline sessions. But obviously, offline sessions are always good than the online ones,” he says.

(Edited by Rabia Mistry Mulla)