Personal coaching for the win
Getting fit, staying fit and achieving your personal physical or sports goals should be relatively straightforward - eat the right things, train and recover.
But life often gets in the way and before you know it, the progress train has been slowed or even derailed.
While there are a million online courses and programmes marketed at us every day, choosing instead to go local and get a personal trainer can be the right option for busy Queenstowners to stay on track.
“I can give someone a stock standard programme that will work, but they won’t necessarily make those changes stick,” Queenstown PT Stephanie Caruso says.
“You have to understand someone’s lifestyle, their work-life balance, stress and habits. That’s what a personal trainer can offer. What is their starting point? How are they training now? What are they eating? What are their goals and how much effort do they have to give? It needs to be manageable for them.
“And then once someone’s three or four weeks into a plan, and shit gets hard, it’s about providing support and accountability. You can tell from a response to a text how things are going, whether they respond with ‘yeah, it’s going okay’, or ‘I had a great week!’.
“There’s just so much to it, and you need that holistic approach, but it’s really rewarding to see someone making progress towards their goals, and nailing those three pillars of training, nutrition and recovery, while dealing with outside stressors too i.e. work, life, and relationship balance.”
There are dozens of personal trainers based in Queenstown, either working out of the various gyms or independently with clients. Finding the right one for you can be life changing.
Canadian Caruso, who also works as a firefighter at Queenstown Airport, competes as a natural body builder, winning gold in the Ms Figure Novice at the ICN NZ Nationals 2024, along with an armful of other medals. She also works with Carlson Gracie Jiu-Jitsu fighters on their conditioning and weight ahead of international tournaments, such as the World Masters in the USA and Japan, and the Pan Pacific Championships in Melbourne.
Training for a body building comp takes years of dedication but social media, particularly Instagram, can give people unrealistic expectations of what can be achieved in a short timeframe.
“It’s a big facade because what you see is someone’s chapter 10 or chapter 20. They’ve been doing this for five to 10 years at a minimum, consistently tracking and consistently at the gym, but they don’t explain that in their posts.
“So you click and think ‘Oh my God, I can achieve that in eight weeks’, but it’s just unrealistic to have these habits stick for years and years to come. We don’t want people to relapse and gain unhealthy weight back too fast or unhealthily. It always comes down to the fundamental basics.
“I want to work with people who can see the long-term process. If someone’s looking for an eight-week blast, or to get better for summer, my response is ‘how about we work with this for a year?’ Because it’s about building someone’s skills, or else you go through the process of start, cancel, start, cancel. But people shouldn’t be afraid to reach out ask questions.”
While a long-term approach is the best option, small steps build confidence and make progress sustainable, she says, while finding a supportive community can also help you stay committed.
“Drinking a litre of water a day, or walking 30 minutes, might be a box you can tick this week, and you’re on your way,” she says.
“Everyone is different but the most important thing for everyone is you have to be uncomfortable. People love to be comfortable but you need to move beyond that to notice a difference. It’s about thinking ‘I’m going to try something hard today, try something I haven’t done before’, and then you’ll start to see those small successes and you can build on that.
“And using energy gives you energy. Just by walking 30 minutes, or 10,000 steps a day, whatever that starting point is for you, your body responds and you have more energy. It’s a powerful thing and a domino effect once you start to move.”
Contact Stephanie via stephanie.caruso@hotmail.com
Instagram handle: coachstephaniecaruso_pt
