'I’m a personal trainer, and I want to cancel these 3 misconceptions about exercise.'

I’m tired. I mean really tired. 

As a professional in the industry in my little corner of the planet occupying a nano-byte of this world wide web, I’m exhausted from being a one-person crusade trying to put out the dumpster-fire reputation of fitness.

Fitness needs an overhaul. A makeover. A cleansing.

A global campaign to rebrand fitness.

Watch: The horoscopes working out. Post continues below.

Without further delay, because I’m getting more tired by the second, thank you for coming to my three point pitch on the global campaign to rebrand fitness:

Point 1.

The first area of fitness that requires immediate attention is the notion that one must have a near-death-last-breath-slumped-over-a-treadmill experience every single day to reap the benefits of exercise. 

Is it any wonder the common-sense folk of planet earth think "yeah nah" and go back to more pleasurable experiences such as cob loaf?

I am forever trying to educate the potential consumers of fitness that not only is this wildly inaccurate (not the cob loaf thing), but this hectic intensity on a daily basis is absolutely counter-productive?

In fact, one of the best ways to reap consistent results is to exercise at lots of varying (more pleasurable) intensities.

Point 2.

The next area of fitness that requires a rebrand is the association of exercise with depressing fluorescent lit spaces of treadmills and weights. 

Exercise takes so many forms, it always has, but we have failed to make the connection.

Vigorously scrubbing the s**t out of your house = exercise. 

Walking to your local to grab a coffee = exercise. 

Chasing children/pets away from [insert impending danger here] = exercise.

Anything where you make the effort to move at a greater intensity than say... sitting down = exercise. 

The beauty of this type of movement is that it is part of your everyday life ('incidental exercise') and takes virtually zero additional time out of your day. 

However, this isn’t to mention the countless organised forms of exercise that aren't a treadmill and weights: yoga, Pilates, pole dancing, social sport, group fitness, F45, bootcamp...

Point 3.

The final area of fitness that needs some urgent re-editing is the exclusive association between exercise and aesthetics. The associations with exercise I’d love to see include:

• Exercise and health benefits.
• Exercise and mental wellbeing.
• Exercise and social interaction.
• Exercise and taking a moment away from your family/colleagues/house-mates (love them, but seriously).
• Exercise and doing something that is unapologetically just for you.
• Exercise and mingling with others that are trying to do exactly the same.
• Exercise and a positive use of your... rage

I’m not undermining looks as a motivator to exercise, in fact 98 per cent of fitness consumers I come across will start exercising because of aesthetics. 

What I’m saying is that I’d love to see exercise being considered as a go-to solution for the above aforementioned non-aesthetic reasons. 

Oh, and the beauty is, regardless of your motivation, you’ll reap the aesthetic benefits, anyway.

In closing...

It will take time to turn this ship around. A spot of crisis management. Some positive PR. But we must start. 

Once we start to rebrand and invite people to look at exercise from different angles, it will become clear to consumers that exercise isn’t merely an arduous obligation.

Marie has been a fitness industry professional since 2005 and currently owns UBX Boxing + Strength in Canberra. Marie is a qualified personal trainer, Les Mills group fitness instructor, CrossFit coach and Pilates teacher. You can follow her on  Instagram.

You can read more from Marie below:

'I'm a personal trainer. Here are the 4 common mistakes I always see people making.'

7 things a personal trainer wants you to stop doing immediately.

'I’m a personal trainer. Here are 5 things I say to clients on repeat.'

Feature Image: Instagram / @marie_anagnostis.