Welcome to Suzanne Rens’ Story, a trainer who recently joined Clubsportive in the past few months who, together with her ambitions and knowledge in the fitness world, is prepared to teach you her sporting philosophies.
Suzanne’s story starts at a young age, having dived early into the universe of sports. It began when she took an interest in sports during her schooling period, where she quickly became infatuated with a long list of a variety of unique sports. Engaging into the world of dance she pursued her talents and focus onto Ballet, which drove her further into Street Dance. Her first steps into becoming an ambitious trainer remained untainted as her drive and discipline carried her onto a steady stream of weekly sports. Hockey became the next facet on her agenda as she joined a girls team in the Netherlands.
However, her real sporting passion began to bloom the moment she encountered equestrian. At the age of 12, she started horse riding and instantaneously became infatuated with her horse. This is the period when she began understanding the fundamentals of what it means to be an athlete. With a mega-discipline for horse-riding at a young age, her lifestyle was forever chosen.
Among other sporting disciplines, Suzanne discovered her love for the gym through rehabilitation. Her love for sports drove her to the rowing world, where she landed an injury that needed physiotherapy, for over-extended hamstrings. With her passion for athleticism already in her bones, the only option she sought possible was to either, “Go hard or go home.” and unfortunately for Suzanne, the latter option was the wiser decision.
With horse riding, Suzanne entered competitions for many years before having to stop. This time, her hindrance came from the injury of her horse. Who, during the many years of training and riding, suddenly had difficulty walking due to a splintered bone in its leg. Here again, a tough choice had to be made, and once again the wiser decision was to stop horse riding in the risk of overexposing her horses’ injury.
SPORTS PHILOSOPHY:
The many hardships Suzanne has had to endure through her athletic lifestyle has brought her a collection of life-lessons and philosophies she still carries with her today. Sometimes when things seem to be going the wrong way, the lessons learned are far more valuable than previously acknowledged. Which is why Suzanne has adapted her sports philosophies that she hopes can influence the members she trains in the gym.
1) ENJOY YOUR TRAINING
For one, the understanding of perseverance echoes into the fitness lifestyle in the shape of diets, nutritional behaviors/attitudes and how one comes to the gym to train, “People train for the wrong reason if it doesn’t make you happy then stop and find something that really works for you.” Suzanne believes that training at the gym isn’t only about ‘going against the grain.’ Yes, training is hard and should be if you want to attain results. But the sporting philosophy behind her words demonstrates a perspective most gym-goers miss the first time around.
If it’s too difficult to sum up the strength to keep a consistent pattern going at the gym, you’re doing something that is fighting against your inner instinct. Listen to your inner instinct if you really want to see consistent results. It doesn’t make sense going to the gym every day if you dislike it, find the sporting habits that actually make you happy and can take the edge off. Instead of avoiding the feeling of going to the gym, let alone resenting the exercises you have to do once you get there. Everyone has different preferences for sporting, it’s your job to uncover which sporting lifestyle you enjoy while maintaining a strong level of training. If you dislike it before you even get there, you’re never going to last long.
2) DETACH YOURSELF FROM EXPECTATIONS
“Sometimes you can train hard and it’s easy or train easy and it’s just too hard, you don’t have to run a marathon or anything but set yourself goals that you want to attain. Like: a father who wants to be fit for his children (so he can keep up with them) instead of setting a goal of completing a marathon.” Motivations for training are abundant, find your motivation before you train and decide on why you train before you realize how you train.
The how comes later, and if you enjoy it, you’ll always find a way. It all ties into the intrinsic motivation that persists because you REALLY want it. Which ties into Suzanne’s second philosophy which is, “The world doesn’t expect you to do sports, so don’t do it for them, do it for yourself. Don’t be hard on yourself about fake expectations from other people.” The easiest mistake to make when adapting to a fitness lifestyle is the expectation. What you expect from yourself, what you expect from the workout and what you think others are expecting of you. Detach yourself from the expectations and workout because you want to attain a specific goal, in the end, that’s all that really matters when you train athletic habits.
3) DON’T OVER-TRAIN
Suzanne’s third perspective comes from the most important rule she learned over time, concerning the hardships she’s had to go through in her own sporting life. “have respect for your own body. Sometimes I can’t do something I see someone else do easily. And I get frustrated, but I believe that your body is like your home. It’s tough to see people exhaust themselves in the gym because eventually, you need to take care of your body and not harm it.” Everyone is at a different level when it comes to fitness, and it’s especially important to realize this when you begin training. One of the fears of training comes from looking like an amateur in the gym, which is why a majority of people never visit the gym. But Suzanne argues,
“You need to be able to adjust your lifestyle, it’s a moment for yourself, don’t pressure yourself. Be conscious about yourself and your decisions, it’s not about proving to yourself that you can completely exhaust yourself in the gym, but that you can keep going the day after. Most people quit for this exact reason.”
Most people exhaust themselves in the gym until they no longer have the motivation, let alone energy to keep going. It’s not about going all out during your training session, it’s about maintaining a balanced lifestyle that you can feed over time. The fittest athletes on the planet derive from the will to keep training every day, not because they want to exhaust their bodies day in and out. And if you train consistently for a long-term the results are abundant, compared to someone who trains 3 months as hard as they possibly can and then stop never to pick up a kettle-bell ever again.
4) TRAIN THE BODY & THE MIND
Lastly, Suzanne endures her sporting lifestyle and habits through one strong affiliation with fitness, “fitness is a total package, for your mind and your body”. People tend to forget that fitness is training the body AND the mind. When you come to the gym and complete a workout routine you’ve been trying to uphold for weeks, yes your body is trained… but inevitably you also create neurological pathways in your brain that allows you to grow mentally. Think about a time when you’ve really had to push yourself during sports, the biggest influencer of athletic success is the ability to maintain a healthy mental capacity. If you’re a working adult and you come to the gym after work, the last thing you need to maintain a healthy mind is to destroy your body completely while completely hating the process.
FUTURE GOALS:
Although Suzanne has recently started her journey at Clubsportive, she maintains ambitions she wishes to pursue in her future. These goals are represented through her sporting philosophies she carries with her. In the future, Suzanne wants to attain an even higher level of personal training courses. Already having completed level 3 to become a personal trainer, she’s motivated to complete the next steps of the courses to further develop herself for her career in the sports world. In resemblance to her philosophy of training the mind, Suzanne also has plans on achieving mindfulness courses that aid her in her search for ultimate fitness.
For the goals she has set for herself in the near-future, Clubsportive is the perfect place to be to grow in more ways than one. Through networking, experience, meeting members and trainers, learning different training techniques, and engaging in a fast-revolving gym Suzanne believes she can make her sporting dream into a reality: to eventually set-up her own gym where mindfulness and physical training is combined. A gym where members love to come for a workout, are mindful of their gym-sessions and leave feeling better than when they came in. Clubsportive is the perfect hub to come further into the fitness world, and with her sporting ambition intact, she looks to achieve her goals through the sporting philosophies she reiterates in her daily routines.
Suzanne admits, “Sometimes I look back to horse-riding but I feel like I’ve managed to get over that phase of my life. I just want to keep growing and developing so that I can help as many people as possible. That’s why when I was studying I felt like I was never getting anywhere, with zero satisfaction. Now when I train someone and I see that they enjoyed themselves I feel like I can bring something real into the world, that’s why I will forever enjoy this.”
