Ramdas understanding the fitness secrets from new age fitness guru Rinku Shah who demystifies some myths on fitness. Rinku Shah is a Facebook community leader and official fitness associate for Miss and Mrs Asia beauty pageant at Sri Lanka, June 2020.
On how she became a fitness trainer-
For over 12 years Rinku worked in the airline industry, but then had to move to another country because of her husband’s job and fitness was something always on top of her mind. It was actually when she recovered from a bad backache and fitness really helped her to get back into motion. It all started first getting into a routine and later she started communicating the same with her friends and family. What started as a WhatsApp group of 100 people, helping them and motivating them, she then found that people were asking for more. It is then, that she started a FaceBook community called Fitness 2 Flash which now has over 62000 subscribers from all over the world.
When she started she got herself certified. The basic drive was to help others, an inherent quality of hers, she wanted to be sure that she was giving the right kind of advice and information.
On identifying a genuine fitness trainer
With a lot of fitness centres and self-proclaimed fitness trainers, how to identify a genuine trainer is a tough question that comes to everyone’s mind. As per Rinku, a genuine fitness trainer will never tell you that it is going to be easy and quick. “Fitness trainer will tell you that patience is the key, it takes time and it needs a lot of patience. There are no quick-fix solutions” added Rinku.
If You want to be a fitness trainer
If somebody wants to be a fitness trainer, a piece of advice from Rinku is to look at personal trainer certifications that are available vide online or in person. In India, it is available with Gold Gym, Reebok training, with a one-on-one option. There are a lot of certifications, which you can do online and then you get one-on-one experience and then you get into the gym or venture into your own gym or online personal training. The online though sounds theoretical gives you enough opportunity in understanding the concept which is tested during the examination. In addition, they give you training on CPR and Automated external defibrillator (AED) which you have to do in-person to get the certification.
On Fitness2Flash
Fitness2Flash is a closed group community for only women who are passionate about adopting a healthy lifestyle. F2F has certified fitness trainers and sports nutritionist experts with a passion for designing and executing exercise and nutrition programs that maximize workout efficiency, improve fitness, increase stamina, and develop an overall sense of well being. It’s a women community to help them live a life of their dreams, which is fit, happy and healthy.
On Zero Figure and Ideal Body type
Her advice to her trainers and others is to focus on health. “Don’t look at the weight. Look at your health” is what Rinku believes. The focus is not on the aesthetics, but how healthy the person is. Even a lean person can be unfit is a clear takeaway from the conversation. There should be no concept of zero figure, you build your muscle and you should know you are healthy. One should be able to do their activity with a lot of enthusiasm and energy. The test to know whether one is healthy or not is whether one can do their day to day activities comfortably. Whether they can workout for daily 30 minutes? And men or women–they need to check whether they are suffering from any health issue. Just by looking at someone you cannot say whether the person is fit or not.
Fitness different from India and other countries (France)
Living in the fashion capital of the world, the biggest difference with regards to fitness vis-à-vis India is that the Europeans are really serious about their fitness. They come to the gym, they work out, they go home, they have no time to chit-chat, to take pictures or take videos. India right now is more of a show business. It is more like a fashion and status statement that you are going to the gym.
On how the western world as repackaged Indian traditions back to India.
Many of the yogic poses are packaged like the ‘Cat and Camel’ pose, Super-Man Pose are Yoga postures, the fancy poses, they are coping up with our postures.
Myths of Fitness
- Spot reduction – it doesn’t exist. If you want to lose your tummy or belly weight in a month, it is not possible.
- Women bulk up when they do weight training – this is another myth
- Only do cardio or you will put on weight – is a myth.
On protein supplements
Protein intake depends on whether you are vegan or a non-vegetarian. It also depends on your target and diet intake. They do recommend protein shakes. At Fitness2Flash they recommend brands that they have tried and tested by their team of trainers. Typically, they would advise- Whey protein shake and don’t overdo any stuff and is plan based. Sincere advice from Rinku is to have more of water so that anything excess is flushed out.
On the F2F Fitness regime
F2F is a website, which has 2 options, where they have a membership section with a subscription-like a magazine, where you have access to diet plans, workout plans, etc. What they have done is chalked out a workout and a diet plan, which a normal person can adopt. They usually provide home-based workouts because they target people who are busy in life or working women who do not find the time. They have convenient short workouts of 15-20 minutes and hardly require equipment and it ranges from beginners to advance. The focus is more on women because of women’s problems, they specialize in women and it’s a totally online model with 8 personal trainers and the team is expanding. Soon, they are planning to have an app. With so many online fitness contents available the success mantra is ‘Trust’. As Rinku puts it, “They trust the community”. Its also about mentorship, interaction, one-on-one, anyone wants to speak then there is a chat option available. In the one-on-one training option, they provide online support with telephonic and video calls too. Special advice is given to the subscribers and to progress gradually.