Raewyn Ng.

The health and fitness industry is changing. We have more personal trainers than ever, more gyms and fitness studios, and more apps to help us get fit, tone up and lose weight. Presumably this means we should all be a picture of health. The thing is, we’re not seeing a corresponding increase in health across the population.

The New Zealand Health Survey 2015/16 results from the Ministry of Health back this up.

They reveal 32 per cent of adults are obese compared to 27 per cent in 2006/7 and a further 35 per cent of adults are overweight (but not obese). Rates of physical activity are also dropping – less than half (48 per cent) of New Zealand adults are physically active (defined as 30 minutes of physical activity at least five days a week) compared to 52 per cent in 2006/7 and more (15 per cent) are physically inactive (defined as less than 30 minutes of physical activity a week including housework, work-related activity and walking) than in 2006/7 (10 per cent).

Since the 1980s you may have been fortunate enough to hire a personal trainer (PT) to help you in your quest to get active. A PT guides you through your workout, tells you what exercise to do, how to do it, how many times and how much rest to take between sets. You might see them once a week, or maybe more often.

Traditionally, a PT would advocate for a particular idea of a healthy lifestyle and encourages clients to strive for perfection.

This kind of PT, the repcounting, smash-out-a-workout, we all love fitness-type is slowly but surely becoming obsolete. It’s not just about workouts anymore.

Personal training is still a relatively new profession, and the

The days of the personal trainer who is more like a drill sergeant are numbered, writes