For the past few months, my interest in maintaining my fitness levels has grown dramatically. Although I have never been particularly athletic, over the past several months after noticing a drastic change in myself, I have felt compelled to find strategies to maintain my strength and fitness. As a result, I thought about exercising in the gym to keep my fitness and health. I’m not athletic, so this exercise will really inspire me to push myself and attempt something new.

LO1 – Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth 

Before starting with the gym,I jotted down my strengths and weaknesses to understand what I need to improve upon and what are some of my strengths that will help me overcome my weaknesses.

Strengths : The biggest and the most positive strength I had before starting with the gym was my mental strength, My spirit to extend my abilities further,pushing my limits in training my body and not giving up easily.Before joining the gym,I invested my time in cycling  which helped me in strengthening my lower body and because of which having decent amount of lower body strength helped me advance further in the gym.

Weaknesses : One of my biggest weaknesses was my arm strength which made exercises like push ups/pull ups very difficult or I would say almost impossible.I had zero core ability and very minimal amount of stamina. So with continuous workouts I tried to work on turning my weaknesses into strengths.

LO2- Demonstrate the challenges that have been undertaken,developing new skills

The biggest challenge for me was managing my time.Finding sufficient time for gym in my hectic schedule was a tedious task.Being an IBDP student we strive to improve our time management however,managing time is the most difficult task for us with the amount of submissions we have in order to keep a balance with my academics as well.So, I decided to go to the gym in the late evening after completing all the task I had planned for the day.Many of the workouts were challenging for me since I lacked the strength to finish them. I had never done anything like that before, which made it substantially more challenging for me.As this challenge compelled me to push me outside of my comfort zone and try something new, I felt great about taking it on.It was challenging to be consistent and alter my diet. I had to overcome my wants and needs in order to accomplish my objective of staying fit.

LO3 – Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience

In order to manage going to the gym with my other responsibilities, I used the fitbit app to plan my schedule. I made a 3 day/week plan with my trainer that consisted of a particular target body workout for each of the 3 days in order to achieve my fitness goal. My lack of self management skills makes it challenging for me to plan my days and set aside time for exercise. I also realized that scheduling is important since it has allowed me to fulfill my priorities with the time constraint I have.I recorded my workout data in the fitbit app to help me keep a track of my improvements and progress.

LO4 – Show perseverance and commitment in CAS experience

In order to complete this CAS experience, I needed commitment and perseverance and I decided not to skip the gym even after having stiffness in my muscles initially when I had started with the gym as a beginner.When I had decided to join the gym, I had very little amount of faith in myself.However,consistent exercising led me through my progress.In the beginning,I could perform few exercises like advanced form of squats,pushups and this made me want to give up but my trainer pushed me enough to have faith in myself and now months later,I am very happy with the form with which I can do all the exercises.Now, 3 months later I am very happy with amount of progress I have made and I have learnt that commitment is the key to determination and receiving successful results in whatever you do.