Shivoham - The Shivfit Way: A Comprehensive Functional Fitness Programme

Start. Dont think. Dont plan. Dont wait for the right time. Start.

Go on, get up and do ten push-ups, fifteen squats, twenty jumping jacks. Right now.

Now that you have started, its going to be easier for you to motivate yourself to spare a little time from your busy schedule for your physical and mental well-being.

Starting is the biggest challenge.

I meet several people at my CrossFit boxes in Mumbai, and during my fitness awareness tours across the country, who are extremely motivated and driven and want to embrace a healthy lifestyle that incorporates exercise in their daily routine. But they havent been able to do so as they keep telling themselves, I will start working out tomorrow, or I am going to start exercising today... after office in the evening but remain stuck at the starting line. In todays competitive and hyper-social world, there are various pressures, plenty of commitments and endless distractions. Whatever little time you get, you probably want to put your feet up, let your hair down and escape the constant demands of your hectic twenty-first century life.

I believe getting people to start exercising is the first, most important, and also the most difficult task. Once past this stage, things are simpler. Most people, more often than not, come back after the first week of working out with us. So begin today. It might feel like a punishment initially, but keep at it for a week before deciding if you really want to give up.

How did I get over my own starting hiccups?

I might have had the same trouble as most people do but for my dad. Given the way I put off returning calls, sending emails and doing my paperwork, had it not been for my father I might have found it very difficult to start exercising. In my mind I have it down to the minute as to when I will return that phone call, click send on that long-pending email and get my paperwork in orderjust like most people tell me when and how they plan to start working out the next day, or once the weekend parties are through. But when it comes to exercise and sports, I dont procrastinate, I dont think, I dont plan. Thanks to dad (and borrowing one of the most popular marketing lines by a sportswear company), I just do it.

When I was five months old, my dad decided he had seen his fill of me flapping my arms and legs around on the bed. As cute as my mother may have thought that was, my father had had enough. He took me to the swimming pool at Khar Gymkhana Club in Mumbai. In those five months, he had noticed that I was very fond of water. He decided swimming, if anything at all, was my future. He took me into the pool. Since five-month-olds do not have very developed memories, I dont remember any of this. But my parents have narrated the story so many timeswith pride, I must addto me, my brother, uncles and aunts, friends, relatives and whosoever was a willing audience, that I have it down to the last syllable.

My dad would take my brother and me to the pool every Sunday without fail. We would flap our hands and legs and try to stay afloat every time he would slip his hands out from under us. When I think about it now, we must have swallowed a lot of water back thenthis explains how I learnt to keep myself hydrated at all times! This is, in fact, another life lesson my dad taught me quite early. It was a rather unusual way of doing it, but one that was effective all the same.

Once we were old enough and did not need constant attention and supervision, the two of us would race each other, compete to see who could stay underwater longer or dive further, while dad would do his own thing, sneaking in a look once in a while to see what his sons were up to. Every time he saw us race, his face would break out in a smile. Thats how my fitness journey began at the infantile age of five months. Instead of a bottle of milk and play gym, I was holding floating tubes and splashing around in a pool. Thats one reason why, when it came to sports or exercise, I have not once had any starting trouble. At the age of five, I started swimming competitively and went on to participate in national-level events before my eleventh birthday. At fifteen years, my uncle gave me his old dumb-bells and I started lifting weights. In college, I captained the water polo team and then moved to Australia to study animation. A year into the course, I dropped out of college to become a fitness trainer. My mother wasnt very happy with this decision, more so because she had spent a lot of money to send me abroad to study and make a career. But I was simply following the path my father, without knowing its repercussions, had put me on very early in life.

At my gym and with friends, I do what my dad did for me early in my lifehelp people start. If it means being strict, I will be the meanest drill master they have ever met. If they need to be coaxed, I will patiently talk to them till they are ready. If the motivation to start is missing, they will find more than enough of it from each and every member who trains in my CrossFit boxes. Once you start, there is no looking back. The biggest hurdle has been crossed.