Trinity & The Fitness Challenge

Everywhere we see the gyms offering a 12 Week Ftiness Challenge. But how many of their staff have actually completed a 12 Week Fitness Challenge themselves?

One of our Dunsborough based Personal Training Fitness Instructors, Trinity Bennett, not only mentors Reach Fitness clients, but is a highly succcessful achiever in a Fitness Challenge three years ago.

Throughout his early life, Trinity was your typical sport-loving teenager. “Growing up, I was right into all the typical sports that guys are involved in — footy, basketball, athletics — you name it. I always had a healthy outlook on sport and fitness and I liked feeling and looking good.”

Link: Reach 16 Week Fitness & Lifestyle Challenge

That all started to change when he was involved in a serious car accident.

“I suffered ligament damage to my hip. The worst part was because I was in an isolated area, I could not get my hip back in place for over 24 hours,” he recalls.

As a result, Trinity spent 12 months in rehabilitation working on his injury, while trying to maintain some level of fitness. Just as things were on the rise, tragedy struck again.

“I love surfing, and that was one of my motivational factors driving me to get fit. I got injured again. This time, I tore ligaments in my foot which took another six months of recovery.”

By this stage he had become pretty depressed about everything that had happened. “I had no job, no money and my health was suffering because I wasn’t doing my rehab any more. I had let my body deteriorate and really needed to change my lifestyle.”

Trinity’s girlfriend, Diva Danti, gave him the inspiration he needed. “Diva mentioned the competition to me and I thought it might be just what I needed to get my life back on track.”

Before Trinity took on the challenge, he needed a plan of attack. “I have always been into sports and fitness and I thought I knew a lot, but as soon as I started to do a little research into it, I realised how much I didn’t know. I wasn’t going to give anything less then 100 percent, so I devised a training and nutrition program which suited my lifestyle.”

Working as a floor sander from eight to 12 hours a day his routine had to vary. “My routine had me training hardest on my days off and not training when work was demanding.”

Training averaged five days per week, paying particular attention to training on the weekends to keep him on track. “I knew the weekends were going to be a challenge since typically, that’s when I would take it easy. I made sure that I trained every weekend because I knew consistency was the key. If I was going to make the effort to get fit, I wasn’t going to let myself slack off out of convenience.

“My day would always start off with an hour of yoga or pilates. I found this great for muscle recovery.” Trinity would then do some form of cardio — either swim, run, use the rowing machine or the stationary bike — for 30-to-40 minutes. Then it was off to work.

If it was an easier day at work, he would be in the gym later that night, or if it was a demanding day he would tackle it the next day. He hit the weights an average of four days a week, always high intensity and always hard.

What makes his transformation even more remarkable was that Trinity had no training partner or personal trainer. His motivation for training came from his intense desire to obtain the fitness, and the physique he had in the past.

“Being a labourer, the boys like to enjoy a few beers after work,” he says. “It was hard at first to pass them up, but in no time at all it didn’t bother me — I had bigger goals.”

A typical day’s eating had Trinity starting off with a bowl of oats with some skim milk and a banana. Mid-morning he would have a protein shake, followed by some chicken and vegetables for lunch. An afternoon protein shake would soon follow, and he would finish the day off with an egg white omelette for dinner.

“If I was hungry throughout the day, I would snack on almonds. I knew my diet needed to be balanced with good fats, plus I didn’t want to go through the challenge as a quick fix. I wanted to change my lifestyle.”

In 12 weeks, he slashed 15kg of fat off his frame, reduced the size of his waist by nearly 20 centimetres and reduced his body fat percentage by an incredible 17.5 percent.

Trinity was so inspired by the experience he kept learning about fitness and nutrition and achieved the status of a highly respected expert Personal Trainer and is proudly employed by Reach Fitness Dunsborough.

Link: Reach 16 Week Fitness & Lifestyle Challenge