Meet this month's SH1FT STAR, Gillian Adams, a SH1FT Fitness Instructor and mom of 4! Gillian is certified in all four SH1FT formats in addition to PiYo and several others. Gillian originally came to us after Beachbody LIVE was discontinued and immediately fell in love with the formats and the community!

WHY WE LOVE GILLIAN:

Gillian is such an incredible example to strength and perseverance through adversity, especially to 50+ women. Despite struggling with chronic illness, she thrived through her own personal journey with health and fitness. She then went on to use it to encourage and inspire others, not just to look better, but to HEAL and FEEL better. That’s what it’s all about!

Without further ado, meet Gillian:

1. Tell us about yourself: 

I live on the West Coast of Scotland, I'm a mum of 4, 2 of whom are now adults and have left the nest. I also have a 17 and 8-year old living at home. I'm 50. I've been married for 27 years. I got into group exercise after I qualified as a gym instructor in 2016.

My fitness journey started after the birth of my youngest child in 2013. I'd gained weight and just felt awful. I rekindled a love for exercise, health and fitness after joining a bootcamp. It was kind of a big deal for me, not just because I was in my 40s and had had my 4th child, but because in 2010 I had to have an operation to remove my thyroid, which left me with chronic health conditions called hypothyroidism and hypoPARAthyroidism. HypoPARA means that the body no longer has normal calcium homeostasis. Calcium of course, is really important for muscle contraction, bone health, brain function, nerve function and so much more. My body was no longer able to increase and decrease my calcium in the normal ways it should. The only way was with lifelong medication. This left me with physical and mental symptoms that really impacted my life. When I first started exercising, I wasn't even sure I would be able to. I wasn't sure how my body would react to it. However, I found that it actually made me feel better. I felt stronger, physically and mentally. I lost weight and started to feel so much more confident. I wanted to make others feel the same way, so I went out and got my gym instructor qualification. Then from there, I went to college for the first time in my life and got my HNC in Fitness, Health and Exercise. The following year, I got my Level 3 Personal Trainer award.

I have always taught HIIT classes. I started with Fatburn Extreme, then Metafit, then changed pace and got certified in PiYo, which I loved! Then, when Beachbody announced there would be no more Beachbody class releases and Sh1ft Fitness opened up their door to us Beachbody Instructors, I jumped at the chance to learn a new class format. I loved SH1FT from the first class and was so excited to bring it to my clients.

I have gone on to get certified in L1FT, M1ND, and R1ZE too. I love them all!

2. Where/how do you teach?

I teach via zoom from my small dining room, with screeching children and barking dogs in the background most of the time. I also teach outdoor classes when Scottish government COVID restrictions allow. When we were allowed to teach indoors, I used to teach in community centres and function rooms.

Presently, all my SH1FT Fitness classes are via zoom, but hopefully when gyms and halls re-open in Scotland, I will be able to do a mix of digital and live.

3. What’s your favourite SH1FT workout?

My Favourite SH1FT workout is Pyramid Scheme, although I'm also loving Ladder Racing! There are actually too many SH1FT classes that I really like! Loving R1ZE Power!

4. What's your favourite thing about SH1FT?

My favourite thing about SH1FT is that all the classes are really easy to modify, to make them suitable for anybody, and they can be mashed up with other classes to create totally unique experiences for the participants. No other class format (that I know of) does this!

5. What does 'fitness for life' mean to you?

It's fitness for living a better, stronger life. It's fitness for living a longer, happier life. It's fitness for living a busy life (especially running around after an 8-year old). It's 2 fingers up to my chronic health conditions! Fitness for life is what I truly believe in. It's what I teach in my classes. It's what I want to pass onto others. If I can get people to focus on living a healthier lifestyle and can encourage them to incorporate just 30 minutes of very effective exercise per day into their lives, they start to feel great, lose weight (if they want), and focus on their health rather than a number on a scale or their age. It's a win, win for physical health and mental health. SH1FT Fitness put everything I felt into words and great classes and I've loved them from the moment I discovered them.

6. How has SH1FT improved your life and teaching?

It has made me far more comfortable recording myself in videos and not being as critical. I've never had to send a video of myself teaching before, as previous class formats that I was certified in were only face to face teaching. (I'm still working on loving my voice...but i'll get there). It's made me far more confident in my teaching ability and I've learned to relax a little (typical type A personality here).

I love the Facebook community SH1FT has created. It's amazingly supportive. It was absolutely fabulous to see just how many instructors were in their 50s and beyond! If that's not fitness for life then I don't know what is!!

7. What does diversity mean to you, and why is it important in fitness?

For me it's connecting with the over 40s, with people who are starting to find their bodies don't perform the way they used to. It's using my life experience with chronic illness to reach out to other people and help them discover what their bodies are really capable of. It's helping people regain confidence in their own body's abilities.

I think diversity in fitness should also be about making health and fitness affordable to all through a variety of different avenues. It should be gyms and fitness companies employing instructors from different age groups, different body types/sizes, different colours, and different backgrounds (variety is the spice of life, after all). It should be about striving to reach as many people as possible, to show them that exercise isn't just for the slim, for the strong, or for the young. It should be about helping to change society's obsession that the number on the scale = "good health". Exercise and fitness is for physical health, mental health, happiness, and longevity — not just for weight loss and aesthetics.

That fitness truly is for life.