Fitness starts with your mindset

Taking more time for yourself and your body is a very common New Year’s resolution. Your next holiday might be a powerful motivating force: For instance thanks to the “FitLife Week” offered by TUI Magic Life. Here, holidaymakers can work up a sweat, not just due to the bright sunshine but also due to activities to promote their well-being. The fitness training no longer focuses on physical training alone. Mental training is also playing an increasingly important role. Johanna Fellner, one of Germany’s leading fitness and health experts and “FitLife Week“ coach, comments on this trend:

The FitLife Week does not only include classes for TUI Magic Life guests, but also provides information on the relevant scientific background. What is the reason for this approach?

For each exercise and form of training, I explain what the effect will be. Interval training, for instance, is the most intensive way to burn calories. I explain in greater detail why that is the case. This increases people’s motivation to make an effort.

Apart from creating a better understanding, I aim to activate people’s individual, intrinsic motivation. I also consider it important to ensure that the participants will execute the exercises with correct posture and form, and I instruct and assist them accordingly. At the end of the week, their movements will have become automated. When the participants then continue their workout routine at home without me, they will know exactly how to do the exercises or will catch themselves slipping into old habits.

This will work both for physical but also mental exercises. Certain unfavourable behavioural patterns or conditions such as stress primarily take place unconsciously and are difficult to break on your own. The FitLife Week offers us time and space for mindfulness. Interested guests can take part in a momentum coaching session to be inspired, learn strategies and get motivated.

Are you observing an increase in demand for mindfulness training?

Yes, definitely. The guests appreciate the balance between stress and relaxation, calmer and more intense sessions. Feeling your body, being present in the moment, and deliberately relaxing. The focus is increasingly on taking time for yourself. Some 8 to 10 years ago, the focus was more on people’s body, weight loss, body defining… Today, the training focuses more on your own well-being.

Are meditation and noisy club holidays not a contradiction in terms?

On the contrary. That’s the beauty of the programme! We offer a combination of activity and rest, stress and relaxation, loud and quiet phases, just as in real life. This helps you to train these cycles and shifts for your everyday life. Some people would be overwhelmed with too much peace and quiet. I think it is a good idea to start your day with a sporty yoga lesson, then listen to the sound of the sea and my relaxation instructions, and spend your evening releasing adrenalin, enjoying the fantastic shows. Moreover, the resort is vast and offers sufficient quiet spots.

What are the benefits of taking mental training sessions during your holiday?

In your everyday life, you frequently lack the time but also the ability for introspection and self-reflection. Very often, you are stuck in patterns, in a hamster wheel. Even if you try, you will find it difficult to gain clarity and eliminate these patterns on your own. During your holiday, you get away from your everyday life. Your getaway will enable you to see things more clearly. Your thoughts are free. At home, you are always busy. Your next meeting, your environment, your to-do list, emotional stress… On your holiday, you have rest and time.

The mental training sessions enable us to deliberately face certain topics and facilitate a new approach, new strategies, new behaviours. Provided you are ready for it. Our coaching sessions are an opportunity for sticking plaster, which has proven to be very helpful time and again. I am particularly pleased if I continue to get e-mails from amazed, enthusiastic participants months after their holiday, telling me they have completely eliminated certain behaviour patterns. They are now able to relax in situations that used to upset them.

During the FitLife Week at TUI Magic Life Candia Maris in Crete, Johanna Fellner and other coaches offer courses including modern yoga, power courses and back fascia trainings. If you want to place a greater focus on mindfulness, you may choose to take part in the Buddha Nature Week offered at TUI Magic Life Kalawy in Egypt to find peace of mind, relaxation and introspection outside your familiar environment.

For further information on the event weeks at TUI Magic Life, please go to: https://www.magiclife.com/de/de/aktivitaeten/unsere-aktivitaeten/events