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This is the story of Stijn – The Movement Athlete
Stijn is a 54-year old artist, writer, and nature-lover who never backed down from any challenge and let any adverse conditions pull him down. 💪
Even in the most adverse situations, he managed to look at the silver lining and continue to push through for the better.
At a time, he was only sleeping three to four hours max every night. This leaves him exhausted every single day. Upon checking with a specialist, they found out that he has a unique condition where his body reacts significantly to the lack of light, so his quality and sleep duration are inferior.
✨ When he was younger, he always wanted to move. His body is designed for movement, and he brought that characteristic up to this point in time. However, due to his horrendous sleeping pattern, he was unable to train properly.
Luckily, we stumbled on The Movement Athlete, and he got addicted to movement even with his energy levels.⚡️
He was determined to take care of his body even with his condition.
Here is Stijn’s inspiring story.
“When I had some energy, I did some yoga, some
exercises, some running, but nothing consistent,
because I was too exhausted. But, I wanted to, so bad!
My body is designed to move.”
Stijn had a lot of challenges in his life. But one recurring pattern throughout was that he was unable to get a good night’s sleep for most of his recent years.
Upon checking with a sleep center, they discovered🔎 that he had a condition where his body reacts extremely to light, or better, lack of light. Sleep specialists tried their best to help him but to no avail. He still slept poorly, leaving him tired the next day.
But his situation didn’t deter him from moving and finding a way to improve his body’s capabilities.
🧐 He searched on what can help him improve his body and movement and got immediately drawn by a particular website that sets goals aligned to his. He got into The Movement Athlete.
Shared experiences
“The stories were inspiring: people who had bad injuries, struggles
in life, disappointments, and pain and were sometimes also a bit
older, like me. 😊”
👊 Stijn found the Movement athlete’s stories very relatable, which motivated him to pursue the app. Like other individuals, he fought against hardships and continued to strive for a better life. One step in improving overall lifestyle is improving movement through The Movement Athlete app.
Even with his condition, even if he was tired, he was determined, and working out never became a difficult decision for him. He could either be stagnant and be exhausted or move with a different energizing feeling.
📌 Many people who are in their late 50’s are overwhelmed with working out because of time’s effects on their bodies. But Movement athletes, including Stijn, know that it is part of the challenge. In fitness, movement becomes more important to achieve and maintain a healthy body.
Because of these shared experiences with movement athletes, Stijn took the plunge and went for The Movement Athlete.
Holistic training approach
“I love that the focus of the training is on flexibility,
strength, and endurance and not just on building
muscles or looking good at the beach.”
Stijn fell in love❣️ with the app because of its holistic approach. Unlike other apps that only focus on “building muscle 🏋️♂️ and aesthetics,” The Movement Athlete focuses primarily on improving your movement through increasing your strength, flexibility, mobility, and endurance.🤸♀️
Having a muscular physique is not bad. It could be the epitome of a healthy body, but in actuality, that is not always the case.
You can determine a healthy body, not through the looks but through the quality of movement it can produce. This is the focus of The Movement Athlete, which happens to be Stijn’s goals as well.🏆
Progressive, Adaptive, and Personalised training
“My biggest fear before getting the app is that I
couldn’t keep up.”
Stijn didn’t push through at an instant. He was first apprehensive about the difficulty of the exercises in the app.
But when he tried the app, he immediately got hooked by the app’s training. The program is progressive, adaptive, and personalised.🥇
Progressive 🎯
The Movement Athlete designed the programs through progressions. These are sets of exercises with arranged difficulty to bridge the intensity. This means that if Stijn’s having a difficult time with pull-ups, for example, the app will provide easier pull-up variations for him.
From his particular starting point, there will be a set of exercises that will build his capability to meet the requirements for him to reach his goals. Think of progressions as a step-by-step guide towards a specific exercise —no sudden jumps of difficulty.
It sounds redundant, but progressions build effective, efficient progress safely. There is always an exercise to suit any skill level.
“I love the exercises I didn’t know yet. And I knew a lot.”
In addition, there are tons of exercises and variations that will keep him occupied in his training journey. These exercises will also guide him to his goals and not just provide him random results.
Adaptive ✅
With Stijn’s condition, he couldn’t always give his 100% being tired most of the time. But he doesn’t need to over exhaust his body since the app can adapt to his energy levels every training session.
The Movement Athlete’s powerful algorithm allows adaptation in each workout, each exercise, so he can always challenge himself without the risk of overfatigue or even injuries.
Personalised
✨Each person is different and starts at different skill levels, so in The Movement Athlete, we highly value program personalisation.
In Stijn’s case, he is sure that the program will suit his skill level, and he isn’t pressured to meet a certain degree of intensity that he cannot do.
All of these attributes, personalised, adaptive, and progressive, contributes to Stijn’s growth. He isn’t afraid of needing to keep up anymore. He can now truly progress safely on his own.
Here are the fantastic benefits Stijn is now enjoying through the app.
Benefits Stijn gained from joining
The Movement Athlete
Convenient workout
“An app is handy! I can work out when I want, and I can do it all by myself. I love that!”
As a calisthenics app, one obvious advantage is convenient workout anywhere, any time. The Movement Athlete app covers everything Stijn needs: from the program, to the equipment (if even required), to the schedules. Stijn just needs to move with the app.
Training freedom
“I love choosing my own workout.”
Strict programs often lead to overfatigue and put tons of pressure on an athlete. While consistency is essential for growth, the The Movement Athlete app can allow Stijn to choose his own workout goals.
He just needs to choose what he wants to do then the app creates a structured program designed to help him towards his current workout goals.
The app gives the freedom for enjoyment while maintaining the overall structure for Stijin to make progress throughout his training.
Consistent training
“I was looking forward to it every day. I had to restrain myself sometimes.”
And to maintain progress, consistency is the key. That’s why Stijn is making improvements. He’s consistently training through the app.
For most people, it’s challenging to move and get going. Consistent movement becomes another enormous challenge. But thanks to the app, Stijn was able to stick to exercise even against his challenging condition.
Amazing results
“Amazing! More flexible, stronger, leaner, better movement!”
And as a result of his consistent workout, Stijn’s body adapted accordingly. Not only he became stronger and leaner, his flexibility and mobility improved, which transferred to better everyday movement. The higher movement quality is a testament to better health conditions.
🏆 Stijn enjoyed training with The Movement Athlete app. 🌟He has conquered a barrier with his sleeping condition that keeps his stability and health intact. Now he is enjoying these benefits of training with the app:
- ✅ Convenient Workout anywhere, anytime, even with no equipment.
- ✅ Training freedom of changing goals and plans.
- ✅ Massive health boosts: Gaining strength, mobility, flexibility, and a better physique.
Stijn made tons of progress in a short amount of time while enjoying the journey. Unfortunately, life rechallenged him when symptoms of a rare neurological condition (Parsonage-Turner Syndrome) started showing.🔥
His muscles instantly became sore and weak due to the new condition, and he had to stop with his regular workout. But Stijn is unfazed and ready to face this new test life has brought upon him. He is excited to move with The Movement Athlete once again.
“If fate has its eyes on me and wants to test me one
more time, all I wanna say is: BRING IT ON!!”💪
Final Advice
We asked Stijn what training advice can he give after all he has been through. Here’s what he has to say:
“There’s always time. Don’t rush. You just have to make time.”👊
Stijin knows that fitness is a life-long journey. It is not just an 8-week plan that you just have to finish. The changes don’t happen overnight, nor in weeks or months. It takes time, and you need to make time to achieve your fitness goals. It’s not a race. It’s better to move at your own pace.
🤜 With The Movement Athlete, Stijn got to train to prepare him for the long-run without any pressure. But due to his unfortunate situation, he has to postpone it for now.
Despite this, he’s ready to carry on and not let anything stop him from living his life to the fullest. He wants to move with the Movement Athlete.
Let’s finish up with Stijn’s favorite quote of all time:
“It’s Dutch: Liever staande sterven dan levend kruipen
(Better die standing than crawl alive).”
Like Stijn, are you ready to take a stand against the challenges you face? 💪
Let us help you get stronger mentally and physically by training with The Movement Athlete.
Become a Movement Athlete now.
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