Joslyn Thompson Rule has been a personal trainer and sports therapist for over 14 years, and a Nike Global Master Trainer for the past six. She has travelled the world educating and recruiting trainers for Nike, as well as fronting several of its ad campaigns. Her smart, simple methodology, which teaches the fundamentals of exercise to both men and women, has made her the go-to coach for pro-athletes, international brands and fitness first-timers. Joslyn is also a proud Stylist Strong ambassador.    

So, Thompson rule is clearly the perfect person to take us back to basics on all things exercise at Stylist Live LUXE.

The fitness expert, who is also Stylist Strong’s creative director, first tells the audience how tech and apps have affected our relationship with fitness and wellbeing.

“It’s confusing because there are so many different messages,” she says. 

“So I think we’ve become really disassociated from what our own bodies are telling us about our health and our wellness. Because, we use apps to tell us how we’ve slept. We track other things, and we’ve got so much tech telling us about our own bodies – we just outsource everything.”

She continues: “Tech is amazing and it works really well. But if you wake up in the morning and you’ve had a great night’s sleep and you feel great, but then you look at an app that’s been sat under your head and the app tells you that you had a bad night’s sleep – you’re like, ‘Oh I’m going to have a shit da because I didn’t have a good night’s sleep.”

Thompson Rule then reminds us of the fundamentals of fitness, which social media, apps and technology can often make us forget: sleep, nutrition and keeping low stress levels. 

“If we’re working too hard, not getting enough sleep, not eating enough – exercising is probably going to be the thing that pushes us over the edge. So we’ve got to bring it back and focus on the fundmentals,” she explains.

Thompson Rule then shares the four questions she asks her clients after every workout session.

“I get [my clients] to do a four-question review. So, the first question is: what did I do well? And that might just be getting to the damn gym,” she says.

“The second question is: what can I do differently? And that, for me, is the goal because that’s the place where you’re forced to find something positive from a situation that can otherwise be ‘eugh’.

“Then, number three: how does that give me confidence? And [lastly] how does that make me feel better?

“And I use those questions after a training session, or even after work – even after doing this [talk].

“And after this four-question review you start to slowly hone all of that. What have you learned from this session that you can apply to the next session? Just trying to give yourself all of those tools that are going to bring you further towards success.”

So you might very well want to ask yourself the same four questions after your next workout.

Catch up with everything from Stylist Live LUXE here.

Images:Brona McNeill