My story

My name is Martin Kocken, I came into contact with Calisthenics around 2014. I found this so interesting that I started practicing it myself, in addition to traditional strength training. Training with your own body weight is super effective. It makes you very strong and if you have your nutrition in order, you can also get a toned and athletic body with it. I myself am the living example.

Calisthenics is not only effective to get a good looking body, but also with aging. As you get older, you will inevitably have to deal with wear and tear and muscle wasting.

In addition, all kinds of inconveniences can occur such as aches and (small) injuries.

You will suffer from your body.

With Calisthenics you can really effectively reduce these complaints or even make them disappear completely.

This is because your body “learns” (Mind-Muscle connection) to move properly and to use the right muscles / muscle groups together in different movements, such as bending and lifting, which we do very often in daily life.

Career

I started my professional sports career in 2010 at the Police Amsterdam Amstelland. There I was able to gain 3 years of experience as a sports teacher, giving individual training courses (Personal Training) and group training. In addition, I was also able to develop in classroom teaching there and I supported the IBT teachers with specific police training, such as the bike training and taking (physical) tests for colleagues on the street.

During my time with the police we got our son Renzo (our daughter Lindsay was 2 years old at the time). At that point I had little desire and energy to exercise fanatically. You have broken nights and do not get enough sleep and that certainly affects your motivation.

This was the result of 3 years of irregular sleep and little motivation to exercise (Photos: August 2011).

Unfortunately I had to leave the police after 3 years because of the introduction of the National Police.

Then you end up at home without work and I had decided to realize my long-cherished dream, namely starting as a Personal Trainer for myself. Before that, I never dared to take the step to an independent existence. You still have your family and your house with all the costs that go with it and a fixed monthly income and the "certainty" of that is very nice.

Fortunately, it all went well, because I saw a vacancy from a Personal Training company in Houten. This company was looking for a self-employed Personal Trainer, I immediately responded and I was soon able to get started.

I was lucky, but it was obviously not immediately successful. You don't just have a full portfolio and a year later the end of the savings account was pretty near with all the (stressful) consequences that entailed.

Still I persisted and as if it had to be, it suddenly became more successful and I could live off my Personal Training. What a relief! No more sleepless nights and I could be there mentally for my family again ...

At the beginning of 2018, after having worked at the Personal Training company for 5.5 years, it was time for the next step. After an inventory of the personal future of colleagues, I eventually made an attempt to take over the Personal Training company, together with my colleague Ron (now my business partner), this was in 2019. In October 2019 we heard that a building would become available, where we could possibly move into our own space. From then on it has gone very fast. The building was completely furnished in December and on January 1, 2020 we started in our own Personal Training Gym, called The Gym Houten. We had our official opening on Saturday 25 January.

My transformation over the years

You can see that I have changed a lot over the years.

I am now almost 10 years older, but physically maybe 20 years younger and fitter.

That is what I also want to achieve with my Personal Coaching and group lessons.

This change has to do with 3 elements and if you can implement them in your life then you are assured of success.

These elements are:

1. Food
2. Training
3. Consistency

1. Eating is important if you want to lose weight and / or gain muscle mass.
   
   
2. Exercise, especially strength training, is important for gaining or at least maintaining muscle mass. Certainly with aging you lose (a lot of) muscle mass, while that is just so important to stay fit and strong as you get older.
   
   
3. But the latter in particular is the most important, I have found out over the years. exercise whatever you want, but if you eat very little to lose weight at one time and start bunkering again after 3 or 4 weeks, then it is very difficult, especially for the long term, to lose weight. It is so important that you are healthy and fit for the long term ...