So after 21 years in the fitness industry, I’ve finally decided to listen to other people and move with the times. I’m going “online” just in time for my 40th birthday! I know you are probably thinking I’m too old to be getting into all this social media carry on. And your probably right! But I’m going to give it a go anyway…
In the beginning…
I’d moved down to London in 1998 to start a degree in Sport Science, which I thought would be a bit of fun – getting to play sport and have some of that student life. That was until I found myself sat in anatomy and physiology lectures with medical students, taking part in testing blood samples and having to come to terms with the study I now faced. Just after I started at the University of Greenwich, I decided to sign up to the Army Reserve and wound up in a recce unit in the London Regiment. Fitness in the army was slightly different to the comforts of student life. “SEE THAT TREE IN THE DISTANCE?! STANDBY…. GO!!!” The recce unit also had a saying: If it’s not raining, we’re not training. So you can imagine how much fun that was. One of my Corporals, Al Lane, asked me what I did as a civvy and when he found out what I was studying he offered me a part-time job at a gym he managed in the West End of London. This was the start…
Recruit Personal Trainer…
I turned up to the gym which was in a hotel called One Aldwych in Covent Garden. Being from Hereford (a small city next to the Welsh border) I was definitely not used to this kind of poshness. I mean, it had underwater music in the swimming pool! What’s that about!? The gym was franchised out to Matt Roberts who was a bit of a ‘celebrity trainer’ in London so it was a baptism of fire for me. Turned out I wasn’t technically qualified as I was still doing my degree, so I used my army bonus to do a 3 month training course to get me started. Then, that was me training the great and good of London. I loved it! I met a lot of interesting people, a few famous people and got featured in a few magazines. I had 3 years of balancing study, soldiering and PT and that was me hooked into the job.
Glasgow and Perfect Balance…
After graduating In 2001 I moved up to Scotland with an idea to start my own PT business called Perfect Balance. I also transferred to a slightly more physically intense Army Reserve unit which meant I got to see a lot of the incredible Scottish outdoors. That was if I could open my eyes against the sideways raining, snowing, sleeting, white outs etc. Again, if its not raining we’re not training. Personal training wasn’t that big a concept in Glasgow at the time and I managed to get a contract at a Greens gym, who were willing to let me try out my business idea. I gradually took on more trainers working for me, with more gym contracts around the city and I was under the illusion things were going great. I didn’t keep up with the steep business learning curve and eventually had to fold the company after 3 years. Probably one of the most important experiences of my life and my biggest teacher. What I learned about NOT to do in business could fill its own blog. But what did help me out was gaining a group of fantastic business mentors from the clients I had built up.
Levelling Up…
I was back working with my own client base and decided to do more with my sport science background. I enrolled on to a masters degree at the University of Glasgow and was back in study mode for a Masters of Research in Exercise Science. At this time I also became an Accredited Strength & Conditioning coach with UKSCA. Both of these opened the door for me to work within the high performance and professional sport environment. I landed a job with the Scottish Rugby Union working as a S&C coach in the academy set up and enjoyed working with these incredibly motivated young athletes. This combined with my studies lead to me landing a small strength and conditioning role with the Glasgow Warriors. After a couple of seasons with the rugby set up, I moved on to a part-time roll working within the Rangers FC academy where I had 6 seasons working with the squads. Working with professional athletes was invaluable and really pushed my skills and knowledge to the limits and as a result improved me as a trainer overall.
Time to go online…
A few people had recommended going online and for a while I had put it off, quite happy with concentrating on my face to face clients and some other business ventures. However, I think after the years of experience and successfully getting results with private clients and high performance athletes , I can bring my accumulation of knowledge to an online platform. With extensive knowledge of program design and delivering results across the private and sporting population, I know JONES THE TRAINER will deliver a quality training experience. If this has inspired you to see what I can offer please feel free to get in touch or sign up to the free trial. If you would like to start training with me please subscribe to the package that is most suitable for you here and we can get going today!
@jonesthetrainer
