MY PT Story Part 1 -The reality check

Back in 2009, I took a hard left turn. I’d spent years trapped in the corporate world—suited, booted, miserable, and tipping the scales north of 130 kilos. I was a corporate statistic, they had bought my life, and I knew I had to get out.

After working my way back down the corporate ladder and upsetting everyone along the way, I had the choice – find a new career or end up forever unhappy in this one. Sport was always my thing and after recently getting down to just over 100kg, I felt I could just about justify becoming a Personal Trainer… tbh it was that or a Driving Instructor!

Fortunately my last employer had to pay to get rid of me, so I dropped three and a half grand on a full-time, Monday-to-Friday, 9-to-5 personal training course with Premier Training in Dartford.

It was a proper setup—a sports centre in a Dartford park with tennis courts, squash courts, a gym, and big sports halls. Back then, Premier was the market leader and that’s why I paid far more than I needed to, so I learnt from the best. Compared to today where you can knock out an online qualification for twenty-five quid over a weekend, this was a massive, ten-week immersion.

There were only about 12 or 13 us on the entire course. And out of that whole bunch, apart from one other guy, I was by far the oldest. Everyone else was in their 20s and I was a miserable 38-year-old, carrying a heavy corporate hangover and trying to shed the weight.

First off, part of the pre-course required us to build marketing posters to attract PT clients. Because my brain was still stuck in the corporate world, I came up with an absolute shocker! Trying to be clever with words, to such an extent that no one understood it and I just got sympathetic looks from friends. It was a brutal wake-up call, which did nothing for my confidence and showed just how disconnected corporate advertising is from the world I was hoping to go into.

Then came the wardrobe dilemma. In corporate life, it’s all about making an impression and I certainly did that! What do you wear? Everyone at the kickboxing gym I went to wore simple hoodies—instructors, parents, parents' friends, etc. But for some reason, my corporate conditioned brain decided I needed to be more neutral, I didn’t want to be seen as a kickboxing PT, final decision… a new ice-white Roger Federer Nike tracksuit.

Standing in front of the mirror, accepting that I was going to look different going to work from now on, I was thinking… very neutral, ambassador material, everyone will know I mean business when I walk through the door. In reality? I looked like a fat Elvis Presley. Everyone else unsurprisingly wore hoodies and I stood out like a sore thumb. I wore the jacket with black shorts once to save some dignity and buy some time...that white pair of trousers never saw daylight again.

Comedy outfits aside, the course itself did not mess around. The first couple of weeks felt like a medical degree wrapped in sweat, as we started to learn everything about the body. We were advised that it was going to be a tough couple of weeks to start and they weren't lying. We were going deep into the weeds of anatomy and physiology:

• The Skeletal System: Mastering joint types (fibrous, cartilaginous, and synovial).

• Biomechanics: Planes of the body, skeletal muscle structure, and muscle fibre types.

• Energy & Cardio: Cardiorespiratory mechanics, heart valves, capillary and venous return, ATP, and the lactate system.

  
  

We had to know how every bone, muscle and tissue in the body worked under load. Unlike school where I had no interest, I found this fascinating. Who doesn’t want to know about how our body works? If you understand how they work, it’s a lot easier looking after them.

We even watched videos of actual hip and knee replacement surgeries—which permanently cured me of ever wanting to wreck my joints—and took a field trip to the Body Worlds exhibition to see real preserved human bodies.

I passed my Level 2 Fitness Instructor after 4 weeks of studying. I could now work in a gym, take classes but not as yet offer Personal Training. As this was part of the whole 10 week PT course, it didn’t seem like such a big thing, even if it was my first official fitness qualification.

The next six weeks were the important ones, as I needed the Level 3 to become a PT. In truth, the studying became much easier to manage after the Level 2. As we had already learnt how the body works, a lot more time was spent on the practical side, which meant more time in the gym.

Towards the end of the course and after spending two full weeks studying nutrition, which at the time gave us a stand alone qualification, we hit the business modules.

To be blunt? The business training back then felt heavily Americanized and corporate. I remember two recruitment reps came in to run a comedy-routine-style sales pitch, trying to get us laughing so they could sign us up. Standing there watching these guys do a song-and-dance routine, I for the first time thought… If this is the standard of business acumen in the fitness industry, then I’m absolutely laughing.

Saying that, I did get my Apprentice moment. It always baffles me how people can get to the end of the Apprentice process and not have a business name. Yet here I was, a week away from hopefully becoming a qualified Personal Trainer and I was in the same position. My excuse, along with others, was that we didn’t want to plan for things we hadn’t qualified for yet. Premier may have been confident that we were all going to pass but individually until it's confirmed, there was doubt amongst some of us and we didn’t want to jinx it.

After 20 minutes of my finest corporate thinking and a bit of brainstorming with the guy next to me, I ended up with the very pragmatic and predictably corporate, Nick Aish Health & Fitness.

The final week of the course was mainly practical, going through all of the teaching points, PT etiquette, etc., that we would be assessed on. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned about the final exam because it was so important to me, but no one on the course seemed to be taking it for granted.

It was genuinely the first exam that I had ever revised for. Maybe if I had tried that approach before, I wouldn’t have had to sit this one? But luckily I didn't and with a pass mark around 88%, I steamed in with 92% (I think). Being honest, no one cared what % they got, the qualification was the important thing and everyone on the course had qualified.

So after arriving like I was all shook up, after ten intense but very enjoyable weeks of learning, on the 4th September 2009 I officially qualified as a Level 3 Personal Trainer.

One year after we had qualified, I think there were only 3 or 4 of us still in the industry. There were some very fit and capable people on that course and I certainly wasn’t in the top 3 or 4 fittest or most aesthetically pleasing on the eye.

Premier Training gave me the perfect technical foundation and they were/are top tier for a reason. But qualifications only get you through the door. It was my business skills and experience that got me through the first year… and into my seventeenth year now.