17th October 2011
In a quiet corner of a state-of-the-art gym facility in Finsbury Park, I found myself sat propped against a wall and panting. Ciaran, the personal training expert who had kindly offered to help my weedy frame through an hour-long taster session, hovered before me with apparently undimmed enthusiasm. I’d completed the mini circuits and learnt how to correct my crooked posture, but I still had my warm-down stretches to come. The easy bit…surely the easy bit?
Shuffling along the wall like a sweaty crab, I somehow managed to coax my reluctant limbs into a wide variety of lunges – all of which felt rather more strenuous than I expected. However, considering that my normal stretching ‘routine’ consists of wiggling my arms and legs around for ten seconds, the intensity of a proper warm down in the company of a qualified fitness professional shouldn’t have really surprised me. In a similar way, the strange feeling of health that I had in the immediate hours following suggested that this was not you average taster sesh in a gym.
In fact, this gym was part of the Premier Training International Academy, and the slightly surreal experience recounted above was a small slice of the two days that Amy and I spent learning the ways of a market-leading client.
But what do Premier do, I hear you cry? Well, put simply (probably too simply), it trains fitness professionals and those wanting to start a career in the health and fitness industry, offering a staggering breadth of courses ranging from the regular gym instruction, to specialised qualifications designed to support special populations and specific issues such as back pain and diabetes. Essentially, if you want to get into the health and fitness industry (and many do) Premier offer some of the most respected qualifications around.
On our first day in London – having arrived in somewhat inappropriate office attire – we met Academy Manager Simon Rhodes-Chamberlin, who handed us our jam-packed itinerary for the next few days. First up was a chance to shadow a qualified PT tutor as he observed the practical assessments in gym instruction; each student having to take a ‘client’ through a range of exercises and equipment.
Then it was time to wear shorts.
Limbering up in a way that I hoped looked vaguely like I knew what I was doing, I was introduced to Ciaran. Formally a community football coach in Tottenham, Ciaran was clearly a man with passion and patience. He talked me through every exercise, tailoring the session to fit my level of (un)fitness. Not only that, he managed to refrain from mentioning the fact that within 20 minutes I was wheezing like a 90 year-old asthmatic, which really must have been quite off-putting. For the record, I’m 24 and not an asthmatic.
Day two would see us step into the shoes of a student taking a Premier course. We were to be part of a Level 3 Advanced Personal Training class to be taught by experienced Lecturer Marlon Wasniewski. Not only is Marlon a council member for the Register of Exercise Professionals (REPs) with 18 years of industry experience, but he is also a member of the Professional Karate Association. In other words, he is the real deal!
Initially, it felt like going back to school: sitting in a classroom (albeit somewhat jazzier than those that I remember being taught in) while 20 or so lively students sauntered in with backpacks and work files. I quickly realised that the assessment was a mistake. For a start, everyone looked absurdly fit, toned and healthy, while the age range of the students varied from those straight from school to those in the midst of career change. When the lesson began there was to be no slumped shoulders and glazed eyes, but rather the rather fiery focus of a group fully engaged with the tutor, Marlon, and the subject matter. There was a palpable sense of new careers being forged, with each student aware that every scrap of knowledge could help them reach their goals. Not a peashooter in sight.
Marlon talked the class through a range of aspects of the course, from the biological science that is the basis of successful fitness training, to the importance of establishing an understanding and rapport with the client. Perhaps most surprisingly, and an indication of the subject depth of Premier’s courses, Marlon encouraged the class to consider the business requirements of the industry – particularly for those students who intend to become self-employed upon qualification.
Seriously impressed, and with my ripe gym kit safely quarantined in a plastic bag, Amy and I left the Finsbury Park Academy. The purpose of the two days was to get a genuine sense of how our client operates, and my aching muscled told me that we had managed precisely that!
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