‘When we got to Hyde Park we sat on the Serpentine, had coffee and croissants, she smoked 3 cigarettes and we walked home. I collected £80 and sauntered home not knowing what the fuck had just happened. Was I a PT? Felt like an escort for a second.’
THE PT CHRONICLES
PART 10
Dislocation, Dislocation, Dislocation
I started renting out of a small gym called Heart and Soul at the top of Ladbroke Grove in West London. I say small, it had three levels consisting of a weights room, cardio room and a 8very impressive functional/CrossFit room on the top level. The gym was run by two PTs Sarah and James who I’ll always be thankful to for letting me use their great space.
I’m now two years into my PT career, with a huge client base and still living in Kennington. I remember walking into Heart and Soul for the first time and thinking ERROR. James and Sarah were great but the lads upstairs, Lee, Greg and Shahin all cut me that look when the wrong guy walks into the wrong bar in the movies. It was going to be a struggle.
I got it, they were CrossFit boys and all with level 4 Strength and Conditioning Qualifications. In walks this skinny-legged TRX’r (whatever the fuck that was to them?), and hangs his strap over the chin-up bar and didn’t move from there for 8 hours of clients. They hated me immediately. I didn’t use their methods and I was hogging the pull-up bar and music all day. I’d have hated me.
This went for on for a few months and after a while, I got to know Lee quite well. He is this vastly knowledgeable, proud, moody Irishman who trains harder than most I’ve seen and rolls with best, I think he’s a Purple belt in BJJ. This essentially means that if Lee grabs hold of you, your life is over. We trained together a few times with him teaching me Olympic lifting and me showing him TRX upper body moves. Baby steps. In fact, after a while they all accepted me as the crazy TRX guy and allowed me not to die, which I’m sure they’d been planning all along.
One fine West London day I had a gap in the middle of my rather busy schedule so I decided to train. I was training a lot of TRX and weights at this point so I felt superhuman. I wasn’t.
If you’ve ever watched the array of different TRX movements I can do on my Instagram you’ll know that I’m a show-off. Handstand and jumping my way through a bevvy of moves isn't uncommon.
I was having a very strong day. Handstands felt like breathing, Single-leg box jumps felt like walking up steps so I made the extremely smart and well-informed decision to perform a certain move I’d had my eye on for a while.
A roll-out. Know what they are?
It’s something people do with next to zero functional basis behind it. Think full plank but moving your hands further away from you and bringing them back to towards your body. But I’m not regular. I decided to do a ONE-ARMED standing roll-out. MORON.
I set my feet back a little so I’m leaning one-handed into the TRX, I set a strong plank. I’m ready. I slide my hand, holding the TRX handle further away from me engaging a seriously intense single-arm plank. Wow, this is the move! I drag my left hand, barely I might add, back towards my body. Rep 1 down. I’m feeling great. Rep 2 down although that was a mighty struggle to get back in…
PAUSE. If you’ve done one physics lesson in your life you’d have looked at my body position, assessed the movement and known that it wasn’t going to work. I don’t why I THOUGHT it was going to either? Actually I do, EGO.
UNPAUSE. I begin rolling out into the third rep, all eyes in the gym are on me because this move looks cool despite being dangerous. As my arm moves further away I feel LIKE Mr. TRX , he’s doing it, I AM DOING IT, I am the man. I reach the maximum distance that my arm can move away and then, as if in slow motion but not, I’m stuck. In real-time, it was 0.5 seconds but for me, it was 10 seconds of "what’s that ripping/clicking sound coming from my left shoulder?
...and then BOOOOOOOM my left arm explodes, forwards, out of my shoulder socket and I plummet to floor onto my knees...
The pain is unreal. It feels like an elephant is standing on my arm and chest. I look at Lee’s face. It tells me whatever pain I’m feeling in my arm is matched by the visual. I look down to see what used to be my shoulder sitting on the left side of my chest. I nearly puke. The only thing keeping me from passing out is the actual pain.
Now, I can’t really describe it, but I knew/felt that it had to be put back in immediately. The pressure was immense and it needed releasing.
“Guys, anyone, can you help me?”
A sea of shaking, frightened heads. No one would help because who actually knows what to do in this situation? I thought I did so I stood up, sheepishly grabbed a staircase bar in my hand and took a deep breath in…on the breath out I dropped my hips back fast and PLOP, my arm dropped perfectly back into the socket. I AM A HERO. I stood up and moved my arm around testing my re-locating skillset. It felt fine and boomph I hit the floor passed out and start shaking with the shock. There IS video of evidence of all this but maybe when Netflix pick this up we can all have a watch.
Two hours later I’m sat in the emergency room in agony whilst Tallie, my next client waits with me in sympathy of my idiocy. The doc calls me in and lays one of my favourite quotes in my life so far;
“You should not have put your own shoulder back in BUT you put back in perfectly.”
HERO.
Roll Credits
THE PT CHRONICLES
PART 9
BELIEF, ACUMEN AND THE STORM
Thirteen months after joining Bootcamp Pilates my client base had grown and the demand had surpassed my need to teach classes. A lot of trainers stagnate and stick with what they know but, the same as knowing that I had to move away for a small town in Wales, I knew I had bigger and better things to do with my career. With Bootcamp Pilates taking 15 hours a week of my time it was time to up and leave to maximise my earnings, business-like huh?
Think about it new PT’s. I was, at that point, on £30 an hour per class or, if I had any sense, I could fill those hours with PT instead and make £60-80 an hour. No brainer. I gave them a few months notice to cover such a heart-breaking loss for all the clients…I’m joking…no I’m not.
The point of the above is that I believed in myself. Walking the floor of the Pilates studio, commanding a room, creating new movements, changing the way classes were taught and teaching new trainers new tricks within a year of qualifying. It all came naturally. There’s a very small jump from confidence to arrogance and belief is part of that. I come from a family of fitness trainers and professionals and when you know when you’re good at what you do it screams at you. When you love it, it becomes a passion and mine was pouring over the side.
I wanted to make more money and start my own reformer Pilates studio. I had ideas to create a synergy between TRX and the Reformer as they can complement each other beautifully.
Thing is, I think I’ve improved over the years but I’m still, in my opinion, not in possession of the greatest business acumen. I was about to prove myself correct.
Remember that I had met Sophie in the Pilates class? She had finished with her boyfriend and we were fully together a year and loving life. Sophie knew of my motivation to create my own studio and being from a wealthy family and into fitness herself, she offered to partner up and invest in me. A lovely gesture but I can feel you already saying Niko don’t. I accepted. Business acumen level zero.
So whilst I started serving my notice at the Pilates studio and still hanging my TRX off a tree in the park, Sophie and I set about making a business plan and looking for properties to create my studio. I was pumped.
We found a property almost immediately in a perfect location in Notting Hill, next to Cowshed, a high-end body, face and hair beauty brand. We were going to kill it there. For any of you that have looked for properties in fitness, you know full well my enthusiasm was about to get tested. Two words…planning permission.
This is boring but essential. Properties have a certain classification. You can’t just make a successful offer on any property and turn it into anything you like. You have to apply to the local planning authority for permission. A planner costs money. Money causes stress. Sophie and I were already feeling it. Successful or failed bids take 6 weeks to return so there was time to wait, get more stressed and ignore the divide the business was causing in our relationship.
The storm had arrived. We lost planning permission because 12 local residents objected to the fact that more people meant less parking available for them. I heard later that one resident, in particular, was the rabble-rouser otherwise we’d have been accepted. Knobhead. Anyway since this was more my party than Sophies, selfishly it made me resent the relationship as it was now linked to my first failure as the hotshot PT I thought I was. Looking back now, that was disrespectful of the amazing woman she was and still is actually,
The starlight of Bootcamp Pilates was no longer shining on me, Sophie and I were on the rocks and that had coincided perfectly with winter arriving.
Clients were not enjoying the cold in the park and to be honest neither was I. The reality of the situation was this. I had to do what I said I’d never do as a PT and rent space from a gym owner. Fuck sake.
It’s ok though because I was about to do something even more stupid…Well, two things.
THE PT CHRONICLES
PART 8
SKIS, BLOOD AND SHOCK
I’m still the Official PT for Cosmo magazine at this point and low and behold it pays off immediately. Within three months I get contacted by Becca who is taking a group of 20 Journalists to Banff, Canada to review the resort and they need a PT on the trip to train them throughout. TRX is PERFECT for Skiers. So, fee agreed, I go.
Back then, I wasn’t a hugely travelled individual. It ALWAYS used to show in my prep, my packing. I was useless. I’m going to ski. I’d never been before so I packed a few different pairs of bottoms, tops, jumpers and jackets. Not too bad but I felt lacklustre on the old kit side of things throughout that trip. It was fine and I nestled in nicely with the group of journos on the plane and things started great. Boring boring.
The structure of the trip was that each Journo would come and have their one TRX session with me to show how it synced beautifully with Skiing. All was good, I was impressing the whole bunch. Now being a stereotypical Welshman, to me, Skiing was clearly a posh knobheads holiday. I still lean to that prejudice because it’s expensive BUT bloody hell it’s fun when you get the hang of it. I was on the green run in Banff within 2 hours of learning. I wasn’t good but I was competent.
On the fourth day, I was to head up to the top of one of the mountains and film some skiing strengthening movements like squats, lunges, core stuff etc. On the third day, however, a spanner was thrown in the works.
On this third day, we were scheduled to take part in a fitness session run by the local PTs. JESUS. We turn up to a snow-covered American Football pitch and as we’re walking towards the pitch I see the trainers have set up cones and sled pulls. Original. I walk up to one of the sleds and my eyes widen with fear. The edges of this ankle-high sled we’re sharp enough to cut cheese.
“These are touch sharp no?” I enquire.
“No, they’ll never get near you because of the way the course is structured.” The trainer answered. I could honestly hear fate giggling a bit.
Anyway, we to split into teams and one at a time strap the harness onto our shoulders, we were to sprint with the sled behind us and once we reach the bottom cone let it arc around us and then run backwards. Genius stuff.
At this point, I’m still 26 and eager as hell to show off (yes, more than now). As they say GO, super Niko sets off at Bolt pace. I am crushing the desk-bound journalist I’m racing against. What a loser. I arc around the bottom cone and the sled is now in front of me as I sprint like a gazelle backwards. My ego,as per, already has the better of me. I’ve gone off too fast backwards and start to fall because the sled isn’t heavy enough. No way I’m going to look stupid so I engage in a Simone Biles-Esque backward roll. As I do, the sled catches me up and WHACK, the sharp edge hits me at speed right on the crown of my skull.
I hear the crowd of journos compose a collective “oooooooooooooofffff!” It must have looked painful. It fucking was!
I sat up touched my head and said;
“I’m ok!”
They all ran over to me and their faces said it all. I checked my head again and before my hand made contact with my head I could feel a warm liquid squirting up to meet my hand. Interesting. Blood was coming out like a geyser...
I was rushed to the hospital in the rented car. The Doc came in and said;
“Right, do you want to wait 45mins for the Anaesthesiologist or shall we get on with it?”
I elected to get on with it and he stapled my head closed. FUCK ME. Painful. I still have the scar. If you see me around, have a feel. Lumpy.
The fourth day arrived and I’m expected up on the mountain filming. Instead, I’m in bed shaking with a cold fever, puking, and feeling dizzy. I’m basically concussed and in shock. My Mum calls 8 times to check on me, Sophie is worried sick and I’m embarrassed as hell. Problem is I’m contracted. It’s void unless I get my ass up that mountain. So…I do. It’s a shambles. Try squatting and lunging after I’ve hit YOU in the head with a jagged sled. It ain’t appening bruvva!
I return to the UK having learnt to ski, trained journalists on TRX, stitches in my head and a mild concussion. Not a bad trip. I haven’t skied since.
That storm was getting closer…
THE PT CHRONICLES
PART 7
WINGNUTS, WATERLOO, AND CLASS A TRAINERS
If you’re wondering what happened to the client that propositioned me in the park…I said NO. I was already seeing Sophie and if you become THAT trainer that sleeps with all of your clients (we all know a few of these), then you’re done. Doesn’t matter how good you’re, that’s what people remember for you for. I said no, and Maggie the client flew away for forever to Dubai.
At this point I’m still in Kennington, working at Bootcamp Pilates, Training people off a tree in the park and doing home visits. Business was booming so I was able to work in at least a little time off now I’d calmed down from working every hour and sleeping in my car.
Then I found the TV series The West Wing. This series, along with the original hits like The Wire and The Sopranos, is still to this day the best piece of series writing I’ve encountered. Once you watch and GET The West Wing you become an addict, worldwide we are called Wingnuts. We, probably sadly in your eyes, watch the entire 7 seasons annually. This first time of watching severely impeded on my work and my social life. I would cancel social engagements and sometimes move clients just to get two episodes in. It was bad.
One of these such clients was Neena. She lived in a beautiful apartment in Waterloo and became a good friend after leaving the UK. Whilst she was here though, she made me homicidal. She’s the type of client to count the missed minutes for me travelling up 11 floors in an elevator and walking to her door, and then try and add it on. It’s a service industry yes, but there’s an understanding between PTs and clients that sometimes one of you will be late. Not Neena, no no no. Every second accounted for. This wears thin. I’m actually glad we became friends and trained less because besides wanting to throw her out of the window, she also had the most powerful right hook I’ve experienced on the pads from a female client. My joints were suffering.
I’d hang my TRX off her apartment door to train her. In fact, the weird places I was now squeezing myself into were multiplying rapidly. Doorways, corridors, lampposts, trees, cages. That’s the one thing with TRX. If you’re a mobile PT you’re unstoppable. Gym based PTs are limited to the gym. They need that bevvy of equipment to be able to fill their sessions. Even now as they’re reading this their back will be up saying yeah weights are better mate. Only for some people guys. Open your mind and your skill levels.
One such location was the little bandstand/pagoda thing in Hyde Park. I would take my two lovely clients, Anya and Helen there each Saturday. I’d whip up two TRX off the same water pipe and we’d fill the hour with inane chat and total body workouts. Lovely stuff. One Saturday we were setting up all I can hear over my shoulder is;
“I got out a prison…fucking blitzed it mate….fuck it”
I turn to see this huge brute of a man. three times my size, shaven-headed and unable to speak in complete sentences without linking the words with the word FUCK. This guy is a PT!
He and his client and set up in the bandstand opposite us. This thing is about 8 metres wide. He may as well have stood on us.
Anyway, I crack on with my session and this moron and his client start setting up with head guards and boxing gloves. What the hell!? They start sparring. I say sparring, what I mean trying to annihilate each other in the shortest time possible. My poor clients, and to be honest me too, are slightly unnerved and scared by this. It’s violent as hell. Next thing, WHACK. The client catches the PT right in the ribcage, winding him. Everyone in that bandstand knew instantly that a mistake had been made.
The PT flew into a rage and fired a barrage of very accurate punches at the client’s body and head leaving him with a broken nose and surely a broken rib. The client was bleeding from his nose and spitting blood from his lips. They packed up patting each other on the back whilst my clients basically stood there freeze-framed for 5mins in disbelief…
Fast forward 2 weeks and I’m in the Electric bar and diner, Notting Hill queuing for a drink at the bar. The guy next to me turns and looks at me at the same time as I do him.
“The boxing client!” I say.
“The TRX guy” he acknowledges.
“Mate, your PT is mental, he kicked your ass!”
“Let me tell you, something mate. I absolutely fucking love it. I work in car sales. I’m stressed as fuck and I ask him to kick the shit of out of me. I love it and I love him.” He was nuts.
I told him he looked hungover before his session. How does he do it?
“It’s ok he gives me a line every time we train.” I’ll let that hang in the air whilst you absorb that.
A line. Cocaine. Coke. Snow. Naughty Salt. Nose Candy. Before a session. Some of my clients to this day turn up knackered sometimes because that’s life. I don’t give then bloody stimulants and then try and explode their heart in the session. The lunacy of this is staggering. A good story. But good lord.
There was a photoshoot coming and I had to start prepping…
THE PT CHRONICLES
PART 6
SURVIVAL, PERCY PIGS AND AN INDECENT PROPOSAL
Everything was going swimmingly. I was rocking it at Bootcamp Pilates. My PT client base was starting to increase, word had got out about this guy and his TRX. Sophie and I were constantly trying to find new and improved ways of removing each other’s clothing (Also, you won’t believe this but I’m actually typing this in White City House, London and she’s just walked past.)
Career tick, money tick, sex TICK. Only one negative. Trying to fit sleep on either side of all this. I would wake up at 5 am to enable me to arrive at Bootcamp Pilates (BP) at 6 am to open the studio ready for the 630am class. I’d teach 3 classes back to back then I’d have a 2-hour break which I booked a PT client into. I’d then head back to BP to teach the afternoon block and then finish with 3 PT clients in the evening. I’d then head to Sophies, tear off her clothes, lift her against the wall, ravage her before her boyfriend returned home, then head home and watch a movie. Then repeat. I was young and full of it but my sleep and nutrition did not meet the physical demands. I was starting to crack.
I would find sleep ANYWHERE I could. Survival was paramount. We’ve all crept under a desk at work, leant against a wall, a quick couch nap. Well, my desk became the world. I was sleeping in my car. If a traffic warden bothered me I would let the back seats down and climb into the boot just to get 20 minutes power nap. No, I’m not kidding. I’d sleep on the tube, on the benches at the station. Once, I fell asleep standing up whilst a client was boring the eyebrows off my face in a plank. I have a friend, Matthew, who has a saying ‘She could put a glass eye to sleep’. That was her chat level.
I was barely surviving physically with zero intention of slowing up. I took on evening slots at BP on Thursdays because I was utterly obsessed with packing out their classes and being the best. Obsession in your profession is amazing, it’s what makes you become the best. Anyway, each time this evening class was rolling around I was already fucked from a day of training. Enter Percy Pig and friends.
There was a Waitrose under BP that’ I’d use for food and drink throughout the day. Low energy brings the sugar cravings. I bought two packs of Reversy Percy’s and on this his particular Thursday evening I was dying after teaching one of four classes in a row. I had 5mins break in between each. In that first break, I launched both packs into my face, honestly, I may as well have put them in a blender and drank them. The sugar hit the system about 3mins in as I cued the class into a dumbbell lateral lift with lunge…the black tunnel descended, next thing I’m passed out on the floor highly embarrassed but still shouting out instructions from a prone position. Soldier (eye-roll).
Some context. I had super-fans at Bootcamp Pilates. Die-hard female Pilates ninjas who never missed a day of my classes and looked at me the way a groupie would. This isn’t bragging, it’s just the way it was. Now, there was one woman in particular who, if I was a wrong-un, would have stripped naked in class if I’d instructed. She asked me for PT.
PT with Maggie was great for a few weeks. We were TRX’ing off my tree in Hyde Park and she was getting stronger, leaner and more confident. Pfffffffff, almost too confident. We finished a session and as I’m packing up;
“So this is going to be my last session.” She announced.
“Really? Why?” I was disappointed. She was a good client at three a week.
“My husband has just got a new job in Dubai so we’re leaving next week.”
Then her face changed to an almost Jessica Rabbit formation.
“So I was wondering…did you want to sleep with me before I leave?” as calmly as that.
I nearly spat an imaginary drink out. Flattering as that is, to be put in that position face to face with a client who you then have to walk across the park with is a touch awkward. Also, the power shift was immense. I was the PT, I was the one with the confidence and the control. She took it from me in the blink an eye.
My reply was simple…
TBC
THE PT CHRONICLES
PART 5
Excalibur, Cosmopolitan, And 2 Quid
As long as Excalibur sat in the stone waiting for Arthur to place his hand on it there was a distinct risk, with my ego, that the TRX would be sitting in the back of my car for eternity. I don’t know why but it could have been boredom, fate, the force, destiny, whatever. For some reason, I googled TRX. What I saw lit a fire inside me.
Two guys, who I later found out called Randy Hetrick and Fraser Quelch had hung their TRX strap from a lamppost in San Francisco. They were performing movements and unleashing training cues that struck such a chord with me. I just knew in that second, I’d found my passion in fitness, my path. If the Men’s Health competition was the catalyst, TRX was the lightning bolt.
I remember the very first time I hung my TRX around a tree in Hyde Park. I can take you to the exact tree. I used my reformer knowledge, my bodybuilding experience, to create my own way of using the TRX right from the very start. I’d found my paintbrush.
My client base exploded. The TRX combined with the Bootcamp Pilates mini-fame word of mouth. I was flying. I was unique. I stood out from the crowd. I was training 8 people back to back connected to one tree in the park and the next day was teaching 9 hours Reformer Pilates and absolutely loving it. I was knackered but it was worth it.
By now I’d moved from Brixton Hill to Kennington because let’s be honest, I’d made it. New build flat with a lift and concierge? Come on mate I was rolling in it…
Ok, so I wasn’t but it felt like it. Back to Sophie and I. Did I mention she had a boyfriend who she lived with? Oops. Bad by both of us but that’s life sometimes. Any road. We were getting on famously. At her lunchtime, I would swoop into central London braving the congestion charge, drive her back to luxury Kennington, have a powerful amount of sex and then whisk her back to work. Ahhh those were the days. Anyway, she worked for a magazine and knew someone high up in Cosmopolitan magazine. She connected me to the features editor and a week after meeting her I was the official PT for Cosmo! CRAZY!!
The photoshoot, coincidentally, took me back to Men’s Health photoshoot studio in Parsons Green. Although this time, I got to be the star…well-ish. It was more the model, Emily who I have remained friends with until this day. I featured every month for 12 months with my own workouts in a national magazine only 6 months after starting a career. The trajectory was looking perfect.
With my newfound popularity, immense wealth and magazine fame, I decided that I needed to be rewarded by Bootcamp Pilates. I deserved a fucking pay rise and I was going to say so. Bearing in mind I’d ended my Mediacom career on 22k a year, Jesus. I could barely take a date to Maccy Ds. When you make 22k in London, you don’t really live in London. You live in a flat, the tube and work and maybe Tiger Tiger on the weekends. That’s it.
I emailed the manager of Bootcamp, Ally, ready to unleash my business acumen and prowess…
I came away with a £2 increase on my original £19. BIG BUCKS.
My delusions of grandeur were about to get worse…
THE PT CHRONICLES
Everything you are about to read HAPPENED, all true. I’ve changed some of the names of people and locations for my own protection.
PART 4
Snot, Purple Ears and Destiny
Gina has sent me another client in Kew Gardens, Richmond. Eliza Lived right on the edge of Kew Gardens on the surrounding main road. Again, this was a one session gig. Eliza was a runner so wanted to someone to run with her and keep her pace. Shit, I’m a good runner but I hate it. I love sprinting and jumping. Please note, on this day I had a cold but I persevered. Anyway, we set off on the run at a conversational pace, chatting and getting to know each other. She’s a nice enough lady but a touch reserved. We’re not kindred spirits so to speak.
Towards the end of our 45-minute canter around Richmond my cold had decided to create very blocked left nostril which was changing the sound of my voice, affecting my breathing and nearly blowing bubbles out of it. I had to sort it or I’d have a snotty t-shirt. I did not have a tissue…
I was going to do that sportsmen thing of ejecting this blockage from my nose in a quick, powerful blast but I needed to pull off this snot heist without my new client seeing because, let’s be honest here, it’s disgusting.
I drop off her pace using the narrow main road pavement as an excuse. My plan, total genius, was to wait until one of the very noisy cars drove passed creating a sound cover for me blow it out quickly. Faultless plan.
The car sped past, my timing ninja-like, I ejected what felt like 2kg of snot from my nose without my client noticing seeing or hearing a thing. What I hadn’t planned for was the pedestrian walking 20 yards away walking towards us. As she got near to us she said;
“That was absolutely disgusting”
My client, Eliza turned around and cut me an evil stare and shook her head. Mega fuck up.
It turned out that this was a week of classic Niko errors. I had transported myself to Clapham on a Tuesday morning to train super powerful Barrister, Saskia. We also had undertaken a run around Clapham but finished the session at her place with some resistance bands.
A good PT will always test his methods before applying them to their client. Back then, I wasn’t good. So I made a move up on the fly. I’m smart and capable so nothing could have possibly gone awry.
I wanted to create a chest press so I rolled a Swiss ball over the top of a resistance band. MY PT brethren out there are already shaking their heads. I then rested my back on the ball in a shoulder bridge reaching down and bring the resistance band handles to a chest press position. Any guesses?
I lowered my elbows to for the first rep with precision. As I drove the handles to the ceiling showing my strength and prowess, the bloody resistance band whipped from underneath the swiss ball and whipped across the back of my ears. You know when you get hit and the pain makes your hands shake and gives you goosebumps. My ears went instantly purple. The pain was blinding. My client laughed her ass off. The embarrassment stark.
So after a week of total idiocy, I was due a break. I didn’t realise that someone was about to place Excalibur into my hands.
Remember that my father was a bodybuilder. He also sold supplements for a protein company. He’d come up from Wales having visited a client in Bristol to deliver supplements. They gave him a little bag containing a piece of equipment. He asked me;
“Do you want this T-REX or TRAX I don’t know what it is?”
Back then, Mr Know-it-all Niko dismissed it. I threw it in my car boot knowing full well I’d never use it. But what was now sitting in my boot was to become my destiny. What I’d thrown in my boot was a TRX. A suspension trainer. A Khaki green piece of webbing that would change the course of my fitness career forever.
PART 3
Flashback, Vodka Martinis and Surgical Gloves
This is a flashback within a flashback so turn your imagination to greyscale until we resume usual service…
Before I met Sophie, before I started to become a successful in personal training, just as I’d qualified, there was a very drunken night out with my mates. It’s poignant for a reason.
To celebrate my mate Tom and I passing our PT exams my best mates, there’s six of us (Jay doesn’t enter the story for another 6 years) all head out to Soho to get suitably drunk and dance. We meet up in Vodka Revolution just off Dean St, because we’re just plain classy.
When I first moved to London fifteen years ago I had no contacts and no clue so when it came to going out in the big city, I had no idea where the cool places were and how to get into them. I once got my name onto a guest-list for Movida where I was guaranteed entry. I was asked to leave the queue by the hostess and the bouncer once they’d looked me up and down. Jesus, the anguish. Now, after downing an unreal amount of purple, blue, red and brown vodka shots, me and the lads ventured out into Soho without a destination in mind;
“Looking for a club lads?” asked the dodgy looking club promoter. He promised a top nightclub for free. We were in. Not a big sell.
We stumbled towards the unobtainable entry club, I cannot for the life of me remember the name. The promoter wasn’t bullshitting! We got partially inside for free. The bouncer, realising how drunk and desperate we were decided to exploit £20 in cash each from all 6 of us and pocketed it himself. Skulduggery.
We enter the club all grumbling that we got ripped off which the assistant manager notices. Without realising she’d taken a shine to me she ushers us into the VIP area to make up for the robbery. She offers to make us Vodka Martinis and being a small-town Welsh boy I ask;
“What’s in those?”
Don’t worry, I’m still rolling my eyes even now. WE. GET. HAMMERED.
We’re dancing on tables, drinking more martinis, dancing with scantily clad young ladies, drinking more, until the room starts spinning and I can no longer identify my friends with my eyeballs. I think ‘Fuck it’ I’m starting to fade. I leave almost incoherent.
Stumbling…taxi…collapsed in the back…I’m dying…a text…”Shall I come over?”…”Why not?”…
OH DEAR. Somehow the assistant manager has my number…
It ended with me being asleep on my couch in Brixton, the doorbell ringing incessantly. I basically fall down the stairs to open the door to a rampant and extremely horny assistant club manager who springs on me like one of those little things from Aliens, but in a good way, obviously.
This is 3.30 am, I’m teaching a class at Bootcamp Pilates at 6.30 am. Teaching Reformer drunk is not a good idea, it’s mildly unprofessional and I regretted it for at least 3 days.
END FLASHBACK…return you imagination to colour, please.
Remember I started taking some clients from Gina? Well, she sent me another…
I turn up at Louise’s humongous house in Belgravia. I’m warned beforehand not to touch, look at her too much, or make her train hard in the slightest. When she opens the door, the brief becomes obvious. She’s dangerously thin and in her 60s, wearing surgical gloves and slippers. She hands ME a pair of surgical gloves and slippers and we crawl at snails speed to her top floor where we undertake the lightest and slowest PT session I’ve ever produced.
This was a massive lesson for a gung-ho 26-year-old Welsh PT eager to impress. I had to learn that not all clients will be fit and fabulous like the West London elite I was used to. I adapted, I learned, I got the HELL out of there! I half expected Penny-wise to jump out of a fucking cupboard at any point. I almost ran home to Brixton.
On the love life side of things I was totally smitten with Sophie from the Pilates class and began to chase her uncontrollably every day, seeing for just 5mins if I could! She felt the same way. She was beautiful, smart, successful, kind, like no one I’d met before and she’d diluted through brain, like squash (Welsh boy innit) in water. Consumed. That’s always a danger with me. I’m impulsive and instantly passionate.
As I told you before. A storm was coming…
THE PT CHRONICLES
PART 2
Cowboys, Croissants, and Romance
I start my career as a personal trainer and a Reformer Pilates Cowboy. Why Cowboy you ask?
Proper, authentic Pilates trainers take about a year or more to qualify. They put the bloody hours in, over a 100 to be exact, and they study the method from its origin right up until modern methods. No stone unturned. I learned in 6 weeks. I’m good but that’s cowboy behaviour. Don’t get me wrong. The Bootcamp Pilates trainers from 12 years ago were fucking brilliant. Dmitri the best Pilates instructor in London, Niko (oh, me), Jordi, Vikki, Ashton. They were amazing. They cared about technique and delivering varied classes.
Anyway enough smoke blowing. If you’ve ever done a Pilates class, whether it be reformer or mat, you know that they are slow, controlled, technical. It’s brilliant. But that slow bit bothered a 26-year-old Niko. I wasn’t having that. I’d spent 4 years in Cardiff drinking and dancing to RnB and Hip Hop, that was my character, and I wasn’t going to leave that behind. So that’s what I did…I made the place BOUNCE.
Barely wet behind the years, I cranked the volume up, played Flo Rida (cool to me), Taio Cruz, Usher, Ludacris, 50 Cent and the clients fucking loved it! I moved them faster, not fast but fast-er. It suddenly became a training session merely USING the Reformer. By the end of month one the word was out, some loudmouth cocky Welshman was packing the classes out with mega waitlists. It was electric. I’d found my skill. Entertainment and training.
In the meantime, because of the Pilates popularity my PT was growing but not as fast as I’d have liked. Remember I’m only about 2 months into a 12-year career. I needed to pay rent so I approached a successful PT who couldn’t fulfil all the enquiries that she was getting. Her name was Gina, she helped me and I’ll always be grateful.
The first client she gave me, P, can simply be described as a force of nature. When you first start as PT and you’re entering a very wealthy Lebanese woman’s house in Belgravia for the first time, you crap your pants (no, not literally). As you grow in your career, you develop conversational skills, confidence and the ability to chameleon your character for any given situation. At this point, I had none of these skills.
I sit down in her kitchen keen to show my ethos and skill level. She ran over me like a freight train;
“OK Niko, let’s walk to Hyde Park” P Ordered!
I obeyed. It’s weird if she did that now I’d have a hundred comebacks and I’d overpower here with confidence and ultimatums. But again, back then, I didn’t have the armoury. Off to the park, we strolled. Jesus…
When we got to Hyde Park we sat on the Serpentine, had coffee and croissants, she smoked 3 cigarettes and we walked home. I collected £80 and sauntered home not knowing what the fuck had just happened. Was I a PT? Felt like an escort for a second.
Weeks went by like this, smashing it a Bootcamp Pilates and failing as a PT. One day, I’m teaching in Bootcamp Pilates as this perfectly postured, beautiful, strong blonde woman walked in, Sophie. My GOD. I’d only ever had girlfriends who were just girls but this was a WOMAN. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I loved my job at Bootcamp and as much as Sophie captivated me, I wasn’t risking it…
…SHE EMAILED ME
Woooooooohooooo! I’m young remember, riding high on the dopamine in my brain from early Rockstar status at a top London studio. Did I deserve Sophie? I was working every hour I could and meeting someone was impossible. I replied.
We went for drinks and a very powerful romance started but a storm was coming…
THE PT CHRONICLES
Everything you are about to read is all true, however I’ve changed some of the names of people and locations for my own protection.
Episode 1
The Beginning
13 years ago I was in my third year as a media planner for Mediacom, one of the biggest agencies in the world, and bored out of my mind with producing presentation after spreadsheet after presentation after spreadsheet. One day, my desk phone rings and it’s my friend Chris from Men’s Health magazine sales;
“Niko mate, cover model comp is coming up in 2 weeks, get involved pal”
“Jesu s Chris, 2 weeks! I’ll get destroyed.” I wussed out immediately.
After some back and forth Chris convinced me to enter. I jumped straight onto a call with my Father, 2 time Mr Wales and 2nd in the World for Bodybuilding. Dad is an expert with nutrition and supplements so i asked him to create me a program to get ripped quick. I envisaged a regime of oxygen and protein drinks. I wasn’t far off. Chicken n rice, chicken and salad, turkey n vegetables, water, water, water, and protein drinks at 3am!
I GOT RIPPED.
I was also miserable. Back then I was as sociable as possible , trying to find my way in the big city and find my tribe. If you’ve worked in the centre of London in media or marketing you know that Thursday and Friday evenings are for getting pissed trying to forget the week of kissing clients asses, mind-numbing attention to detail and too much caffeine. So now, because I wasn’t drinking and partying with my peers I became the most boring person in the office. I was also training twice a day and sleeping early.
What this experience did give me was focus and passion. However starving, miserable, and knackered that I was, I was also completely focused on a goal, a target. To become a Men’s Health Cover Model.
The competition was weird. Hundreds of guys all sat in a room being individually called into the “X-Factor” room where we had to stand on the X in front of a panel of 4 people from Men’s Health and GB swimmer Mark Foster. We had to remove our t-shirts and talk about how balanced our training regimes were with our social and home life. Thinking back now, it’s bollocks. I love Men’s Health but to think that your life is balanced to get on the cover is naïve. You have to live, breath, sleep fitness and nutrition. The cover of MH is the pinnacle of male fitness.
Anyway, I got into the top into the top 12 but eventually soundly beaten by a deserved David. The focus though never left me. I was hooked. It seemed I hadn’t chosen fitness. Fitness had chosen me. It had breathed a new vigour and motivation into my life. Media and I were done. I resigned immediately without a thought to the future. I just knew that becoming a trainer was my goal.
I asked my mother to help me pay for a 6 week 9-5pm fast track Personal Training course with The Training Room. The syllabus was useless as most PT courses are but I was lucky enough to have a teacher who would veer off course and add his own experience and knowledge, Brian Walpole. Hugely knowledgeable, but most of all passionate. Passion is vital in anything you do. Without it, you’re just a sheep in the herd.
I lived on Brixton Hill back then. It was winter and snowed basically for the whole 6 weeks of my course in Croydon. Some days the buses were cancelled so walking through snow became my morning routine. Now, throughout the course, I knew that after 6 weeks I’d have zero clients and zero money. I got myself onto Gumtree (yes, Gumtree!) and l searched “personal trainer wanted”. I came across a job post to PTs to become a Reformer Pilates Instructor.
I turn up to Bootcamp Pilates and interview with owner Dee. I fly through it unscathed and watch the last ten minutes of a class. To me, it looked like a breeze. Something wealthy ladies went to pretending they work out. This closed-minded approach would hinder me for the first year of my fitness career and how wrong I was. I joined the next class and nearly died. The reformer is a phenomenal workout. My legs went to jelly, my core walked out the door and left me to fend for myself. I ejected sweat from my body across the room and breathing was an issue. I was hooked.
I accepted the job and as soon as I passed my PT course I became an instructor for Bootcamp Pilates…
To be continued…