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.