Jun 14, 20233 min read

Meet the Members: Simon

Updated: Apr 9

When I first came to JW Fitness I was a badly overweight man in my late forties. My wife had joined before me to help with her running. Given her success, I wanted to see if personal training could help me finally shift some fat and bring me improvements in my chosen sport of cycling. I ride my bike quite a bit, but I had dropped into a habit of being satisfied with whatever performance I could muster and that was slipping week by week. I was cruising, drifting even, and I wanted to turn things around.

I had been a member of larger gyms before and always felt nervous around the free-weight areas. My impression was that it was full of intimidating people who seemed to know what they were doing. I felt foolish picking up smaller weights and nervous of hurting myself if I tried anything significant. Knowing that at the core of JW Fitness is the use of free-weights, I was concerned that the atmosphere in the gym would be like the larger gyms that I had attended before. At the same time, I had a previous shoulder injury and a problematic hip which I had always struggled to work around.

The JW Fitness experience turned out to be the opposite of my previous gym encounters. My PT explained to me exactly why we were doing each exercise, and took me through each piece of equipment and the exercises in stages so that over the weeks I could build confidence and improve my performance in safety.

Not only were my injuries worked around with care, they became largely irrelevant as I started to learn that fear of related problems was a bigger barrier than the original injuries. Working with my PT I strengthened muscles around my shoulder and worked on my range of motion until it was like the original injury simply did not exist.

Ultimately, my hip turned out to require surgical intervention, but again, JW Fitness was central to preparing me for my hip surgery and leading my recovery after the operation. Not only did my PT get me into the best possible condition pre-op, with JW Fitness support, just three months after a total hip replacement, I was able to compete in a professional grade, five day mountain bike race in Croatia.

Being able to compete in that race and complete it within the time limits was the culmination of my experience with JW Fitness. I had lost weight, resolved old injuries and improved my strength such that after surgery I was fitter, stronger and faster than I had been five years before.

However, to me, that was just the start, a new start. Since then, I have been able to continue to train to build on a solid base and focus now on specific fitness areas. This has led to continuous improvement, bucking the trend of aging.

Working with JW Fitness has enabled me to have tailored fitness programmes so that as I set new goals, the programmes adapted around me. It has always been a dialogue with John and his team; always supportive, always interested in my needs and always able to bring expertise and knowledge in a challenging but enjoyable environment. I would not hesitate to recommend JW Fitness to others. In fact, I have and they are now members too! When I talk to other friends and family, no matter what their fitness goals, irrespective of whether they are already seasoned athletes or struggling to get off the couch, I am convinced that the team at JW Fitness can help them.