Success Stories
Gary Beadle
Goal – To reduce bodyfat and overall body mass in preparation for a film role.
Gary came to me during the month of August while he was in Edinburgh performing daily during the festival in his critically acclaimed stage play ‘Banksy: The Room in the Elephant’. Gary is an actor and has featured in high profile roles such as Casualty, The Bill and, most famously, Eastenders (Paul Trueman.)
Gary had recently been cast in the movie ‘In the Heart of the Sea’, which is being directed by Ron Howard (Apollo 13, The Da Vinci Code, Rush). The pre-production began in September and the plot of the film involved a ship crew being marooned at sea for several weeks. Subsequently, the role required Gary to lose as much body-fat and overall weight as possible to fit in with his role in the movie.
Gary arrived in Edinburgh in good condition, thanks to his last PT, and it was time to up the intensity and build on his initial progress. Our focus was to keep the heart-rate elevated as much as possible during each one hour session and burn as many calories as possible. We used a mixture of interval training, high intensity circuits, super-sets, triple sets and abdominal tri-sets. Rest ratios were kept small and intensity was high. This, in conjunction with his low carbohydrate, protein rich diet (devised by the nutritionists on the movie) worked well.
I worked with Gary 3-4 times per week throughout the month of August and, after a month, we were able to reduce his body-fat significantly and increase his muscle tone whilst changing his body composition. Gary worked very hard and was game for anything.
It was a pleasure to work with Gary and I wish him all the best in his future roles and look forward to the film which is out this summer!
Pictured below is Gary in his final condition for the movie! Shredded! After he left Edinburgh he continued to work with personal trainers from Warner Brothers Studio, building on the progress we started. Great work!
Lee Fletcher, Financial Risk Manager, 39 years old
Lee started training with me in September 2012. Back then Lee was a plump 88kg and living a very sedentary lifestyle with a diet that revolved round processed foods and convenience.
Firstly we changed his diet, with a focus on reducing fat content and carbohydrates, whilst increasing protein intake.
Lee saw me 2-3 times a week. Our main focus in the early days were anaerobic interval work and circuit-based bodyweight exercises. Through commitment, hard work and re-education of diet Lee managed to reduce his bodyweight from 88kg to 72kg.
Now that Lee has reduced his fat mass, we have changed our training focus to weight training in which we hope to gain lean muscle, improve strength and further change Lee’s body composition.
Matt Davis, Financial Consultant, 28 years old
Matt started training with me in January 2014 and saw me consistently 3 times per week until April. Our entire focus was with muscle gain.
He had lifted and followed programmes previously but found it hard to stay consistent. His programmes in the past focused on bodyparts and high reps.
As a change, I incorporated a push/pull/mix with upper and lower a focus on hitting the big compound movements 2x a week. Given Matt’s time constraints this was the best option.
For the first 4 weeks, there was a big focus on volume, we stuck to 4-6 sets of 10-15 reps each, allowing him to build up some initial muscle.
After this we changed to a strength focus, still incorporating the basic structure of push/pull/mix but with a strength focus 5x5. The idea was to increase the weights that Matt was lifting so that when we returned to hi-rep it would spark the hypertrophy that he was after. We stuck to strength training for the next 6 weeks.
For the remaining weeks, we went back to hi-rep. The weights were considerably higher this time around as compared to the first cycle of hi-rep. Promoting greater muscle break-down = more growth.
Matt significantly increased his strength and fat-free mass.
Thomas Eden
Goal – Muscle gain & Definition
Thomas came to me a few months back looking for a new training programme. He had been following a traditional body-part split and was struggling to see any results. It was evident to see that Thomas was a hard gainer, standing at 6’2 with a traditional ectomorph body shape. The programme he had been doing was fine for a more advanced level bodybuilder but, for a hard gainer, I believe muscle groups need to be hit more than once a week for results.
I changed Thomas' training regime to ensure muscle groups were hit more than once per week. I used a push/pull/legs/mix split. Focus here was on frequency and volume. Sets were 4-6 and rep ranges 10-12. This, in turn, would create the hypertrophy response Thomas was looking for and spark that muscle growth.
Alongside the new programme, I helped Thomas with a diet template and recommended some supplements that would assist him with his training and physique development. Through education and consultation, Thomas now has his diet in check.
I change Thomas’ programme every 4 weeks and he continues to increase his strength. Thomas has gone from 178 pounds to 195 pounds, has significantly reduced his body fat and increased his lean muscle and definition. See photos below.
