From Credit Crunch to Abs Crunch: Interest rate rises in Chiswick Personal Trainer

When Chiswick resident and well known hotel and healthcare banker Martin Swan saw the effects of the credit crunch starting to bite and his job threatened he decided to turn a serious personal interest into a career by building on his existing skills and experience outside of work and qualifying as a personal trainer.

That turned out to be a wise decision. As he could no longer bank on his employer, he took voluntary redundancy.

Having subsequently gained the necessary further professional qualifications Martin – who has 25 years experience in corporate banking – now operates his personal training business: Banking On Fitness.

He says his aim is: “To provide fitness and lifestyle training which is focused, fun and varied to clients who may have busy lives, time constraints, special fitness needs or who wish to be trained by somebody who is not the archetypal fitness professional. I’m definitely not that!

“I am able to relate to the stresses and strains of professional life having gone through them myself and can help my clients work these off via their training regime. In a lot of cases I can probably chat knowledgably with them about their lives, although I won’t be lending them any money!”

Martin adds: “I want to make fitness fun for people for whom it may be new or intimidating. I’m not a 21 year old who has just come out of college full of jargon and lacks life skills. I’ve been round the block a bit and I hope that will prove attractive to people in Chiswick who are new to being trained or who are looking for a change in their training regime.”

Martin specialises in producing exercises which use several muscles at the same time, while training people so that they don’t necessarily realise they are working out. These also provide a quick work out to clients for whom time is critical.

He uses yoga and core stability techniques as well as more traditional CV and weights exercises. He enjoys working with challenging clients and those who have specific fitness goals, be it running a 10K, winning that tennis match, reducing high blood pressure, losing weight or muscle toning. He works form the beginner to the elite end of the fitness spectrum. He says: “I will help clients achieve ‘core’ fitness and get on track without needing to hit the weight rack and at the same time I promise I’ll make it fun.”

Martin is a tennis player and also Treasurer and former Men’s Captain of the Chiswick Poly Tennis Club. He is a keen runner and also a player sponsor at Richmond Rugby Club.

Martin holds the highly regarded modular YMCA Fit Personal Trainer qualification which covers Client Lifestyle and Fitness Assessment, Nutrition, Training in Different Environments, Client Retention, Business and Marketing for the Fitness Professional, Running, Core Stability, Advanced Exercise and Fitness Knowledge and Advanced Gym Instructor. He is a Level 3 member of the Register of Exercise Professionals (REPS) and a member of Fitpro.

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April 30, 2009