So if you’ve never trained with me then you’re probably wondering who I am and what qualifies me to make suggestions on how to improve your health and fitness. To answer, I’m James Onn. I’m a personal trainer in Nottingham and I’ve been working in the fitness industry since the age of 16. I’m 30 at the time of posting this.
So how did I get here? I started my career in the leisure industry as a lifeguard. I trained to be a fitness instructor because I thought the trainers had a cool job and I wanted to be in an air conditioned gym rather than a 32 degree pool hall all day. As I was completing GCSE’s and A-levels at this time, my employer funded me to complete my level 2 instructing award and level 3 personal trainer award.
I went on to study for a BSc (Hons) Sport science with performance coaching at Sheffield Hallam University. I took part in an internship programme which allowed me to work with Doncaster Belles FC, athletes on the Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme (TASS) and Jessica Ennis. I trained in the strength and conditioning performance suite and worked at the university gym for 2 of my three years. I left Sheffield with a 2:1 Honours degree. But more crucially, I left with a new outlook on health and fitness.
That sounds outrageously cheesy but it’s true. One of the first things I learnt at university was that the majority of what I had learned earlier in my career was completely useless. So many aspects of my early studies had been based on myths and generic advice that made no real sense. I’ll talk more about this at a later date.
I started to ask myself why qualifying to train the general public was so different to training to qualify athletes? I left Sheffield and headed back home where I got a job at Uppingham School Sports Centre where I first really noticed a difference in how I was training clients in comparison to my colleagues. I decided to roll with this difference though. I didn’t want to train people to a point where they’re shattered. I ignored things like rep ranges. This got me some funny looks and sometimes very negative comments from other trainers.
The results for my clients kept coming and my popularity grew. I moved to Nottingham and started working for a health club. After a couple of years I moved again and found that a large number of clients loyally followed me. I could really see that what I was teaching was having an impact and people valued it.
This new gym let me run nutrition courses and gave me their template for the course. It was bad. I’m not just saying that for effect. It was awful. So I took some of the stuff I’d been working on for the last few years and some of my old write ups from my university days and created an information booklet. I created a new course layout and used my own materials. I’m still running these courses now. They’ve grown and developed as I have and will soon be available on here so keep your eyes peeled! They’ve been a big hit. I’d spent years studying and months putting everything together into what I deemed as simple enough to follow but incorporating all the scientific principles I needed them to adhere to. The work paid off and there was incredible changes made by everyone. What hit me most however, was that the participants held on to the changes and told me even months later how what they had learned and experienced had impacted their lives.
That was it for me. That was the moment where I decided to keep learning and to try and broaden my knowledge and my outreach. My passion is not in training. It’s not in eating well. It’s not in a healthy lifestyle. My passion is in seeing people change their lives and find happiness and pride within themselves. Knowing that I’ve had even just a small influence in helping them get there is exactly why I get out of bed in the morning.
So why am I telling you what to do? Why should you listen to me? Well the answer is short and simple. It’s because I genuinely care. I do what I do in an attempt to help people. It’s a big help that I do have good qualifications and a strong amount of experience to go along side my passion. But the main reason is because I want you to improve probably even more than you want to! I hope that what I put on here is of benefit to anyone that takes the time to read it.
If you know me as a trainer then comment below and let me know what has changed for you since we have worked together. If you don’t know me then let me know what you would like to change. Or even make suggestions for things I can write about on the site. I’ll do my best to respond to everything.