Athlete Factory Mini Mag

experts

us ess rio n Se t Fit ou ab

Written by Personal Trainers, for you! – new & Improved

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articles celebrity interview

with melanie sykes

4 page feature on

phil greening

Jan / Feb 2019

monthly mag ÂŁ3.99

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on the cover

we Interview Phil Greening on club rugby v country, training & his new open source style of PT training to share knowledge with the wider industry as a whole.

Hi Phil thanks for taking the time to talk to us today.

PT: So we wanted to just get a bit more of a background on yourself. I understand that you have your own company as well as working on training, based in Chester?

PG: We’ve got our own fitness sports performance company up and running now which is great and we have our main base up in Chester, a purpose build training facility.

PT: Sounds great, Phil. So what is in that facility?

PG: It has everything really. We built it on the back of our knowledge of elite sport and especially my work in the States.

We wanted to bring that expertise and knowledge to everyone. I wanted our gym to be the best in the country and I believe that it is the best in the country.

We wanted to design it in a way would mean that world class teams want to come to us, but the general public would also want to use it. Especially in the PT world the knowledge is often-not filtered down from elite sports. We can get clients faster and stronger more quickly than others can do. We wanted to change the knowledge being filtered down and change how and where people train. We have a training app too, with all our exercises on there and our clients own personal programmes which is basically exactly what we do with elite sports teams. Every member gets an individual program and an individual service, which has always been the way we wanted to do it. We wanted to help everyone who goes to the gym, week-onweek, but never get any fitter and never get any stronger, because they themselves don’t have the knowledge. We just

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wanted to share that philosophy and the methodology that we use elite players with the general public.

PT: So who are you aiming to target with that company? Do you have a specific target market?

As with equipment, we are always designing our very own bespoke equipment that I have taken inspiration for from teams in the NFL and to colleges in the States. We are very lucky to have a partner that supplies the rest of the world’s leading gyms like LA Fitness and Gold’s Gym. We’ve been very lucky. We have 13 racks, which are all interlinked with various different attachments, that make everything in the facility easier, better and more efficient. We’re supplying, for instance, England Rugby and have designed some attachments for them, which is really quite exciting. We are trying to share elite knowledge with everyone, because there is no magic way to do it its just about the knowledge, methodology and the equipment really.

PG: First and foremost we are a gym. So we have one client called Heather, who came to us having had no other gym that would take her on, as she had every illness under the sun. However, due to the fact that we are so hands on with everything and we give such a tailored and individual program she is now one of our best members. She has been through everything with us, from her nutrition, cryotherapy treatments and everything.

Whilst we have our members like Heather, we also have weightlifters such as Gareth Evans, who won gold for Wales in the commonwealth games and we’ve got England Rugby booked to come in. The All Blacks are also coming over to us when they are next in the UK. My links in rugby are also coming into play. We have Ireland, France, England and USA teams here. Then

we’ve got netball teams, cricket teams and an under 15’s rugby club down the road.

We are just trying to expose to the wider market a new way of training and our way of training.

The other thing we are massive on is education, we are using the site’s facilities to add on to the standard training courses.

For me, I’m blown away that people don’t seem to know what we know. The PT world needs to get better. I find it mind boggling.

I see some of the methods that people use to do stuff and can absolutely tell that they have got it straight from YouTube. We want to be able to share our knowledge, as such, the training and education for personal trainers is big for us. We work closely with Fit Asylum and Apec, who are both running their own courses with us and we then go in on the day to give our own extra curricular bits too. So we just bolt on a few more modules of our own training that we have learnt from elite sports. Eventually we would like our own qualifications and courses, which is something I am trying to currently get into.

PT: So how many PTs do you have working there, Phil?

PG: We have 10 PTs, all degree qualified or who have worked in professional teams, thats sort of level we want. If you have a world class facility, with an app, trackers and your own methods, you need personal trainers who can build on our programmes properly. If they don’t know about our methodology we would end up the same as any main stream gym, which is not what we want to do.

PT: We find that a lot of the time PTs get a lot more support in the US. Do you agree?

PG: Oh massively. There is a lot more out there, with a lot more sharing of knowledge, especially in regards to sport.

You get it in coaching as well across the world. If I go to New Zealand they open the doors and they are very open about showing me everything. However, if you go to a premiership club here they are far less open. In the UK we are very protective of our knowledge of elite sports. I tend to find that Americans are the same and

by the time you’ve managed to work that out, I’ve moved on and I’ve got something new instead. In the UK I do think that we are not so proactive and I think that is why we stay in the same rut that we are in. I’ve got a feeling that it is the same across all sports. From my experience going around the world, and looking at other sports, I think they are all far more open and pioneering in terms of what they want to do. Over here we are all just protecting our jobs instead of keeping the emphasis on growing our knowledge.

We want to share our knowledge. What we have learnt over 20 odd years of elite sport is the same thing we would apply to a new mum who is wanting to shed some post baby weight Why cant that knowledge be applied to a different situation? The human body is the human body and there is no magic pill that holds the key to fitness. No matter what people tell you. It is what it is. Whether you are an elite sportsman, or the general public who wants to play a bit of footy at the weekend. It’s the same human body. It’s just the knowledge of

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on the cover

we Interview Phil Greening

how you do it and the best methods to do it. That is what we are trying to change.

PT: So quickly to touch back on your career. Give us an idea of what its like to elevate yourself from club rugby to international.

PG: It’s the pace of everything which is the most obvious change. Club rugby is obviously tough, but going from that into professional rugby, the speed of how people think and move is just mind blowing. The pace of the game just goes through the roof. There is a massive margin between club and country and the main thing is the game is just so much quicker.

PT: So if you can look back to your England coaching unit, who would be the person that has driven you the most?

PG: In my career, John Mitchell to start was big and he still is now. We’ve worked

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together with America and he’s been a big influence for me. But for me, Warren Gatland massively drove me. We loved the way he coached us at Wasps, with his man management and his knowledge.

Thats why we won 4 premierships and Europeans cups. He has instilled a lot of that into my coaching philosophy. Just being a good man manager, was Gav, he was just very inspirational with. The other thing I have learnt, more while I have been away from him, is Clive Woodward’s attention to detail. I am very lucky to have been under his guidance. Also Graham Henry with the way he thought about the game. He is an amazing bloke. Even today he always has an open door for me and thats what makes him special.

PG: I am lucky enough to get to see something in most 6 Nations. I am excited to see what England can do. I think we are a blossoming side. I can’t see it going to anyone beyond England and Ireland. The big test will be if the Irish have peaked too soon. You know it’s a World Cup year, so you really don’t know what will happen.

I think that Eddy is trying to get as many players capped as possible because history has shown that everyone that has won a World Cup has had the most caps in their squad. So I think he is trying to do that. He may chop and change this World Cup as there is nothing in it. Wales will be tricky, Scotland will be tricky, but I can’t see beyond England and Ireland fighting it out really in the end.

PT Thanks for your time today Phil and answering all of our questions, so the last thing we have to ask is… What is your prediction for the 6 Nations?

PT: Well thats all the questions we want to ask, thanks for the time and have a great day. Thanks Phil.

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