1) Who is Tom Kemp? (where are you from, what do you do, a bit about yourself (hobbies, etc)
I am from a small rural village located in the district of Essex. I have been privileged enough to grow up on my family’s arable farm which gave me a very active start to life, helping out from an early age. I was always encouraged to follow my own path, so it was natural that a passionate for sport and a love of the outdoors transpired into creating ‘Farm Fitness’.
2) How many years have you been training?
I have always been physically active on the farm and through playing a variety of sports throughout school life. Although becoming a personal trainer at 18 meant I shifted by focused on primarily building lean muscle and working towards a high-level of fitness.
3) What’s been the hardest part of your journey so far? and how have you overcome them (Set backs, rejections, injuries, basically anything difficult that you have had to overcome)
One of my major early setbacks was the fact I never took my sporting career to the top level, having hoovered around regional standards. Ironically, this gave me the discipline and mindset needed to continually stick to strict training regimes no matter how laborious it appeared at the time.
Having an idea is great, but actually applying it to reality was hard. I was personal training at two gyms, in a ‘comfortable’ cycle so to remove myself from it based on an ‘idea’ that I wasn’t sure would be a success took a lot of courage.
4) What does your typical workout/diet routine look like?
The basis of my training style originates from ‘Body-building’ style training, which I still do 4-5 days a week. I often perform a couple of metabolic finishers at the end of these sessions or ‘conditioning workouts’ on my rest days. I find the traditional cardio forms of training very monotonous so prefer to use equipment on the farm to create workouts.
5) What have you learned over the past year regarding training, lifestyle and nutrition?
In the past I have been so consumed with idealism and perfection not allowing myself miss meals, spending hours prepping them in advance, missing out on social events (& the drink it entails) in order to ensure total max-training performance. Whilst still abiding by regiments they have certainly loosened and I am now in the mindset that it doesn’t have to be 100% perfect to be affective – just go out and give it your best shot!
6) What’s your favorite cheat/Treat meal?
A cheat meal for me is one where I am not counting the calories although I am always making sure I get some protein from that meal. So for me nothing beats a massive burger and chips.
7) One supplement that you could not live without?
Whey-Protein (Obviously supplied by Neat Nutrition) is a go to supplement, not only does it increase the protein in my diet it is also great to cook with.
8) If you had to start out from scratch with your physique what would you do differently and why?
Having been so active from a young age I was burning endless calories but never realising that I wasn’t consuming enough calories in order to develop lean tissue – so tracking calorie intact and macro splits would be a big one for me. Not enough people realise the importance of mobility and movement patterns prior to training, so I would increase the time spent on flexibility improvement.
9) Who do you look up to in the fitness industry and why?
I have been really fortunate this year having met so many fitness inspirations of mine who have taken the time to come down to farm fitness and train with me. Rich Tidmarsh has always been a top-trainer in the industry for me, I like his originality and work-ethic developing a high-class training facility in London.
10) If you had to give one bit of advice to people starting out what would that be?
Try not to fixate on other people i.e. comparing yourself constantly to others on social media, always train for your own personal goals – as this is much more sustainable in the long-term. Consistency and hard work, without seeming clique, will always be the backbone to success so get your head down and train.
11) What new goals are on the horizon? (new goals, aims, etc)
I don’t want to give too much away just yet, but 2018 is certainly set to be a good one with some exciting appearances and collaborations for FarmFitness, as well as hosting some top-class events. For me personally, it will be another hard year of training to better myself!
12) Where can people find you? (website, social media accounts)
Get yourselves over to - @tomkempfitness and @farmfitness or even better come and train with us by booking yourself onto one of our signature classes at (www.farmfitness.co.uk).
