12 Questions With Personal Trainer Olly Foster

1) Who is Olly Foster? (where are you from, what do you do, a bit about yourself (hobbies, etc)

I’m a PT and have been for over 16 years now, born and bread in Carlisle who started out as an aspiring rugby league player. Blighted with injuries I studied Nutrition at Uni and then went on to win the Men’s Health front cover competition back in 2005. For 10 years after this I was fortunate enough to have several more covers worldwide but found this work unforfilling and was actually having a negative effect on who I was. It gave me a great platform though
for my PT business which it’s where my main work focus is now. Working with one to one clients twice a week and dealing with over 100 online clients the rest of the time who take part in my 12 Week Body Transformation Program.This flexibility and freedom lead to me to take up golf just over 2 years ago which is now where my passion lies as I focus on the hardest game and greatest challenge I’ve ever had. It’s my therapy!

2) How many years have you been training?

I started training at the age of 15 so that’s 24 years now. Wow where has the time gone!

3) Whats been the most challenging/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)

Ive had a few injuries in my time as mentioned above. Over 10 operations since the age of 19 and 6 of those before I was 24. The constant fight of trying to do what I wanted to do but my body not allowing it was a challenge alright. However on reflection I was ignorant and didn’t allow myself to recover or didn’t listen to what I was told to do. If only I knew now what I knew then. Due to these injuries I started fitness modelling. As glamorous as this may seem it actually nearly broke me mentally. The constant pressure I placed upon myself doing something which I didn’t actually enjoy, lead me to having therapy for several years to overcome a few issues I had severely developed.

4) What does your typical workout/diet routine look like?

My workouts are pretty simple. I don’t really structure them in terms of exercises I just know the areas of focus for the day in hand and once I’m at the gym I see what’s available, assess myself during my warm up and decide what to do from there. Generally my split is upper body / lower body / rotary, core & proprioception work / repeat this and rest on a Sunday. This can vary depending on days where I maybe playing golf. Diet wise at this moment in time I don’t have one. For years I lived out of tupperware, tracked everything religiously and became super obsessed over what I should and shouldn’t be eating. I had cheat days consuming over 15,000 a cal a day for over year which destroyed my healthy relationship with food. So now I generally eat healthy, stay within my boundaries through visual assessment only and enjoy life without control and restriction. I think I’ve earned that right :) 

5) What new knowledge have you learned over this past year regarding training, lifestyle and nutrition? 

Lately I’m becoming more concerned about food manufacturing and how that certain so called healthy foods are having a negative impact on us. I embrace flexibility and thus sustainability when it comes to nutrition for myself and my clients, but when certain elements arise I have to start questioning particular food choices and why they can cause such issues.

6) Whats your favourite cheat/Treat meal?

I don’t believe in this idea anymore. This was one of the reasons that lead to me to having huge food issues. These days if I want something I have it. I don’t starve myself or restrict myself to the point where my whole thought process is thinking about what I’m going to binge on.

7) one supplement that you could not live without? 

Food. Not the answer I know you were expecting but supplements are just that and if they were all removed from my life tomorrow I’m pretty sure I would survive.

8) If you had to start out from scratch with your physique what would you do differently and why?

I would have focused more on my bio mechanics working on my deficiencies from an earlier age and focusing solely on doing exercises to help these and avoiding so called must do exercises that actually made them worse.

9) Who do you look upto in the fitness industry and why?

One of my first role models since the age of 16 is a guy named Gregg Avedon. He’s the original Mr Men’s Health and is still gracing covers to this day at the age of 52. He’s maintained his look / physique but just seems to have his shit together without all the BS fakeness you see endlessly on social media.

10) If you had to give one bit of advice to people starting out what would that be?

For people trying to get in shape I would tell them to not over complicate shit and stop looking for that magic pill - the silver bullet that will get them there. There is no such thing! Clean up your diet, train hard in the gym and be consistent. Once you get these key fundamental basics right you will see that changing isn’t really that hard. Granted you will have to make a few sacrifices along the way but once you get that body you deserve it becomes so much easier to maintain.

11) What new goals are on the horizon?

Business wise, my focus right now is to keep growing the 12 Week Online program I run and soon I will be launching a Golf Fit 12 week online program which I’m super excited about. Personally my focus is all orientated around golf. Keeping my body healthy and mobile so I can continue to play and hopefully for-fill my original goal I set 2 years ago (when I started playing) which is to play on the PGA seniors tour. Ambitious I know but I wouldn’t bet against me ;)

12) Where can people find you? (website, social media accounts)

Olly Foster http://www.action-reaction-training.com

http://twitter.com/olly_foster

http://instagram.com/ollyfosterfitness/

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Olly-Foster.../138908152837432