Against All Odds: The Most Amazing True Life Story You'll Ever Read by Paul Connolly

Author:Paul Connolly [Connolly, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1844549054
Amazon: B00603Y6IS
Publisher: John Blake
Published: 2010-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

PERSONAL TRAINER TO THE STARS

I got lucky when I was offered a job in the Barbican in the City as a free-weights manager. I knew that, if I worked hard and gave the job all I had, this could be a seriously good break for me. The gym in the Barbican was one of the best in the business, and it deserved its stellar reputation because it provided a top service at one of the best locations in London.

Having successfully completed a series of professional courses, which I had funded in full on my own from the money I made providing security to brothels and working on the doors, I had started doing personal training seriously. Initially, I was still on security detail and doing a little mini-cab driving to pay the rent. The late 1980s was a time when personal trainers were almost unheard of and, in fact, I was one of the very first in the country and often had to sit down and explain exactly what I did to prospective clients who had never heard of the profession. Little by little, as a result of hard graft and being in the right place at the right time, the personal training became the most important element of my career. I got the Barbican gig out of sheer luck, and it certainly helped to launch my new venture. About thirty people had applied for the role, and I just happened to be the one to get the job. I don’t know why they liked me best, but I am certainly very glad that they did.

The Barbican was definitely the best place for me to be at this point in my life, and it opened a lot of doors for me, both professionally and socially. It also helped with my self-esteem; they would not have hired me if they had thought I was the sort of person Auntie Coral had insisted I would become, would they? Because the Barbican was a top-class gym, it had a lot of very wealthy members from the professional classes and the world of show business, and it was also the gym of choice for many of the world’s celebrities from stage and screen when they were in town for one reason or another. The employees of the gym had to know how to look casual when the likes of Christopher Reeve (Superman!), Jodie Foster, our own Charles Dance, Janet Street-Porter and other celebrities, foreign and home-grown, came in. The regular customers, most of whom were company directors, wealthy lawyers and the like, also tried to look unimpressed as they nonchalantly got on with their own fitness regimes. Of course, they usually failed.

It would be nice to be able to tell you that I became close personal friends with a lot of my celebrity clients but, while most of them were perfectly cordial and polite whenever I interacted with them, I was one of the help and a personal relationship of any sort wasn’t really on the cards.

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