As A Kid

John was an independent active child, who enjoyed outdoors, climbing trees and generally mucking about outside. He attended a sports orientated school and enjoyed to throw the javelin and won the School County Championship in 1975. It was whilst he was at school that he started cycling, which became a lifelong passion. At 15, John and a friend cycled 1,345 miles in 9 days, travelling from Land´s End to John O Groats. He repeated the challenge again when he was 17 and 18. By this time, John was cycling about 12,000 miles a year.

Changed His Own Body

John changed his training regime following advice from his doctor who said he was “skinny” and underweight (9st). The doctor recommended that John drank milk and went to the gym – which is precisely what he did. He trained four times a week at his local leisure centre but found progress slow so he studied and read books in a bid to understand the science behind training and drastically cut back on his cycling. He immediately saw better results, and went back to his doctor a lot fitter but 4 stone heavier . This was the beginning of John´s journey to become the busiest personal trainer in the world.

1984 John’s Gym Opened Its Doors

John dreamed of having his own gym. People were always asking him questions about training. In 1981 John attended a seminar in London run by Mike Menzer, Body Builder and Exercise Science Guru. John found his work inspirational so decided to go for it and in 1984 he opened his fitness centre – New Physique Fitness – Ilford, Essex. Today the gym is one of the most popular independent gyms in the country.

Obesity Became A Concern

John’s reputation grew on the back of training body builders. He himself entered and won his first body building contest. However, times started to change, as did the needs of his clients. Obesity started to become the major concern, so John created a simplified version for the “Body Builders Diet” and launched his “Diet Club”. The results were great, and it was thanks to one of his clients that John then entered the world of Personal Training. Before he knew it, he was averaging 90 workouts with clients every week. His methods were changing peoples lives.

Teaching The Industry

John was encouraged to become a consultant within the fitness industry, travelling to independent gyms and fitness facilities to introduce the principle of the Thompson Diet and Personal Training tips to their trainers. Many of the trainers he met had been misinformed during their own training so were not as effective with clients as they could be. His work started to change the way in which clubs worked with their clients, and the first club he worked with sold over 400 Diet Club memberships in the first year.

Dreaming Of A Fitter Britain

John is passionate about the health and wellbeing of the country and is excited about the prospect of the UK being a model of health and an icon of fitness. With the Olympic Games in London next year it is the perfect time to help inspire the country to live healthier. John is keen to help the people of the UK understand what they can be doing to prevent themselves becoming obese, also to help those who are already overweight to gain control and start fighting back for a fitter, slimmer, healthier body. The forecasted statistics for obesity are frightening and unless we do something about the issue now we risk extraordinary very serious consequences later and the pressures on the NHS will be severe.

We could go on about John´s credentials – the clubs he has worked for, the clients he has trained – but we will let his future contributions to the FamouslyFit team and our readers speak for themselves. Welcome aboard, John.