Rob Beale

Occupation: Group Health and Fitness Manager

Goals: Learn to swim and complete first triathlon

Comments from Rob

So a bit of background about me and my training history…… I was a ‘3 x per week’ gym guy concentrating on lifting weights and nothing else. Weighing in at around 13 stone with a body fat of around 15%.

I decided I wanted to learn to swim at the start of 2009 and turned to John who I knew from friends was a great swimming coach.  He persuaded me to enter a triathlon to motivate me to train and keep me on track. I was dubious but his confidence in me gave me a lot of self belief too.  Six months later I completed my first triathlon in Bedford, weighed in at 11 stone 10 lbs and had a body fat of just 10%.  I couldn’t believe the transformation and John helped me through every step of the way, even driving with me on that early Sunday morning to Bedford to support me and help me set up for the race!

An expert swim and tri coach but also a great motivator, I would recommend John to anyone looking to improve how they feel or how they look.

Comments from Trainer

When I first consulted with Rob he expressed to me he wanted to learn to swim, I asked can you swim at all? Rob’s reply was “I think I could do 1 length if my life depended on it and the stroke would probably not be recognisable!” I knew we had a challenge on our hands as Rob was very muscular, making flotation more difficult and hence swimming more difficult. Rob and I first worked on water confidence and then progressed into developing his swimming technique by breaking the stroke down into parts. As each part developed we did more ‘full’ stroke swimming. Rob typically devoted 3 x 40mins per week to his swimming. I was impressed with his progress and his efforts at the triathlon, he over took 2 people in the 400m swim section which had a 20 second staggered start!