About Me

Chris competed in a wide variety of sports until the age of 14. He then focused his energy into the individual sport of swimming and adopted the "you get out what you put in attitude" probably from the doctrine of his boarding school. He adopted the ritual of early morning and evening training sessions, carrying on his 20 hours a week training throughout all exams at school.

With Chris's success in the pool and his ever improving fitness, he outgrew the school swim team at 16, and moved to the successful swim club in the nearby town. Chris under the guidance of head coach Alan Thompson had four very successful years where he dominated north of Scotland competitions and medalled in national champions in his final year at school competing in 100m butterfly. At school he broke all swimming records in freestyle and butterfly and was awarded his boarding school house tie, the youngest to ever achieve this feat, He was also presented with three outstanding achievement awards as a national representative and ambassador to the school in swimming and triathlon.

Throughout school life Chris had travelled widely in Europe and Australasia. He found his niche in Perth, Western Australia, where the climate, culture, superior coaching and sport science background helped him develop into a mature athlete. This only happened with the help of Suzette Felton swim coach at the University of Western Australia, who has become a mentor for Chris since this time.

In 2004 after Chris completed his A-levels he embarked on a years training in Sydney with a club closely affiliated to the New South Wales Institute of Sport. Their attitude to winning was perceived as being due to hard work and modern training methods. Humour was never lacking however and carried one through the difficult times.

This was where he took up triathlon training. His cycle and run components took precedence when Chris partially paralysed both long heads of his triceps when overtraining. Surgical treatment and many hours of rehabilitation was required to gain total function in his arms again To maintain his fitness through this time cycling and running became paramount.

Leaving Australia he decided to focus on triathlon training, but maintain his swim training and increase his hours cycling and running. Chris's continuation of swimming at a high level has baffled his surgeons to this day, as they predicted he would never swim again due to the internal damage caused to his nerves. His persistence and determination has carried him through this injury and others. In doing so he has come across many other elite athletes in similar situations and has helped them overcome their injuries. He feels he is well placed with his experience to help those in need of rehabilitation.

In Australia to fill his lunch hours he helped younger athletes with their training. Chris found their weaknesses and advised them on exercises and techniques to improve. With this Chris became aware he had a talent for personal training and felt people responded to his enthusiasm for health and exercise.

Chris commenced his BSc (Hons) in sport and exercise one month after touching down in Scotland. Aberdeen was his chosen university with a world renowned physiologist involved in his teaching. At University he learnt the basic building blocks of exercise physiology, sports psychology and biochemistry through to the cutting edge research of sports and exercise, for the general population and the elite athletes. Chris discovered he was an able speaker, his presentations being marked with an average of 90% Chris commented that "when one is faced with an audience of professors and doctors, It feels someone daunting". He understood this but none the less focused and adapted his presentations to suit the audience, trying to ensure that he got the main points of his presentations across.

In his final year for his thesis, Chris adapted evidence based medicine techniques from medical research sources and adopted them for sports training programmes, especially triathlon training. He created criteria to analyse and categorise research data to help build the best training models for athletes to date. This idea and eventual competition in June 2009 was well received by his professors who were sure it was unique to the sporting world.

Having achieved a 2:1 Hons in Sports and Exercise while still triathlon training 32 hours per week, he under took a very strenuous 6 months, where he would take the theoretical principals learnt at university and match it to the practical elements taught through personal training with Premier Training International. Once his time with premier training completed gaining 98% in his final Advanced Personal Training exam, he set up his own company in Personal Training called Personal Performance International, which operates in the Aberdeenshire area of Scotland.

Chris specializes in highly specified training programme design and implementation, helping the active enthusiast and athletes get the most out of their training, competitions and events. Chris's clients that seek to lose weight become fitter and healthier have come to the right person. The majority of his training and experience lies in these areas. With vast knowledge within; diet, nutrition, weight loss, aerobic fitness and flexibility, Chris can tackle any problem with a proactive approach and a positive out look. Within weeks clients notice the changes time and again, which helps them gain and sense of achievement and control over there lifestyle.

Contact Chris now to discuss getting your fitness on track in 2010