Our amazing client Revolution PTS really over-achieved during this time, (ignore the slightly envious tone in that sentence, I am proud of them!)

Revolution’s business in “normal times”

The 3 owners, Pep, John and Rob run a chain of one-on-one boutique personal training studios and have been established since 2005. We started working with them in 2018 (see this post) when we redesigned and rebuilt their website and we continue to maintain it.

These guys have built an impressive business! They specialise in results/goal based training and were one of the first in the UK to use the 12 week goal idea.

I know that you see that all over the place now, so what makes them different?

They offer a fun, friendly and non-judgemental place to work out and get results where you feel comfortable the moment that you walk in the door.

What impressed me the most is that the studio is that it’s for everyone of all shapes, sizes, ages and fitness levels. Pep has helped people to drop weight, gain muscle and improve my nutrition and all in a super enjoyable (and tough) way.

You can visit their website www.revolution-pts.com.

But then everything changed when the pandemic hit and all their gyms had to close overnight. This is where I am even more blown away. Here’s some Q+A with Pep.

What has it been like for you?

It’s been tough, as a personal trainer I love the interaction with my clients and as a business owner of a company that has successfully run for 15 years, it’s hard to see the clients and other personal trainers that rely on you struggle.

Did you consider this as a “pivot” in the business? (as you can see I don’t because I am hoping the gyms will re-open!)

I don’t see it as a pivot point, but it has pushed my company to innovate and come up with solutions (which is something that we’ve collectively always been good at). That being said, it’s certainly opened up something quite special for all of us that our trainers, clients and myself are enjoying a lot.

How did you come together to make these decisions?

Yes and no. The decision was sort of made for us! As easy as it would be to shut the doors and stop trading entirely, this would have caused a real issue for a lot of our personal trainer’s as well as their clients who use our service not just for their fitness, but for their own mental well being as well. So the week before the UK lockdown was announced, I put together a remote personal training guide for our trainer’s to use, just to help with how to set up and to help their confidence. I also put together a whole bunch of instructional videos and no training kit programmes to get them started.

What’s worked best?

The one to one remote personal training has been a big winner for me. To be able to speak directly with my clients and still help them to move forwards and achieve their goals is super important. We have added a tonne of value to our clients by starting a members area in facebook with daily free classes, some for the whole family to enjoy and some for adults to pump some iron or have a relaxing stretch to unwind.

Speaking of goals, one of my clients had a goal to be pain free as well as strong and confident enough to go to a gym to attend some classes with her friends. She is at that stage now so I’ve organised a zoom class with a bunch of her friends and family so that even during lockdown she will be able to hit the goal that she’s worked so hard to hit. I have always believed that if you put your mind to it, there’s always a way.

What has not worked/happened even though you expected it to?

I knew that a lockdown was coming, but I didn’t expect Revolution (as a facility that offers only one-to-one personal training e.g. no group and no classes onsite etc) to be lumped together with big chain gyms and fitness companies that do classes and group. With what we offer we are able to control the number of people in a space at one time because people come by appointment rather than just turning up whenever. Also our facility’s equipment is cleaned after every use and deep cleaned every evening, in the months leading up to the lockdown across the board we made an even bigger effort which stretched way beyond a few squirts of hand sanitizer! Lumping personal training together with gyms I feel has been a real shame and it has been detrimental to so many personal trainers out there, although the government are just trying to do what they think is best to protect the public it has made it tough.

Here are a few things they have done.

Setup daily 11am Facebook Live workout videos

Pep and his sons have been running free weekly street workouts in his neighbourhood where the participants need no training equipment and stay on their driveways to keep the required 2+ metres apart.

Offered free first sessions to anyone wanting to see if remote personal training is for them

Transitioned their clients to be remote PT clients (including me)

Pep has setup daily live PT workouts on Facebook with his 2 sons Dante and Luca

These are at 11am every day. One of the things that makes this awesome is that if you comment your name or your child’s name while they’re live they will give them a shout out which works really well and makes it stand out from the others.

You can join in with us Live and Free by joining our Facebook members page – www.facebook.com/groups/revolutionpts

Keren says

Pep offered me a free first session with him remotely even though we already trained together. I said yes right away, I knew I needed the focus on something mentally while were in the early scary pandemic times and when we had the lockdown. When we have our normal worries, and then you add a pandemic on top, anything that’s offered from someone to help you make the best of it, I say YES!! And I found from when I previously trained with Pep, over 15 weeks programme in 2018, it was transformational, changes I have made that I still stick to today.

I have since signed up for 12 weeks of sessions, and we’ve started with a full body conditioning with the weights that I have and now we’re in a circuit phase. In the last session I completed 5 sets of circuits with 4 exercises each and Pep made this fast forwarded insta post of what it was like.

I didn’t think that remote personal training would be as effective as it is face to face, because its completely hands off (and you don’t get that lovely stretching part with the PT at the end). Also the weights and training equipment is limited to what I have at home. What really amazed me is that even with very limited training equipment, our exercise programmes have been diverse, fun and tough! I asked Pep what he would do if I had no training kit at all and he simply said ‘No kit? No problem’. He then explained to me that some of his clients are in that very position and he is still able to push them towards their goals by making use of things that they do have, such as a bag for life with a few bottles of water or prosecco in it (the prosecco press as calls it).

I wasn’t doing any face to face person training with Pep before the lockdown, because his personal training studio isn’t in the area that I live or work which would have made the travel awkward for me. Remote PT is a big winner for me, on the fact that even after lockdown ends, and once all the Revolution studios are back fully operational, I would still favour the remote personal training. That being said I would visit Pep for a face to face training session one once in a while because there’s nothing quite like a high five in person, after the use of hand sanitizer of course!

More benefits (from my experience)

They’re fun, motivating, just hard enough, and effective.

Pep gets me doing things properly with a focused training programmes as well as a big emphasis on my exercise form and with ten times more effort than I would have put in on an unguided workout, even if I did go to the gym!

I prop up the phone against a candle holder on a wooden table and Pep has a wooden floor in his home gym, so it looks sometimes, if you squint your eyes, like he’s a tiny man on my table telling me what to do.

Sometimes I feel sweat coming out and dripping! I don’t think I normally get as sweaty

And it’s helped me to have someone (Pep, the little man in my phone) encouraging me to push myself.

Plus, working out hard means the muscle pain takes away any other emotional pain I may be going through (due to worrying about the virus)!

We highly recommend Revolution as personal trainers, both remote and in person!

You can visit the Revolution Personal Training Studios website at www.revolution-pts.com.