The Year That Was 2017

Wow! 2017... what a year? Where to begin? Read the below blog post from T2 Fitness to find out about the exciting year they had...

T2 Fitness Education

For T2 Fitness Education, 2017 started with its second trip to the Caribbean island of St. Lucia where we offered education in Gym Instruction, Personal Training, Studio Cycling and Bodyweight Training to staff of the illusive BodyHoliday resort.

The staff here, known as the ‘Body Guards’, are incredibly inspiring. Their infection enthusiasm for the enjoyment of others and their down-to-earth mentality is a joy to behold! It was an incredible way to start the year off.

We also offered the first international course through our Edufit platform. It was a blazing success and offered us a lot of excitement for what was to come.

Back in the UK, our managing director Stu was lucky to travel nationally to train a host of CPD (continuing professional development) offerings - with Studio Cycling and Strength and Conditioning the most popular. A particular highlight was sharing the gym with the South Africa Springboks Rugby team – they were a magnificent team to watch train and was a session to be remembered at the University of Cardiff.

Back at T2HQ, our courses flourished. The best thing about taking our Level 2 Fitness Instructor and Level 3 Personal Trainer courses is that through our Edufit Learning Platform and App, you study theory in your own time and pace, which means the classroom and workshops is focused on the practical aspects and techniques that will make you a success as a trainer.

The reviews and feedback of our Edufit platform and our workshop delivery has been exceptional. T2 has been selected as a case study for how well the Edufit platform works and judging by the early reviews, it is set to change the way fitness education is delivered.

In 2017, T2 was fortunate to experience international growth and demand for fitness education. We were lucky enough to be hosted in an Asian tour of the Philippines, Vietnam and Kuala Lumpur in 2017 - and have at least four more international trips scheduled for 2018. In just seven years of growing our business, we are truly humbled that we get to deliver education internationally and wasn’t something we ever imagined when T2 was born in 2011.

T2 Elite

2017 was also the year we launched our T2 Elite programme. For the past 5 years, we’ve worked with, trained and supported the strength and conditioning development of professional footballer Nathan Thompson. He has been the perfect guinea pig for how our Elite programme works.

When we started training Nathan, he was a Swindon Town FC player with around 40 games under his belt. Swindon saw a bright enough future in Nathan and at the tender age of 23 was made club captain. He’s grown to be a part of the T2 fabric and after making his move this year, we couldn’t be prouder of his performance for Portsmouth Football Club this season.

By discussing aspects of performance on the pitch to be improved, we could design programmes to increase power, strength, speed and so forth. We realised there was a psychological boost athletes gained from having a high-level trainer in their corner to help on this journey and T2 Elite was born.

Since then, our talent has grown and diversified to include younger brother Louis Thompson of Norwich City FC, unbeaten professional boxer Luke Watkins, and top-10 UK MMA amateur Craig Rawlins.

Luke and Craig are local boys with bright sporting futures. Craig is set to fight again on Cage Warriors in early 2018 as well as defend his RAGED UK welterweight title before turning pro. Luke, since joining T2 Elite in May 2017 has enjoyed three consecutive stoppage victories, earning the Irish title and Commonwealth belt at Cruiserweight along the way.

We very proud of each athlete and are delighted to have them as part of the T2 family – we cannot wait to see what 2018 brings for them.

In summary, every year brings new challenges and new opportunities. We hope that we can continue to inspire all of our T2 Family to reach even greater heights in their careers and training this year. All you have to do is have a vision and work as hard as you can towards it. Stu’s advice is to say ‘yes’ to anything you want to do, even if you’re not entirely sure how you’ll deliver it, because you can figure out the details as you go along and gain invaluable experience and opportunities along the way.