Park People: Vicki & Bronwynn, Park Club Personal Trainers

This month, we caught up with Vicki and Bronwynn, Personal Trainers and Online Coaches from Milton Park’s Park Club Gym – learning more about how they support people through exercise and the exciting launch of their new online coaching platform, Phase.

Hi Vicki and Bronwynn! Tell us more about the Park Club Gym in your own words…

Lots of thought has gone into the way we’ve organised the different sections at Park Club Gym to ensure we’re catering for a range of needs and providing safe spaces for beginners. The main section and mezzanine are set up with a range of machines, suitable for beginner-friendly use, then the heavy weight and plated equipment can be found in the second section.

For those who aren’t keen on working out in the gym, Park Club’s swimming pool is another great exercise facility on offer that can be accessed through a swim only membership. Currently, our kids swimming lessons and lunchtime sessions are really popular, but we offer lessons for a whole range of abilities and ages including adults, helping everyone to become more confident in the water.

The Park Club also offers a superb range of exercise classes from Pilates and yoga to body combat, HIIT workouts and box fit. You can view the full timetable online where classes run from morning to evening on weekdays and daytime on weekends, ensuring there are timings suitable for everyone.

What do your roles as Personal Trainers and Online Coaches involve?

Our role at the gym is to encourage, support and lead people in specific and tailored exercises suitable for individuals and their goals. However, we both consider ourselves as hybrid personal trainers and online coaches as we’re keen to not only help people when they come into the gym but also get people exercising everyday through different forms.

Individually, we’ve found online coaching is a great way to fully support our clients in their day-to-day lives through suggested exercise plans, on-call advice and motivation. This has led us to launch an exciting new business together, called Phase, where we’re able to offer these types of services on a joint online platform.

Additionally, through gaining the appropriate qualifications, we’re able to offer advice on nutrition alongside exercise plans meaning, if they wish, our clients are able to access a well-rounded service all in one place that is enjoyable and fits around their lifestyle.

Tell us more about the launch of your new coaching business…

We’re really excited to say that together, earlier this month, we officially launched our new online coaching platform, Phase, that offers a range of resources and support for people looking to get fit through exercise and food, no matter if they’re local to Oxfordshire or half way across the world.

The platform is split into Phase Online and Phase Kickstart, offering members bespoke gym session plans, support from two qualified coaches, nutritional advice, a supportive online community and much more, depending on which option you choose.

Currently, we have an early bird offer where the first 80 people to sign up to Phase will receive a FREE welcome box, containing up to £100 worth of goodies, so don’t miss out!

What do you enjoy most about your jobs?

For both of us, it has to be seeing our clients make positive behavioural changes regarding exercise and nutrition by taking people on the journey of learning to truly enjoy working out and appreciating their bodies.

We pride ourselves for working with a range of people, catering for different goals and needs. For instance, Bronwynn is able to offer great support to people that have previously dealt with issues such as low self-esteem, eating disorders and body dysmorphia. From a personal perspective, she’s able to understand their journeys, helping them to make positive changes both mentally and physically in a safe environment. Being a part of these types of journeys are massively important to us and between both of us we aim to provide a supporting space for everyone.

How does exercise personally help each of you in your day-to-day lives?

We find exercise plays such an important role in improving our mental health and by using the gym we’ve both learnt to appreciate our bodies far more. We always hope that this effect and our approach to exercise, which is equally about improving your mental state as it is your physical health, rubs off and has a positive impact on our clients, so they too can feel the same satisfaction as we do from exercising.

What’s your advice to anyone apprehensive about joining the gym or incorporating exercise into their day-to-day lives?

Our first tip to anyone looking to get into exercising but may be apprehensive of where to start would be to not worry about intensity and that it’s okay to start small and work your way up. Just by getting your steps in each day is a great start. If you work sat down for most of the day, make sure to set yourself reminders to get up from your desk and take a quick break. Whether it’s to use the toilet, grab a glass of water, boil the kettle or microwave your lunch – you’ll surprised how many steps you can fit in without having to dedicate a set time to exercise.

If it’s specifically the gym that you’re apprehensive about, at Park Club we offer beginner and new member inductions, where we show you the different spaces, how to use the equipment and the opportunity to ask any questions you like. We want Park Club to be a safe space to exercise for all our members and even if you don’t have a session booked with any of our staff, if they’re available, they’ll be happy to give you some quick tips if you ever find yourself stuck.

How does your life and work connect at Milton Park?

The Milton Feast that’s on every Tuesday and Thursday has got to be one of our highlights from being based at the Park – the food on offer from each of the local traders is so delicious, especially the pizzas and burritos! The events that Park Club host such as the Santa and Easter Bunny runs have also provided some memorable highlights and give us great satisfaction in seeing so many people across the Park exercising together and motivating each other.

Additionally, we’ve started using the Bee House, Milton Park’s flexible workspace, and Hive Café to catch up on admin work or to take a break, which has been really refreshing. The interior is so aesthetically pleasing, making it such an interesting place to work and we’re definitely keen to book out some of the meeting rooms in the near future.

Fancy being featured in our ‘Park People’ series? Drop us a line at marketing@miltonpark.com