About me…
Hello and welcome. I’m Alastair Ratcliffe, a PT with 13 years experience working with groups and individuals in Southwest London, and more recently developing online material.
Having not been particularly active or sporty growing up, I discovered a passion for fitness in my mid twenties. This brought about profound improvements to various health issues, energy, physique, mood and general quality of life…so much so I was compelled to quit the security of a finance career and set about coaching others to benefit from the same changes.
I gained a PT diploma with Premier Global in London, started teaching fitness classes on Wimbledon and Wandsworth common, and then progressed to more involved 1-1 personal training.
A sports and exercise science masters at Roehampton university inspired a more nuanced approach to training others; focussing on consistency, longevity and general wellbeing as well as the more stereotypical body composition aspects of fitness.
My dissertation contributed to an article in the ‘Bone’ journal, where we investigated the effects of varying activity levels on bone and muscle health in middle aged populations. We are living longer, and exercise can and must play a major role in keeping us able-bodied and independent as we age. (I am now reminded of this daily since I married an Occupational Therapist!)
I have experience training older individuals in their seventies and even eighties. Overseeing them perform comprehensive kettlebell and bodyweight routines gives me great satisfaction.
However, I equally enjoy putting 18 yr old burgeoning rugby players through their paces with the bleep test, conducting speed sessions for sub 20 min Parkrun hopefuls, writing people their first full or half marathon training program, or simply helping couples look their best for the big day! (You all know who you are!).
In 2020, covid put an end to face to face training for a while, and like many I was forced to adapt and apply my work remotely. This has been a blessing in disguise, as aside from the live Zoom sessions, I started producing pre recorded versions of my favourite circuit training routines.
These now supplement traditional face to face training, helping me set weekly and monthly training schedules in shared calendars, The calendar includes links to video routines for days we’re not meeting face to face. For those who want it I also offer activity tracking…log your workouts and send me the data. I’ll generate activity graphs to help motivate you to match or beat the previous month’s load.
I offer a fully remote service as well, with a mixture of live sessions over Zoom, and access to my pre recorded routines, as well as monthly scheduling and phone support. Combining live sessions, maintenance 10 minute workouts, comprehensive 40 min videos, apps with run/walk intervals and purely walking recovery days, I will fill out a shared calendar in the cloud for you to stick to and achieve your goals, whether we meet face to face or not.
For new clients, I offer single trial sessions, so you can sample my methods before committing to the standard 10 week package. This can be done over Zoom or face to face in Southwest London. If you would like to discuss options with me, get in touch with an email at train@alastair-getfit.com, or message me on 07701 081007.
Thanks for reading!
Alastair