Daisy is passionate about helping people learn to love movement and take advantage of their body’s natural abilities.
Her approach is entirely tailored to you, so you get the support and guidance that you need to move your body in the way you want, whether that’s to improve your fitness, become more flexible or develop your strength to play sports better.
I’m really excited to be part of the team and can’t wait to get started. In terms of my speciality, I’m a personal trainer, a strength and conditioning coach and a yoga instructor. So I’ll actually be offering three separate things to the Meadows Wellbeing community, I’ll be doing one-to-one personal training, one-to-one yoga sessions and one-to-one strength and conditioning and mobilisation coaching.
Absolutely. There are different parts to that too, so I might work with someone who wants to have sport specific strength and conditioning. For example, if someone does a lot of tennis and they want to build up their strength to improve their performance, I would give them exercises to develop strength in those specific muscles. It’s kind of like tennis training but without the ball and the racket. So, it’s more about learning the mechanics of tennis and how your body works during the sport and which muscles you use.
I’ll also be working in partnership with Emma and the other sports injury experts to help develop rehab exercise programmes for people. I can work with my clients to find out what exercises they can and can’t do, and then I’d build a programme. If you were suffering with back pain, for example, you could come and see me and I can help by giving exercises that strengthen the glutes to help with the pain.
There might also be people who come to Emma or any of the other therapists who aren’t happy with their current weight or level of fitness, and perhaps they’re suffering from joint problems as a result, or just want to improve their health and fitness. I can help by working to create a low intensity exercise programme for them, which they can do for half an hour and get their body moving in a way that doesn’t cause pain, and is fun, to help improve their overall health.
I was 18 when I left college with my PE and dance A-levels, but I didn’t really know what I wanted to do after that. I’ve always been into sports, I used to do a lot of athletics and I was part of an athletic club. I’ve actually started coaching for them on a Wednesday evening, so I’ve always been into running but I’ve always loved all kinds of sports, I’ve done football, swimming, dance, everything basically. I’m generally into anything involving movement and I love the thought that you can improve yourself by movement and your mental health as well.
When I left college I knew I didn’t want to go to university, it just wasn’t for me, but didn’t know what I did want to do. Then a few weeks into the summer holidays, I got offered a job in Greece for an activity holiday company, so I was working in the restaurant which was great, I had a great time there. I did that for two summers, and then the third summer I came back as a fitness instructor. So I got qualified in Exercise to Music, Level 2 Fitness Instructing, Level 2 Gym Instructing, and Level 3 Personal Training. I worked with the holiday company for three summers and I was running activities six day a week, with 10 classes a day, doing everything from run clubs to circuit to aquafit and stretching.
The next year I went to India to do my yoga teacher training. That was a really great experience, and I learned multi-style yoga, which means I studied vinyasa, ashtanga, acro, hatha, and arial. I wanted to do multi because I like the fact that I can work different styles of yoga into one practice.
So that’s where I really got started, but then I had to come home in March because of Covid and I was looking at the fitness REPs (Register of Exercise Training Professionals) website for online courses I could do, and found strength and conditioning course. So I applied for that and am now qualified in strength and conditioning.
It was really quite intense. I had to do two practical tests, one on Olympic Weightlifting and one on speed and agility, and that one had to be sport-specific so I chose rugby. I also had to do lots of case studies, online sessions and things like that. It was a lot more work than I thought, but I’m definitely happy that I did it. I also had the advantage of having taken strength and conditioning classes back when I was working for the holiday company, so I wasn’t coming into it completely out of the blue.
I’ve always had an interest in the human body and how it works. And I love being able to help people who are injured or who don’t think they can do something, to show them that there are other ways to be fit and strong, and help them realise the potential of their body. I think confidence is a big part of it as well. So I really like to work with people at all levels to give them the confidence they need to progress.
For me, I’ve always been fascinated with the human body and I’m always excited to learn new things about how it works. In the future I’d love to get qualified in pre and postnatal yoga. I think that’s my next one, either that or I want to progress my meditation qualifications.
So part of my yoga teaching qualification was on meditation; when you qualify as a yoga teacher, you do a number of hours learning about different things and I want to do 100 hours on meditation and when Covid disappears I want to go back and get my 300 hour yoga.
I think it’s important to build up my knowledge, so you’re more advanced and can offer more to your clients. I love learning about it as well, and I’m keen to keep putting myself in better situations.
I’ve actually been seeing Emma (Wilson-Wild the Meadows Wellbeing Sports Injury and Rehab specialist) for years, since I was 16 or 17, so Emma’s been helping me for a lot of years and she’s seen me grow, and has seen what I’ve started to do in the fitness space. When I came to see her a little while ago, I mentioned my qualifications and we were talking about it and saying how we can help each other out, for people who come along who might be unhappy with their weight and want to start exercising. Or people who have rehab exercise that aren’t doing them correctly and need some extra support, or people who want to improve their flexibility, mobility or strength. So we were talking about it and she said she’d have a chat with Jon and see what he thought. I came in to meet the team to talk about how it might work and the rest is history.
Absolutely, so I officially join on Monday the 26th October 2020. To start with, I’ll be doing all day Monday, and then on a Wednesday between 12pm and 5pm.
I always do an initial consultation with a client, which will be an hour long. This will give us the opportunity to discuss what challenges they’re facing and what they’d like to get out of the session, it will also include an element of personal, yoga or whatever we’re doing.
But I want to make it really accessible so once the assessment is done, you can attend future sessions of 60/45/30 minutes depending on what your objectives are and how much time you have. People will also have the chance to book blocks of four sessions, as we know a lot of people will want to have a set number of sessions.
Also, you can come in once a week, twice a week or however often you’d like and do the exercises with me at the centre. But if you don’t have time to do that, then I’ll also develop a programme for you to take away. It will include a really clear programme of exercises, but also regular contact with me, so if you’re stuck or if you have questions, you can speak to me. And in most cases this will be a 4 or 6 week programme and then you’ll come back and see me to check in.
I think having that flexibility is really important; some people will want to come and see me because they want to be held accountable and they want a trainer to help them do it. But other people may be so busy that they just want some ideas for exercises and then to be able to fit it in wherever they can.
Honestly, everyone can. Because I specialise in how the body moves, I really do think there’s something for everyone in what I do. However, I also really love working with people who don’t believe they can ‘be fit’ because I enjoy watching them prove themselves wrong. For me, the type of work I do is all about looking at how small, simple movements can benefit our wellbeing, and how it can help you stay mobile for longer. And with the personal training, I don’t want people to think it’s going to be like a boot camp where you have to do burpees and things like that, because it’s not. It’s all about the movement and the passion. I don’t run things like HIIT workouts, because those are not accessible to everyone. People don’t need to have a good level of fitness to start working with me, because we’ll build up to that. I want to attract people who perhaps don’t have the confidence to go to the gym and want to work with someone who will start where they are. It’s about what’s bringing out the natural potential of the people I work with, and witnessing that progression that everyone can achieve, but not having to feel like you need to run a marathon to get there. And some people might have injuries but there are always exercises you can do that don’t involve aggravating that injury, so I never want people to feel like they can’t do something. To me, fitness means utilising what your body can already do, and maximising what you’ve already got.
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