Guru Jon Trevor - Celebrity Personal Trainer Interview

Name: Jon Trevor

Interview by LiamPaddy

Firstly, Tell some background information on what it is you do exactly, for those who don't know? 

Well, basically I'm a personal trainer, been in the industry for 30 years, started when 22, young lad, I am now 53, been in it a long. I originally started, when I started personal trainers were for the elite and rich and famous. Not many of us about. It was an ideal opportunity for me to get into a  growth industry at the time. The years went through so I went on with my challenge. Basically started doing exercise to music, the industry standard thing. Then I saw that there was a gap in the market fir personal trainers in clubs. Said I was interested in putting personal trainers into clubs. Came across a private club in Bromley and put the idea to the manager. Went down to see him, long story short, I got a contract for that club and managed to get personal trainers into the club. It was like a work based training scheme. At this time, I was going around the country personal training clients so I set up a training business to train the personal trainers. I put 18 into clubs and that grew to other clubs. People saw that there was a lot of interest in this service so they took the business model and made it in the house making my role a bit redundant. 

You're named as the guru celebrity trainer, what celebrity have you previously worked with? 

I'm a great believer in, if you have a goal you have to stick to it and if you have a target you have to aim for it. Scott Maslen, James Darcy, Matt Dillion, Jake Wood, Gerard Butler, Marty Pellow (?), Sam Womack, Kara Tointon, Lee Mead, Worked with Steps, Chris Tarrant. When the contract finished I was contacted by Marty Pellow, he was great. The Brief from his management was when he was leaving Wet Wet Wet and went into a solo career. He collapsed from exhaustion in a hotel and they recommended me to get artists fit. We worked very closely together over a course of months and he taught me about show business. I decided to offer celebrities an occupational health and fitness service. So I contacted a few agents and basically said I am the go to guy for your celebs, I'm familiar with the challenges that show business can bring. I don't go starry-eyed when I meet these people I'm there to do a job. When you go behind the scenes you are just one of the team. Nobody takes any notice of Gerard when we're walking around backstage, it's only in the public when you get notice. 

When did you first realise you had a passion with helping people gaining the body they desire?

I think back in my early teens when I was 16 I used to always be standing and motivating the team. Used to be at the front saying 'COME ON GUYS WE CAN DO THIS'. Then I went into cartography (?) and drew maps for a living. I sat down and thought, am I enjoying what I'm doing. The job you'll do well in is the one you enjoy doing and travelling with. I used to do martial arts and someone said to me at my local club, well you know about fitness you're an expert can you train us? So I started training my fellow members and it went from there, they told me I could earn money from this and 30 years later I still am. Obviously I’ve been involved a lot with training personal trainers and training students. The Health and fitness industry has evolved since the early 70's really. It's like any fitness that evolves. Look at mobile phones and how Motorola were the only ones doing it. Now it's mass market and technology has evolved with it so that it's now a saturated market. To motivate people in business and to be self-motivated and disciplined you have to be able to evolve with the times which are basically what I’ve done. It wasn't saturated at the time and I specialised in that market and flooded it with my name. Because I do have 30 years experience and I've travelled and taught and it is a privilege to be working g in the showbiz arena. 

Who has been your favourite celebrity to work with so far within your career? 

Erm... That's difficult to say because they're all very different. What I like about A-list celebrities or anyone involved in show business is its a Show and a Business. It's them showing off their talent with the show. Every client I’ve worked with has been completely professional and they earn a lot of money to do a film and I’m earning a lot to get them to a point of being able to do that job. It's a professional relationship. Basically with Matt and Gerard I do a service where it's called Guru Travel so when they come over to this country they can continue with their personal training and managing their body. That's the service I provide.  Kara bless her she’s so lovely and gorgeous, such a lovely person, her character and personality is so different from say Scott. He doesn’t mess around he's straight in there it's very kind of cut, same with Gerard and matt. 

What's been your biggest achievement? 

A firewalk. I went down to meet with Tony Robbins who's an American motivational speaker and I walked 15 feet across burning coals. That was quite a challenge. I stood on a 20-foot pole as well that was mounted 30 feet in the air. Business achievement would be staying in a fabulous career for this long. Just continuing on and not getting knocked down, 

Who would you say puts in more effort movie stars or soap stars? 

Hahaha. I have to say the movie stars. Simply because we have a start and a finish. They have to be... often I meet with the director and see what we need and then meet the talent and set up a time frame to achieve it. Sometimes it's like 3 months before the start of a film. You have to get fit for the part by that time. With the soaps it's an ongoing thing, it's more lifestyle management, with the film stars it's a time limit and there’s no choice.  

What made you say that?

What have you got planned for the future? 

I've developed a concept, my own training concept, that was developed with doing the soap stars. When you're on these soap sets it's like a different world. It's like a big family all working in unison. In order to keep up with the fitness they don't really like stars going off site to go to the gym and when they get home they're usually too knackered to go to the gym and they have to learn their lines so they have no time. So I tracked down one of my clients and wanted to design something to use in the dressing room, when you do that scene all you want to do is go to your dressing room sometimes they don't even want to talk to anyone. It's very mentally challenging what they do. So I made a dressing room aerobic work out which was made into a DVD which I’m now travelling around the world promoting. I train the trainers around the world. 

What advice would you give to someone who's looking to gain an ideal summer body? 

Well the number one key is discipline. The secret is discipline. I don't mind if you get up and do an hour every morning or if you get up and do 10 minutes. I NEED you to get up and do it. You need to get up in order to achieve your goals. People say is there a special kind of work out you can do? Well there is a workout that’s worked for me which is intermittent fasting. It's a controversial workout which has been on TV recently. Where you fast for a period of time, because it's calories in and calories out. If you take in 3000 calories and let out 2000 calories so 1000 is stored as fat. If you don't address that you're never going to achieve your goals. It's controversial but it works. 

What style work out would you say you put the celebrity's through to get them to an acceptable standard in their eyes? 

I had one brief with a client I wont mention. The producer needed her bum nice and firm. So if that was the brief you'd do resistance training and backwards running. If it was a general all round body sculpting brief it would be HIIT Training. That uses the high energy in a short duration. Resistance would be as many as you can do in 30 seconds and then rest. You don't have to do hours and hours of training. You could do 10 minutes but if it's very intense that 10 minutes is worth 20 minutes. 

What I would like to promote is my role as TV expert 

BID TV's Fitness Guru and Expert 

UK's largest auction channel. On sky, virgin and Free view. I go in and do live demonstrations of fitness equipment on live TV for them.

I intend to take that over to America and motivate them through their shopping channel.