Superfood, surfing, and single-leg squats

Our Featured Trainer this week is Ondrej Matej. A personal trainer and nutritionist, Ondrej works out of Kilburn, north London.

Ondrej's specialty is holistic personal training. Yes, that's a thing. Ondrej explains that it means taking the whole person into account when they come to you. Of course we know that people aren't just their muscles and their body fat percentage, but sometimes out of habit our attitude might get a little... reductionist. Because people are composed of multiple interacting systems that are very complex, the approaches to those systems also need to be wide-ranging. In other words, a holistic personal trainer needs plenty of tools in their arsenal.

Nutrition is a big one. So, most personal trainers understand that nutrition is just as important as exercise. Ondrej has gone a step further and created his own line of superfood products. Ondrej says that the proprietary combination of organically grown maca root, raw cacao, hemp protein and spices is a great all-round boost for energy and muscle growth. He credits it with providing the get-up-and-go to train clients all day, socialise into the night, and go surfing on the South coast whenever possible. Surfing is his favourite pastime, and he's even created a surfing workout.

As far as strength training goes, Ondrej says "Everyone can benefit from strength training, no matter what their current state of fitness and what their goals are." Among his YouTube videos are some progressions, which take a trainee through preliminary steps, up to a calisthenics move that's traditionally considered difficult, like for example a one-legged squat.

Other layers that a trainer might want to be aware of are things like sleep hygiene (check out this fantastic resource), stress levels, and how the client views their health and fitness goals in the wider context of their life goals (life coaching training can be a useful addition here).

If you want to know more about this kind of personal training, Ondrej can be contacted through his website.