The Success of a Client – The Polymerization of Personal Training & Nutrition
- Brainz Magazine
- Dec 4, 2025
- 8 min read
Updated: Dec 6, 2025
Written by Bradley Abbott, Personal Coach
Bradley Abbott is known for his wholistic approach to personal coaching merging fitness training with nutritional therapeutics. Author of the e-books A How-to Guide in Developing Functional Strength, Power and Adaptability, and The Cussing Coach, both published in 2024.
This article explores the transformative power of combining personal training and nutrition, focusing on how these elements can reverse chronic health issues and improve overall well-being. Through detailed client success stories, it showcases how specific dietary changes, supplements, and tailored exercise plans have helped individuals reclaim their health and vitality, proving that optimal performance can be achieved through a holistic approach.
My story
Back when I was around 20 years old, I used to think like most people, "That people's health issues could be solved by solving the genetic code that's shrouded in some mystery." It was that "mystery" that got me intrigued in the first place. Not only was I interested in learning genetics, but I remember becoming enthusiastic and excited about its complexity. I wanted to learn as much as I could about it. Then, a year went by, and I began to delve into sports nutrition, learning how to put together nutrition plans for elite athletes as part of my foundation degree. Although I became interested in nutrition itself, putting together an 8-week sports nutrition plan for athletes quickly got tedious. I remember staring at a computer screen for hours, assembling every part of the plan and explaining why it would work.
A few years went by, and I enrolled in and passed my Personal Training qualification in late October 2014. I quickly became an active and licensed PT at PureGym in Sunderland, and in my spare time, I became increasingly interested in nutrition related to health issues. I watched long, in-depth documentaries on the NHS, Naturopathic Medicine, and Nutritional Trends of that time, and learned so much. I even tried going fully raw vegan for 24 hours as a test and realized quickly that this wasn't going to work! I learned shortly after why it wasn't going to work.
I came across one doctor in these documentaries who seemed to make the most sense out of all of them, Dr. Peter Glidden. Think about it for a second, we live in a time when we have the most sophisticated technology and the best minds working on every possible scenario to help people recover, yet we couldn't reverse chronic diseases or symptoms? Something just didn't add up. Then, I learned shortly after watching all these documentaries and reading online articles that we were using 'the wrong dog for the hunt.'
Every person and animal that dies of natural causes dies of a nutritional disease. Alzheimer's is a cholesterol, essential fatty acids, and cofactors deficiency that occurred because of cholesterol and fat 'bashing' with no help from Ancel Keys. Varicose veins is a simple copper deficiency. Copper, particularly colloidal copper, is required by the body to manufacture and strengthen the elastic fibers around blood vessels, skin tissue, and other bodily tissues. Obesity is a multiple mineral deficiency that causes pica and cribbing in animals and the munchies in people. The body craves minerals, so when people claim they crave food, they really just crave the minerals they hope the food will give them. Diabetes is a chromium, vanadium, and lithium deficiency. Chromium and vanadium, in particular, are required by the human body to metabolize sugar within the cells. Cancer is caused indirectly due to a selenium deficiency because selenium is required by the human body to recycle the body's own antioxidant, glutathione. Rheumatoid arthritis is a calcium, magnesium, and cofactor deficiency with an infection of Mycoplasma spp., which can be dealt with by correcting the mineral deficiencies, improving the absorption of your gut, and administering tetracycline.
Of course, there are other factors at play here, such as increasing your likelihood of developing these diseases, primarily through consistently consuming the bad foods that cause inflammation and cell death (aka apoptosis).
I was always interested in exercise and performing like an athlete myself, but when I came across this information, so profound, so revolutionary, it was something I couldn't ignore. Why would anyone want to? Not only that, it's information that would help my clients recover and achieve optimal performance years later upon my return to PureGym, Sunderland.
The layout
The idea of a healthy lifestyle is actually easy once you know where to look and which information to extrapolate:
Eliminate the bad foods
Replace them with the good foods
Supplement with all 90 essential nutrients for your body weight and the level of severity of the symptoms
Hydrate the body with filtered or reverse osmosis water to reduce unwanted chemicals in the water
Get 7-9 hours of high-quality, uninterrupted sleep (8-10 hours if you're an athlete)
Perform light to moderate exercise daily
Get fresh air daily
You could even take this a step further and eat for your nervous system type (more on this in a future article)
The barriers and false notions
The issue with this theory is:
It's overcomplicated and interfered with by an outdated concept perpetuated by the allopathic medical profession
Big pharmaceutical companies make way too much money from people getting sick (e.g., selling over-the-counter prescriptions), to even consider slowing down their system
Some people are ill-informed (no pun intended) about what the 'good foods' actually are! I once worked with someone who thought mayonnaise or even 'light' mayonnaise was "good for you." Mayonnaise is nothing but free radicals (atoms that have lost or gained an electron, they will stick to anything, including your cells, when you consume them, causing apoptosis, also known as 'cell death'). This type of regular, frequent consumption increases your risk of heart disease and cancer exponentially over the years!
These types of issues have been ingrained in us for so many years that we accept them as normal, and there aren't many people asking 'why?'
What's worse (in this context) is that not only are people genuinely scared to change their habits and leave their 'comfort zone', even if it's harming them, but they will actually go out of their way to defend it if you try to question them. Now, I genuinely believe that this defense mechanism is birthed out of fear, and understandably so. Still, you should never lose your ability to be open-minded, especially when it can save your life and many years of suffering!
What to do & how to do it
Through my years as a Fitness Instructor, Lifeguard, Personal Trainer, Youngevity Associate, and yes, even as a short-term assistant in delivering presentations on wholistic medical nutrition, I have seen many people and clients turn their health around dramatically through exercise and wholistic nutrition. I've even experimented with various programs to see what works best and had dramatic positive changes myself.
I've personally had clients reverse their symptoms almost completely through dietary changes, supplementation, regular exercise, and little dietary "hacks" that help speed up healing and recovery.
One of my clients had stomach issues, for which her local physician prescribed Lansoprazole (a stomach-acid-blocker), rosacea, sciatica, high blood pressure (for which her doctor had prescribed blood pressure medication), and low energy. Within three months, after going through the exercise and nutrition program I recommended for her, and the client relaying the information of the changes back to her physician, she was off her Lansoprazole and blood pressure medication. What a turnaround! Her rosacea almost completely reduced, and her energy skyrocketed. Unfortunately, there was a shipping issue with her supplements, so her sciatica wasn't resolved. Sciatica, like any muscle- and bone-related issues, is a simple deficiency in calcium, magnesium, boron, strontium, sodium, potassium, and all other cofactors.
The other client, who attended my Personal Training sessions with her, had low back pain for years, low energy, and was told by her local physician that she was at risk of high blood pressure, and was almost placed on medication for it. Thankfully, that never happened. After three months of the program, this client's energy skyrocketed as well, and her risk of high blood pressure was reduced to zero. In month four, she supplemented with 'Gluco-Gel,' which contains all the necessary raw materials to rebuild cartilage and bone tissue, gelatin (collagen), chondroitin sulfate, glucosamine sulfate, and manganese, and saw the back pain she had for years completely reversed! I was so proud of both of them!
Once you know the method, you can accomplish anything!
Training and exercise
The exercises that my clients did were a combination of light to moderate cardio, such as various stepping sequences on a stepping bench and slow to moderate pace on the treadmill on a hill-type setting. They practiced mobility of the hips and spine, such as torso rotations with a cable or by using their own body weight, and practiced body-weight squats. They also used isolated resistance machines because it was easier on their joints, especially in the beginning.
As my clients progressed, they added light weights to their mobility movements and increased the weight slightly on the isolated resistance machines. Remember, their goals here were not to build a big frame, but to build functional strength, increase their range of motion (ROM), and increase their overall energy levels throughout the day.
As they got further into their program, we agreed that it would benefit them to practice more 'circuit-type' sessions involving various movements, such as the step-up, assault bike, battle ropes, weighted carries, and other exercises that would help them increase their cardiovascular output and energy levels.
"Moving the post" (track your progress)
It's always important to track your progress, and for my clients, it was vitally important because they wanted to improve their health and vitality, not just their energy.
To track their progress, we participated in monthly reviews, which involved reviewing their goals and setting new ones when necessary, "moving the post." Their monthly reviews also included carefully going through their food diaries to see if the foods they were eating were still causing them any bloating, discomfort (from gastrointestinal distress), or even any other forms of tension (i.e., too much coffee, etc.).
Furthermore, we went through their anthropometric measurements, such as height, weight, and circumference measurements around the areas my clients desired to improve upon. We reviewed blood pressure using a blood pressure cuff, comparing the results, and the results of all the other measurements to the 'norms' charts to get an accurate reading and set new goals if necessary.
Their monthly reviews also involved fitness testing of their balance (i.e., the Standing Stalk Test), cardiovascular endurance (the Harvard Step Test), hamstring flexibility (i.e., the Sit & Reach Test), and muscular endurance (both the 'Sit-Ups per minute' and 'Push-Ups per minute').
All their results were recorded and kept safe via filing (both physical and digital copies) in keeping with the 2018 GDPR Guidelines.
Together, we reviewed the food diaries on a weekly basis to help them stay on track because it was a new habit that had to be developed. Therefore, they needed the extra support. Lastly, I visited the supermarket with them to help them pick out the right foods for their goals and explain why certain foods were bad, like I mentioned before, I've encountered people who think mayonnaise is "healthy!" This isn't necessarily their fault either.
All of the above were necessary for the success of both clients.
Read more from Bradley Abbott
Bradley Abbott, Personal Coach
Bradley Abbott is a personal coach and author. Known for his wholistic approach to training merging naturopathic principles with fitness training, he has managed to reverse the symptoms of his clients almost completely, and raise their energy to heights they never thought possible. He is the founder of Phoenix Phorm Online and uses these platforms to educate and inspire a larger audience.
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