Services
Personal Training and Fitness Coaching
One to one and small group personal training in the private gym at Gilmour Piper Healthcare Practice, at your home, outdoors or online.
Helping prepare you for surgery / cancer treatment (prehabilitation), and after treatment (rehabilitation) to help get you back
Health and Fitness programmes (for example, a programme to reduce your risk factors for cardiovascular disease such as high blood pressure)
Training plans and support for fitness challenges and events
Diet analysis and recommendations for healthy eating including safe and sustainable weight loss
I offer individualised, tailored support where you are the focus. This approach can be enormously beneficial in helping you to achieve your goals and I use a supportive coaching style where we work as a team: after all you are the expert of your own body - I am here to encourage and help you develop.
In our first initial consultation, we will discuss how we can work together and discuss some of your needs and challenges. The process then continues in our first main session with a more detailed assessment, which includes a discussion of any injuries and illnesses you may have; your lifestyle; physical and nutritional assessments as appropriate, and goal setting.
In collaboration with you, I will then develop a plan to support you to achieve your goals. Key to success is that we will also review your progress, re-assess, and adapt the programme as required.
I can work with you:
Face to face (operating strictly under current COVID guidelines)
Online via zoom or other app
Or a blended approach including both face to face and online
Cancer Rehabilitation
Physical activity is safe and recommended for those living with and beyond cancer. It can have a number of beneficial effects:
Reduction in side effects associated with your cancer treatment
Improve your mood, and reduce your symptoms of anxiety and depression
Help manage your fatigue
Improve your quality of life and help you feel better about yourself
Help you better control your body weight
There is also growing evidence that exercise has the potential to prevent breast and bowel cancer coming back.
Everyone is different, so our work might involve helping build your confidence to get back in to movement, developing a programme of physical activity and exercise, reassuring you that it is safe to exercise, or helping you to return to higher level or more competitive sporting activities.
Having gone through cancer myself I know about some of the fears, anxieties and vulnerabilities that you may feel. Safety is therefore my absolute priority, and I tailor programmes to you as an individual, making sure you are supported all of the way. I encourage you to bring a family member or friend along for support if you wish.
I work in partnership with the John Le Vay Cancer Support and Information Centre at Ipswich Hospital where I provide exercise prehabilitation (preparation for treatment) and rehabilitation exercise classes as part of the “Fit for Life Programme” I helped develop. Classes are run both face to face and online. For more information and a referral on to the programme please contact either me, your Cancer Nurse Specialist or the Cancer Support and Information Centre.
For people outside of the area I also work online.
“From the moment we refer our patients to Richard he ensures they have the personalised support and resources they need. Richard is warm, welcoming and empathic, his personal experience of cancer gives him a particular insight into how patients might be feeling and what they might need and the feedback we get is superb.” Louise Smith, Macmillan deputy lead cancer nurse, East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (Ipswich and Colchester hospital).
I can work with you:
Before treatment (prehabilitation), during treatment, after treatment (rehabilitation) and beyond.
If you wish we can do this in the comfort of your own home, or online. For one to one personal training in a small private gym environment, I work out of Gilmour Piper Healthcare Practice, Ipswich
Or a blended approach including both face to face and online.
In a group class with others who are living with and beyond cancer.
Exercise Classes
Exercise classes are a fun way to work out together, the social side being so important. My group classes are tailored to your ability level and help you improve your overall health and fitness:
‘Move More with Richard’ exercise class. This class is for people who have completed treatment for cancer and looking to improve their health and fitness, and to get themselves back. Tuesdays 4.15pm-5.15pm at St Augustine’s Church Hall, Bucklesham Road, Ipswich. Please email or phone me for booking. Bring along a family member or friend for support if you wish.
‘Move More with Richard’ online. A class as above, but over Zoom from the comfort of your own home. Wednesdays 5pm-6pm
‘Fit For Life’ Cancer specific prehabilitation and rehabilitation exercise classes - this is a referral service: contact the Ipswich Hospital Cancer Wellbeing and Information Centre for further information and a referral.
How we work - Personal Training
I fully support you, from initial consultation through to helping you explore and clarify your goals and needs, helping you identify and overcome potential obstacles and challenges you might be facing, and to build your confidence and motivation.
We can often put pressure on ourselves to achieve the final goal, but to focus on this alone is missing out on the beauty of the process and does not always lead to enduring change. I therefore help you to commit not just to your goals, but to enjoy and be mindful of the process of getting there.
No intimidating gym environments. I work out of the private gym space at Gilmour Piper Healthcare Practice, Ipswich. We can work together in your home, garden or outdoors in green spaces. The science clearly shows how beneficial physical activity in nature ‘green exercise’ is to our health and wellbeing, so I also like to use local parks and the outdoors for a really enhancing and mindful experience.
I use an individual tailored approach with the focus on you, with flexible times to fit around your lifestyle.
I aim to help you believe in your abilities to achieve and to reflect on your ‘fitness journey’, with the ultimate aim that you continue with lifelong physical activity.
I use safe, appropriate, and effective evidence-based methods, demonstrated to work, and supported by the latest science. Regardless of your fitness goals your safety is my number one priority.
