Former primary schoolteacher Adrian McDonnell long hankered for a career as a personal fitness trainer. In the summer before he started his teaching career, he had spent time on Muscle Beach in California, the birthplace of the physical fitness boom in the US in the 1930s.
“I was inspired the number of fit guys I saw there, making full-time careers as personal trainers. If they could do this for a living, why couldn’t I?” says McDonnell, who grew up near Tuam in Co Galway.
So, when he returned to Ireland, he taught by day in Galway, studied for his PT Certificate at night and soon developed a significant clientele working out of a local gym. When the pandemic hit in 2020, he realised he needed to take a radical change of direction.
“I’ve learned in life that when you need to make a change, you ne
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