I was born in Toronto, Ontario Canada on May 18th 1969. I was raised in Dublin, Ireland until the age of 6, moved back to Canada and lived in many cities across Canada from Toronto to Vancouver. I now reside in Hamilton, Ontario and live with my fiancé Lori-Ann Redding (National Level Figure Competitor).
I, like many people got involved in the world of fitness to get into better shape. Growing up the “skinny kid” and subsequently the “skinny man” my main goal was to gain “weight”. 12 years ago I joined a gym and was put on a cookie cutter program. After going to the gym daily for three months and seeing absolutely no change, I gave up and cancelled my membership. This is typical of up to 40% of the people who join a gym. They get nowhere with their program and give up (a good renewal rate of gym memberships is only around 60-70%. That tells us something).
After about 2 years, I had got into worse shape. I went through a metabolic shift and started storing body fat more rapidly. Now, I was still skinny but I had a high percentage of body fat. I had all the health risks of any overweight person! I stopped eating junk food and drinking alcohol and 20lbs of fat melted off in a few months. I wanted to try the gym again. This time, I hit the books first. I read as much as I could about training and nutrition and came up with a plan of attack.
(Before working out: 147 lbs!)
(Year one)
This time around I noticed results and I noticed them fast. I was hooked. Like I stated earlier my main goal was to gain “weight”, that was easy enough. Eventually I became more concerned with the quality of weight gained (lean mass only), forgetting about what the scale says and paying more attention to the person I see in the mirror. I was still learning and trying different diet and training techniques, boy if I knew then what I knew now!
(After one year of trial and error)
(Year one)
Over the years, my hobby became a passion and I became certified as a fitness trainer through ISSA; mainly to learn how to continue to improve my own physique. I started training people quite by accident. People started to acknowledge my transformation and wanted help with their own.
(5 years into training, finally learning what it takes)
I spent one year trying to make it “big” as an actor, however, it seemed that I would mainly get fitness modeling jobs (nothing wrong with that). I found it hard to believe that the guy that was always picked last for sports teams in school and always scared to death that he would be picked by the “skins” team was now being used to advertise the perfect body image for fitness equipment! Go figure!
In the year 2000 I became a fulltime personal trainer and started applying the techniques that had worked for me to others. I lead by example; I wouldn’t make a client do something I haven’t done myself. I would not only teach them what to do in the gym but how to change their whole lifestyle to achieve their goals faster than they thought possible. Word of my achievements with clients traveled fast I became a highly sought after trainer in the GTA area. I train out of a gym in Burlington, but have had clients drive as much as 2 hours to make each appointment. As a matter of fact I have designed diets and routines for people all around the world. People that were in my area on vacation, met with me and had me email diets to them in places like Switzerland and beyond.
I now manage a team of trainers and teach them to push the people that I send them hard while I take care of their dietary needs. There are too many people that want to train with me and not enough hours in the day to train them all. I am however very closely involved in their success.
Recently I have become involved in a new international fitness magazine “Inside Fitness” as the Associate Editor and a regular columnist. Now I can get my message and techniques out to an even broader audience. I have always been the class clown and always stood out in a crowd for one reason or another. I was always told by friends growing up that I would be famous one day, but no one would have ever guessed it would be in the fitness industry, especially ME!
Regards,
Darrin Robinson
