Testimonials- Rowing
Carolyn Steele
To whom it may concern
RE: My experience of training with Richard Leonard
Richard began training me in August 2001 when I was seeking someone to help me with my goal of returning to rowing competitively as a lightweight rower. Richard trained me once a week for approximately 7 months and he was instrumental in helping me to greatly improve my strength, lose approximately 10kg of body fat and win the lightweight single at rowing nationals in March 2002.
The key things I enjoyed about training with Richard were that: he kept me honest with my strength training and weight loss; he cleverly designed a programme that was carefully phased to assist me to peak for nationals and allowed me to strength train during the racing season;he tailored my training programme specifically to the sport of rowing.
Richard is clearly a very intelligent and experienced personal trainer and training with him made a huge difference to my performance that first year.
After performing well at the 2002 rowing nationals, I was surprised to be invited into the Rowing NZ Academy in Cambridge and moved there for 18 months where I trained full time and raced internationally. After returning to Auckland due to my husband’s circumstances, I was in desperate need of someone to help get my weight training back on track as I had not made a lot of strength gains during that time. Training with Richard helped me iron out a few problem areas and when I returned for testing at Cambridge 6 months later a physio commented on what an improvement I had made back in Auckland and wanted to know what I had been doing. Richard continued to do a fantastic job in setting my weights programme for nationals in 2004 (in which I convincingly won the lightweight single and set a personal best time on the rowing machine) and then for the build up to race at the Olympic Qualification regatta in Lucerne in 2004.
Richard began training me again in October 2007 after I decided to return to rowing following a break away while I had my first child. He was very good at setting remedial exercises that helped clear up a knee and hip problem and set an interesting and varied strength programme through to rowing nationals in February 2008 (where I won two silver medals and a bronze medal in the senior grade). I am currently training with Richard while I am pregnant with my second child.
I have found Richard to be extremely experienced and knowledgeable about increasing strength/endurance/power, reducing body fat and sport training in general. I always look forward to training with Richard as he has a great attitude and a lot of interesting and relevant tips. I’m sure that you will find he makes a big difference to your training, whether your goal is to experience an interesting and varied training programme, to feel better about yourself or to significantly improve performance in a chosen sport.
Yours sincerely
Carolyn Steele
Hana McEwan
To whom it may concern
RE: My experience of training with Richard Leonard
Richard has been my strength trainer for rowing for a year now and over this time my strength has improved greatly, which has helped my performances on the water and in fitness tests. These strength gains helped me to win two medals at the national champs and also to improve my 2000m erg score by 10 seconds over the season.
Having trained national champions and world-class rowers to success, Richard has great knowledge of rowing and the periodisation stages, which he brings to our sessions. I find the exercises he gives me correspond well with rowing movements, and he is also up-to-date with all of the latest research. Richard has an all-around approach to the programs he designs for me, making sure they fit in with the training and competing that I am doing outside of the gym. He also takes into account aspects such as body composition (muscle mass, body-fat levels), which are important to monitor for success in the sport. Richard challenges and encourages me and I like his style of training.
Hana McEwan